The Banner Saga

 PC
User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 833 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 606 out of 833
  2. Mixed: 166 out of 833
  3. Negative: 61 out of 833

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  1. HydrophobikFish
    Jun 9, 2023
    7
    Fun game with strong art style. Turn based strategy is engaging and story choices have some appropriate weight to them. Overall story is fairly forgettable but the moment to moment choices and the characters are great. Didn't leave a strong impression.
  2. nietzfk
    May 20, 2023
    5
    Please add the Turkish language support made for the game now. That's why I bought three games and I'm waiting.
  3. hileger
    Oct 29, 2022
    5
    Графоманский текст , рисовка класс но тактика говнище ................................................
  4. jfsre
    Sep 15, 2022
    6
    maybe it gets better later on but the start it was very slow and I lost interest in it
  5. Oshiri_Maeda
    Nov 17, 2020
    7
    Seems to be very good and stylish tactics. Too bad I didn't like the core mechanics.
  6. Cree26
    Aug 18, 2020
    6
    I wish I could rate it higher. Its such a beautiful game, with an interesting story line, and great music. Unfortunately there isn't much there in terms of actual game play. It felt like I was just along for the ride, a spectator rather than a character. The mechanics are pretty simple. The battles incidental.
  7. SuperkenGaming
    Jul 23, 2018
    7
    The Banner Saga
    Really good if you like reading
    The Banner Saga is the first game in a trilogy of turn based role playing tactics game set all in the world of Vikings… Though I feel like there’s an even more prominent genre to throw this game into.. And that a visual novel I was really looking forward to giving this series a shot and play through the trilogy, and while I see why so    The Banner Saga
    Really good if you like reading
    The Banner Saga is the first game in a trilogy of turn based role playing tactics game set all in the world of Vikings…
    Though I feel like there’s an even more prominent genre to throw this game into..
    And that a visual novel
    I was really looking forward to giving this series a shot and play through the trilogy, and while I see why so many people love this series...
    it’s just not very casual friendly and its really tough to get through this 8 hour campaign... not necessarily because the gameplay is hard…
    the gameplay is essentially party managements and turn based tactics.. As you play through the story you’ll get different groups of characters that belong to different classes all with their own special moves, and as you defeat enemies you’re bale to promote them and increase their stats… you’ll also get to know these characters during stops in villages as well as along your journey across the map…
    In game it’s all fairly simple, you take turns moving a certain space of tiles and attacking enemies within range, either weakening their defenses or going straight for their health...
    placement of your characters in battle is important as it is possible to lose party members... all of this is fine.. But eventually about half way through the game I was just over it...
    battles feel too Samey… and the story just wasn’t interesting enough to keep me going.. at first it is… it gave me a dungeons and dragons feel as I’m making choices and watching things unfold before me based on those choices, gaining supplies to feed my fighters, gaining items for my party to wear, watching my crew get annoying with other members and having to decide what to do with them to ensure moral stayed up…
    I felt immersed into the story… and then suddenly I’m with a new group of characters away from the group I was just getting to know and it broke the spell for me.. I stopped caring, I no longer cared about the consequences of my choices or what the interest of the characters in this game are…
    I just couldn’t follow along it was too much for me.. I just wanted to get to the end of this visual novel that felt like it was dragging on forever,
    there is good in the banner saga, I get that people love visual novels, but I just don’t... I want voice acting... if you want me to sit down and read for 10 hours your story better be captivating throughout... and it just wasn’t here for me…
    That being said im sure there are plenty out there that the idea of a visual novel meets turn based tactics rpg excited them…
    and for those people youre in for a great time… the banner saga is good at being just that…
    But its not for me..
    I give the banner Saga
    a 7/10    … Expand
  8. TheSaltyPilgrim
    Jun 10, 2018
    7
    Story and Writing: 9
    Game Play: 8
    Music: 10
    User Interface: 7
    Optimization: 10
    Graphics: 7
    Replay Value: 6
    Would Recommend: Yes
  9. Laer
    Mar 14, 2017
    7
    El sol se ha detenido, los dioses han muerto, una nueva guerra contra los dredge se cierne sobre la alianza de Humanos y Varls, todo esto, mientras algo aun peor a todo lo anterior se lleva acabo sin que nosotros sepamos nada.

    Así se presenta la historia de The Banner Saga, donde manejaremos a dos grupos que intentan sobrevivir en mitad de todo este caos. Un sin fin de cosas nos    El sol se ha detenido, los dioses han muerto, una nueva guerra contra los dredge se cierne sobre la alianza de Humanos y Varls, todo esto, mientras algo aun peor a todo lo anterior se lleva acabo sin que nosotros sepamos nada.

    Así se presenta la historia de The Banner Saga, donde manejaremos a dos grupos que intentan sobrevivir en mitad de todo este caos. Un sin fin de cosas nos encontraremos en nuestro viaje hacia tierra segura, nos enzarzaremos en batallas cada cual más dura, toparemos con personas, cada una con sus problemas, virtudes, inquietudes, objetivos...

    La mayoría de las decisiones que tomemos tienen relevancia en nuestro camino, no así tanto en la historia. Algunas se llevaran a personas por delante, con otras podrás hacer pasar hambre a tu caravana, y en rara ocasión podrás disfrutar de una pequeña calma en tan duro viaje.

    Como habréis podido comprobar en el inicio de este análisis, sin duda lo más destacable del juego es su historia, como se lleva acabo, y las decisiones, que aunque no cambien realmente el rumbo de la historia, si que dan los matices necesarios para ver como ocurren pequeños sucesos por estos. Ademas, otra de las cosas que más destaca es su apariencia, y es que esta maravilla junto a la banda sonora, hacen que, simplemente ver a la caravana en movimiento, con tal majestuoso paisaje de fondo al sonido de una canción de narrativa épica, o al sonido de tambores de batalla, sea una experiencia inolvidable.

    La jugabilidad, en el tema de combates, posiblemente sea la peor parte del juego, que no por ello significa que sea mala. Cada personaje pertenece a una clase, cada una ofrece distintas capacidades como resistir, pegar, disparar de lejos... pero creo que falta diferenciar más cada una de estas, y mejorar las habilidades especiales de algunas, ya que en la mayoría de los personajes he acabado utilizando casi siempre el ataque principal por ser más efectivo.

    Otro de los fallos es el doblaje, se agradece que este en Español, pero se nota que en ciertos lugares no esta bien desarrollado pues hay frases que no significan nada, otras mal estructuradas que quitan fuerza a la situación y desde luego ambientación.

    Y por ultimo un pequeño apunte. El propio nombre del juego os lo indica "The Banner SAGA". Efectivamente, esto es el comienzo de algo más grande, esta primera entrega solo siempre, no penseis que aclarara ninguna de las dudas que crea.

    Recomendado para todos aquellos amantes de los juegos por turnos, los amantes de la mitología o la ambientación vikinga, o para aquellos que quieran una historia épica por sus venas.    … Expand
  10. Dagrum
    Jan 21, 2017
    7
    A good SRPG mixed with Oregon Trail, set in Norse fantasy.
    - Looks amazing, but is also it's downfall, there's very little actual animation and instead just a bunch of pictures.
    - The music is alright, it does what it sets out to do but its not anything your going to listen to outside of the game - It's a very story heavy game, but they have the audacity to drop a major cliffhanger at    A good SRPG mixed with Oregon Trail, set in Norse fantasy.
    - Looks amazing, but is also it's downfall, there's very little actual animation and instead just a bunch of pictures.
    - The music is alright, it does what it sets out to do but its not anything your going to listen to outside of the game
    - It's a very story heavy game, but they have the audacity to drop a major cliffhanger at the end

    It's a good game, but the game-play is not better then other SRPG's, and if you're playing for the story your going to need to also play the sequel.    … Expand
  11. NexusTsunami
    Dec 19, 2016
    5
    - Vorwort:
    Die Entwickler haben versucht ein spielbaren Epos zu realisieren - ein interaktives Buch sozusagen. Eine Geschichte über Charaktere die in einer sterbenden Welt um Ihr Wohl und das Überleben Ihrer Sippe kämpfen. Gegen eine dunkle Bedrohung die Ihre eigenen Beweggründe hat und einer Umgebung die selbst minder tödlich ist. In diesem Spiel geht es nicht darum die Welt zu retten    - Vorwort:
    Die Entwickler haben versucht ein spielbaren Epos zu realisieren - ein interaktives Buch sozusagen. Eine Geschichte über Charaktere die in einer sterbenden Welt um Ihr Wohl und das Überleben Ihrer Sippe kämpfen. Gegen eine dunkle Bedrohung die Ihre eigenen Beweggründe hat und einer Umgebung die selbst minder tödlich ist. In diesem Spiel geht es nicht darum die Welt zu retten und die Dunkelheit zu vertreiben, sondern es stellt einen Kampf um das eigenen Überleben dar. Auf dem beschwerlichen Weg müssen viele tiefgreifende moralische Entscheidungen getroffen werden, die sowohl Auswirkungen auf die eigene Gruppe als auch auf deren Umfeld haben. Allgegenwärtig auf dieser Reise ist das Gefühl der Beklemmung, denn es wollen schwierige Kämpfe überstanden und rare Ressourcen effizient genutzt werden.

    Ich denke so ungefähr haben sich die Entwickler ihre fertige Trilogie vorgestellt. Aber schon im ersten Spiel haben Sie sich meiner Meinung nach übernommen.

    - Gameplay:
    In diesem Aspekt liegt meiner Meinung nach das Hauptproblem dieses Spiels.
    Das Kampfsystem will inovativ, schafft es aber nicht die tiefe zu erreichen die es selbst gerne hätte. SRPG typisch bewegt man sich, mit charakterspezifischen Reichweiten, auf einem Spielfeld. Es geht darum den Gegner auszumanövrieren und den Vorteil zu erhalten. Hierfür hat jeder Charakter auf dem Brett (auch die Gegner) zwei Lebenswerte: Rüstung und HP. Wird die Rüstung verringert, so wird beim nächsten Angriff auf die HP mehr Schaden verteilt. Wird der HP Wert verringert, so teilt ein Charakter selbst weniger Schaden auf HP aus. Mit einem dritten und begrenztem Wert können diverse Aktionen (max. Bewegungsreichweite, Schaden auf HP oder Rüstung) verstärkt oder charakterspezifische Spezialattacken eingesetzt werden. Ansich interessant nach einiger Zeit aber repetiv...

    Die Charakterentwicklung findet eigentlich gar nicht so richtig statt. Es gibt pro Char 5 Level die man aufsteigen kann. Nach Lvl Up erhält man zwei Punkte mit denen man diverse Werte steigern kann. Neue Spezialattacken sind Fehlanzeige. Man kann jeden Char mit Gegenständen ausrüsten die man entweder findet oder auf dem Markt kaufen kann.

    Die Reise durch die Welt findet automatisch und in der 2D Seitenperspektive statt. Pro Tag werden Ressourcen verbraten, die wenn aufgebraucht, ein Sterben der eigenen Sippe nach sich zieht.

    Und nun kommt der Knackpunkt der mich am meißten gestört hat. Für ein LvL Up, dem Kauf von Ressourcen oder dem Kauf von Gegenständen wird ein und dieselbe "Währung" benötigt. Diese erhält man durch Kämpfe oder getroffene Entscheidungen. Nur ist diese so rar gesät das es weh tut. Der Grund hierfür ist zwar nachvollziehbar aber zu erzwungen. Die Entwickler wollen, dass man mit seinen Ressourcen haushaltet. Jede Anschaffung will genau überlegt sein. Wäre ja ansich ganz interessant aber das Spiel überhäuft einen so dermaßen mit dem Ungewissen, dass man eigentlich grundsätzlich falsche Entscheidungen treffen muss. So levelt man Charaktere mit den wertvollen Punkten auf, nur damit Sie entweder tot umfallen oder einem Verraten. Puff sind die Punkte für den *****. Ab einem gewissen Punkt ist man nur noch damit beschäftigt, diese Fehlentscheidungen wieder auszugleichen, nur um wieder ein Brett ins Gesicht geschlagen zu bekommen! Das Leben in diesem Spiel ist kein Ponyhof. Dies versuchen die Entwickler auf teilweise nicht nachvollziehbare Weise zu erzwingen.

    - Charaktere:
    Ähnliches Phänomen bei den Charakteren selbst. Eigentlich wollten die Entwickler denke ich, dass durch den oben beschriebenen Mangel an Ressourcen, eine stärkere Charakterbindung eintritt. Das somit der Tot oder Verrat von Charakteren schwerer wiegt und einem nahe geht. Nur leider waren mir diese Ereignisse sowas von egal. Das Charaktertelling ist nicht wirklich tiefgreifend. Es findet kaum interaktion untereinander statt. Vorgeschichten werden nur angerissen und sind dann nur Standardkost.

    - Welt:
    Keine großen Umschweife wie es an Punkt A aussieht oder warum. Man sieht die Resultate dessen auf der Reise einfach. Die Umgebungen sind zwar schön, teilweise majestätisch gestaltet aber wieder waren mir die Umstände in der Welt egal.

    - Grafik:
    In einem eigenen, wirklich passenden fast Comichaften Stil gehalten. War schön anzusehen.

    - Sound:
    Auch hier wurde, wie in anderen Punkten in diesem Spiel, auf Minimalismus gesetzt. Kaum Musik, selten Sprachausgabe und hauptsächlich Hintergrundgeräusche. Hat mich aber nicht wirklich gestört denn es passte einfach in Ambiente.

    - Schlusswort:
    Die Entwickler haben sich wirklich getraut mal etwas anderes zu versuchen. Die Betonung liegt allerdings auf versucht. Ich werde dennoch den zweiten Teil spielen. Zum Lückenfüller ist es dennoch geeignet.    … Expand
  12. Derf3L
    Oct 1, 2016
    5
    This game does not have tactical combat: even if the enemies are 100 and your party is 4, you will still get one turn each (one you, one the enemy). The combat solely goes around looking what enemy will move next in the turns and make him weaker, until u have all enemies with 0 health. If u kill enemies first, then is bad for you...

    This is zero tactical, zero logical gameplay. If    This game does not have tactical combat: even if the enemies are 100 and your party is 4, you will still get one turn each (one you, one the enemy). The combat solely goes around looking what enemy will move next in the turns and make him weaker, until u have all enemies with 0 health. If u kill enemies first, then is bad for you...

    This is zero tactical, zero logical gameplay. If you're fine with this, then go ahead and try to enjoy some nice music, "artstyle" and story.    … Expand
  13. Voyou
    Aug 8, 2016
    5
    It's pretty, and it's pleasant for an hour or two, but it's too shallow to keep me interested much longer: tactically poor and repetitive, 100% linear, fake choices ridden, devoid of dialog options, very weak on save/restoration, with a clunky and slow interface that is hard to read and makes it hard to know what you are doing.

    Meh, and I'm being generous.
  14. Gormph
    Jun 21, 2016
    5
    pros: looks great love the art style and the world, the controls work.

    cons: The game gets you into it with little understanding of its combat stats so you ether guessed on the correct stats right off the bat or your going to have a rough time. then every unit has to have a set number of kills to level AND you have to use renown to level buy items, and get supplies, which for my first    pros: looks great love the art style and the world, the controls work.

    cons: The game gets you into it with little understanding of its combat stats so you ether guessed on the correct stats right off the bat or your going to have a rough time. then every unit has to have a set number of kills to level AND you have to use renown to level buy items, and get supplies, which for my first play though meant i got to the end of the game with under leveled people because i had no renown to level them. the combat itself lacks depth once you understand the stats and is uninteresting, the game fakes being challenging but stacking everything in the computers favor ex. you get a turn then the enemy every round but the enemy out numbers you every time, has heavy armor no matter what, can move further, and does heaver damage and you basically just do the same thing in combat the whole game with no options, its as if the story was very important but the combat was an after thought.

    As for the story itself, it just kind of stops no real closure, nothing is broken down, you have very little understanding of what you accomplished and kind of feel like you wasted your time, it feels more like this was the first chapter of a book trying to be its own release and it just comes short.

    all in all its not bad but it could have been great with a little tweaking, its like plain rice, nothing wrong with it on its own but nothing to rave about.    … Expand
  15. Blanel
    May 13, 2016
    5
    An ok, but frustrating game. The frustration does not come from tactical depth, which is fine, but the resource management as you stave off the constant threat of starvation, which gets old fast.
  16. georgio
    May 8, 2016
    6
    I am huge fan of turn-based tactic games such as UFO or X-COM for many years now. That is why I immediately boarded the hype train behind this game. And I have to say that I was very disappointed. Interestingly enough the game is not that different from X-COM in a way that it features "strategic" layer when you manage your caravan as well as "tactical" layer where you have to go throughI am huge fan of turn-based tactic games such as UFO or X-COM for many years now. That is why I immediately boarded the hype train behind this game. And I have to say that I was very disappointed. Interestingly enough the game is not that different from X-COM in a way that it features "strategic" layer when you manage your caravan as well as "tactical" layer where you have to go through various battles.

    The game tries to evoke a sense of dread, where your group is pushed from place to place barely able to survive. However the game mechanics are very crude and random events seem to be the main story tools for creators of the game. Imagine that after you almost starved once or twice so you invest into keeping your supplies up all the time. Then you face the "spoiled food" event that cuts your food supplies by half. There it is - several consecutive battles of preparing yourself were in vain.

    It seems as if there is a particular way the game developers expect you to play the game but they never lay it down for you. It is just that whenever you go away from "the script" the game punishes you. I don't mind hard games, but this is not the kind of "hard" you want to encounter. You either lucked out never to discover how narrowly you missed a catastrophic event or you are just screwed. No sense of accomplishment, just frustration.

    I believe the game has a potential but the execution is just bad.    … Expand
  17. Purgatory1
    Nov 28, 2015
    5
    Overall good story with nice comic style graphics and good atmospheric music.

    Unfortunately that's pretty much it regarding the positive aspects of the game. My overall gameplay experience was pretty mediocre mostly because of the turn based combat system. I usually like turn based systems a lot e.g. the system XCOM uses is a very positive example. If your party in Banner Saga has 5    Overall good story with nice comic style graphics and good atmospheric music.

    Unfortunately that's pretty much it regarding the positive aspects of the game. My overall gameplay experience was pretty mediocre mostly because of the turn based combat system. I usually like turn based systems a lot e.g. the system XCOM uses is a very positive example.
    If your party in Banner Saga has 5 members and you fight a party of 2 enemies then the enemy characters get twice as many moves than your characters. And once you've killed all enemies but one it completely changes so all your characters get to move before the remaining enemy does. Which imo is illogical and annoying.
    The leveling system is pretty strange as well since you have only one resource in the game which has to be used for everything including your level progression and items. I didn't like special abilities of the characters either because too many of them are just useless during combat.

    I don't have a problem with linear story telling but Banner Saga tries to give you an impression of having an influence on the story progression while your choices actually don't have any or very little impact (with ONE exception near the end of the game). Furthermore most of the times the dialog system gives you a bad choice, another bad choice and a very bad choice - all leading to (you might have already guessed) a (or even the same) bad result.    … Expand
  18. DeusXCom
    Aug 25, 2014
    7
    Not really a Viking X-Com I was hoping for, but definitely interesting and unique piece well worth playing. The start is a bit slow, game is doing quite a poor job in immersing you right away in it's story, throwing tons of viking names at you, not really knowing who you are or what's going on, but you slowly get a grip, learn the game mechanics, and by the time the story switches from theNot really a Viking X-Com I was hoping for, but definitely interesting and unique piece well worth playing. The start is a bit slow, game is doing quite a poor job in immersing you right away in it's story, throwing tons of viking names at you, not really knowing who you are or what's going on, but you slowly get a grip, learn the game mechanics, and by the time the story switches from the viking bunch to the eastern storyline with the dad and daughter, things get much better. Challenging turn-based tactical battles, beautiful visuals and amazing music. Very unique flavor is gathered in the sections of the game where your caravan is traveling the beautiful northern lands, visiting old god stones, where you have to make important decisions, quite a memorable adventure there. Despite it's slow start, quite short length overall and some of the budget shortcomings such as no voice-overs, I was pretty happy with The Banner Saga in the end. 7/10… Expand
  19. HenryDane
    May 24, 2014
    5
    Really fun game but BE WARNED! There is no saving during battle or in between battle phases and crashes can happen directly after a fight when you win, making you replay the entire thing over. This happened to me on the final boss (who is a real pain and a half, not to mention thoroughly plain as far as final battles go) and I would have happily given this game a 10 but the crashes areReally fun game but BE WARNED! There is no saving during battle or in between battle phases and crashes can happen directly after a fight when you win, making you replay the entire thing over. This happened to me on the final boss (who is a real pain and a half, not to mention thoroughly plain as far as final battles go) and I would have happily given this game a 10 but the crashes are INEXCUSABLE, especially right after a fight that takes easily 30-45 min a TRY!!!… Expand
  20. Digitalkid
    Apr 21, 2014
    5
    Guess all those high scores are because BS looks awesome for an indy game, but what a torture it just was!.. Dialogs in a bottom of a screen, when you see perfectly painted character fullscreen and a smallest line showing who's talking now, and it's some other guy. And your sight jumping from picture to one small line of text and then to another, thying to fix whole picture. HOW can youGuess all those high scores are because BS looks awesome for an indy game, but what a torture it just was!.. Dialogs in a bottom of a screen, when you see perfectly painted character fullscreen and a smallest line showing who's talking now, and it's some other guy. And your sight jumping from picture to one small line of text and then to another, thying to fix whole picture. HOW can you hit armour without damaging one who'd wearing it? Was it platformer-like view, of a 2d top-down map view? For 15 minutes i've just seen tons of text jumping on me from all sides of the screen. Seems like game designer just hates people, while still work of artists and animators is awesome. Sure I'll give it one more try, just need to heal my eyes a bit.… Expand
  21. iseeall
    Apr 8, 2014
    6
    This game has an interesting TBS mechanics, but at the same time has major faults and ends up a mediocre broken game at best.

    First, the tutorial battles push too much info on the player, leaving you confused. I had to re-start the game 3 times until finally I understood how combat works. Second, there are multiple problems with game controls. There is no "undo" command, so if you do    This game has an interesting TBS mechanics, but at the same time has major faults and ends up a mediocre broken game at best.

    First, the tutorial battles push too much info on the player, leaving you confused. I had to re-start the game 3 times until finally I understood how combat works.

    Second, there are multiple problems with game controls. There is no "undo" command, so if you do something wrong because you didn't know the rules (e.g. nowhere it's said that "tempest" attack also damages allies), there is no obvious way to replay or reload. The field is scrolled in tablet-style (dragging) and not by pushing the cursor to the edge of the screen. The whole battlefield get cluttered already in the second battle because the units are drawn using fixed-angle isometric 2.5D and overlap. The option to hide banners doesn't really help it. Mouse-over just doesn't exist here, and it would be much easier to play if there were handy tooltips like in Rome Total War 2, for example. But well, obviously the game was designed for tablets. So all hardcore gamers (like myself) have got a clumsy port from iPad or something. Not really fair for the asked $20+ price.

    The third major issue of the game is that the texts were written without any regard to the fact that there will also be non-native speakers (like myself) playing this game. In the first city I found myself failing to understand many of those low-frequency adjectives scattered around almost every phrase. Maybe the writer wanted to show off, but the result is that the text is hard to read (I suppose, even to native-speakers), it looks unnecessarily complex. Combine that with the pile of fantasy-themed names most of which you will see for the first time, and you have an mess of crap which you hardly have desire to dig thru. Even the voice-overs were done with such heavy accent (is it Swedish accent?) that I had to strain myself to understand what they were saying. Btw I'm not that bad in English. I read Fallout 2 texts easily as well as Baldur's Gate's texts, and watch piles of US movies in English without any problems. The runic font used on the map is hard to read, too.

    The forth issue is with graphics. The drawings of the characters in the cutscenes look strikingly worse that the smooth backgrounds.

    On the plus side, the music and sounds are excellent, as well as backgrounds. What this game needs is an overhaul of the controls with more regard to desktop users. Also, someone should go thru all those piles of text you have there, make shorter sentences and replace low-frequency words with normal, high-frequency synonyms. At its current state, the game isn't worth the money and is no fun to play.    … Expand
  22. riley794
    Mar 26, 2014
    6
    This game proves once again that just like with movies tragedies are overrated. Don't get me wrong it is a fun little game but merely having a tragic story does mean a game deserves high marks.

    Pros: Great plot, dynamic story that changes based on your decisions, 4 + decisions to every situation, simple but fun strategic combat system, simple character skill tree and item equipment    This game proves once again that just like with movies tragedies are overrated. Don't get me wrong it is a fun little game but merely having a tragic story does mean a game deserves high marks.

    Pros: Great plot, dynamic story that changes based on your decisions, 4 + decisions to every situation, simple but fun strategic combat system, simple character skill tree and item equipment options, tense moments as you are forced to decide between upgrading your characters or buying food to feed your people.

    Cons: To be continued ending (this is getting old), imagine getting a great 10 chapter book but then having it taken away after the first chapter ends, depressing game (if you like getting punched in the stomach or getting kicked in the groin repeatedly then put this in the Pros section).

    $5    … Expand
  23. Seriousmite
    Mar 19, 2014
    6
    Due to several design flaws, what could have been one of the greatest strategy rpg's of all time is instead not quite playable. The graphics and sound are both amazing. The vikings theme mixed with beautiful, classic Disney animation styled characters and unique, stylized backdrops make for an incredible experience...at least at first. Unfortunately after a few hours several criticalDue to several design flaws, what could have been one of the greatest strategy rpg's of all time is instead not quite playable. The graphics and sound are both amazing. The vikings theme mixed with beautiful, classic Disney animation styled characters and unique, stylized backdrops make for an incredible experience...at least at first. Unfortunately after a few hours several critical design flaws start to become apparent.

    The core of the battle system is solid, centering around a unique strength versus armor mechanic which in itself is very fun. The problems I have with the game, however, all concern things that happen outside the battles.

    There is lack of real customability, not just in the development of your characters, but also in having any ability to choose which characters to use at any given time. The story shuffles back and forth between character groups and at certain points the game sticks you with a new group . Outside of battle I never feel like I have any real control.

    You never seem to get to really build a customized party of your choice and often when you've found a nice solid character that you like, you'll be presented with a series of dialog options after a battle and upon choosing the wrong one, the game will seemingly arbitrarily kill the character off. This is extremely frustrating, not just because the choices presented give you no real sense of what the results will be (you often feel like you're rolling dice to see who dies), but even more infuriatingly, the game is built on a secretive auto-save system that makes going back and retrying your choices almost impossible.

    When you reach certain invisible points the game will secretly save and then delete all your saves going back several hours. There's no choosing when to save and there's no saving mid battle. The only way to tell when the game has saved is to bring up the load menu and check the time of the last save. The designers clearly want the player to keep playing and then live with their choices and failures. This style of play may work for some, but I'm something of a perfectionist and it just frustrates me.

    Another problem I have is with the way characters level up. Characters are rewarded with renown points after each kill and once a character has enough kills, they'll be ready for promotion. The problem is you have to spend renown points to complete the level up process and I find I only ever have enough points to level up one out of every four or so characters who are ready for a promotion. These points are also used to purchase supplies and equipment, but given how little there are for leveling up, using them for this purpose always seems foolish. Adding to this frustration is that often I'll spend almost all my points from one battle to level up a character only to have that character randomly die 15 minutes later when I choose the wrong dialog options. Also, points toward promotion are only awarded for kills making offensive characters far easier to level up than defensive ones.

    So despite such a solid battle system and beautiful artwork, I find this game more frustrating than fun.    … Expand
  24. paranoid77
    Mar 17, 2014
    7
    If you are familiar with these type of games; you will learn the gameplay in 30 mins, you will like it as you play for 2 hours, but you will be disappointed after 8 - 10 hours of play because the game will over.It is too short but there is a dillema that if this game will be longer this time it will be boring(repeated playing).
    General; Graphics 9, Gameplay 8, AI 7, Stickness 5. If you    If you are familiar with these type of games; you will learn the gameplay in 30 mins, you will like it as you play for 2 hours, but you will be disappointed after 8 - 10 hours of play because the game will over.It is too short but there is a dillema that if this game will be longer this time it will be boring(repeated playing).
    General; Graphics 9, Gameplay 8, AI 7, Stickness 5. If you like to spend 10 hour of fun then buy this one, if not,be sure you wont miss anything.    … Expand
  25. mikerolf1
    Mar 13, 2014
    6
    On a scale of 1 to 10 I would give this game a 6. Would be 8 or 9 if not for all the bugs.

    Pros: Unique visual style, cool animations. Tactical combat is fun and challenging. Compelling story with interesting characters. Price is reasonable. Cons: Very short; you can finish in a few hours. Lots of minor but annoying bugs. One almost game-breaking bug in the final boss fight. The game    On a scale of 1 to 10 I would give this game a 6. Would be 8 or 9 if not for all the bugs.

    Pros: Unique visual style, cool animations. Tactical combat is fun and challenging. Compelling story with interesting characters. Price is reasonable.

    Cons: Very short; you can finish in a few hours. Lots of minor but annoying bugs. One almost game-breaking bug in the final boss fight. The game has been patched many times since release; some bugs have been fixed, but many have not been fixed. That means this is unfinished software, so if you buy it you are paying for the privilege of being a Beta tester.

    Nevertheless, the game is good fun, so I am recommending it... barely. Just be aware of both the Pros and the Cons. Make an informed choice.    … Expand
  26. beene
    Mar 13, 2014
    5
    The artwork of the game is not only unique but lovely. The problem with the game is the actual game play itself, as far as that is concerned it falls on its face pretty hard. Plane, lackluster and quite honestly just bad is how I would describe the game play of this turn based RPG. There is so little to it and managing your units along with your travels almost seem like an afterthoughtThe artwork of the game is not only unique but lovely. The problem with the game is the actual game play itself, as far as that is concerned it falls on its face pretty hard. Plane, lackluster and quite honestly just bad is how I would describe the game play of this turn based RPG. There is so little to it and managing your units along with your travels almost seem like an afterthought to the artwork, there are also multiple problems with the food and currency system that make it seem not well thought out. The story also ends rather abruptly too. So to recap, the art is good the rest is bad.… Expand
  27. LeonidasRex
    Mar 9, 2014
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I wanted to like this game. I should have liked this game. But it wasn't much fun.

    I like indies. I like vikings. I like turn-based tactical games. I like deep worlds. I like the art style. All the pieces were right, but they didn't come together into an enjoyable game experience.

    The story violated most of the basic rules of narrative structure. It jumped back and forth between two groups of characters without any sense of how they were connected. I didn't know which characters I was supposed to identify with or care about. Nobody had a character arc. Nobody was on a hero's journey. One character unavoidably lost an arm, while another died at the end. I didn't care. There's a villain to fight at the end, but we never saw much of him or learned much about him. The plot is full of loose threads and unexplained ****

    The devs spent a lot of time on the world map, which was full of elaborate history and descriptions. But the map was slow to load, and it had no impact whatsoever on the gameplay. The game runs on rails. The few times you get an illusion of choice on where to go, the map isn't available to help you decide.

    The Oregon-Trail aspect of the game is a trap for the unwary. You must choose between spending limited points on better stats for your fighters and food for your mass of followers. Metacritic reviewers report that feeding your followers has no impact on the game's outcome. You can apparently let your followers starve and finish the game just fine.

    This game's main strength is the turn-based tactics system, which is distinctive but not very deep. The combat is not tied to any underlying reality. It's not simulating anything. For example, you can attack someone's health, which reduces their ability to do damage and brings them closer to death. Or you can attack their armor, which means that subsequent attacks can do more damage to their health. I couldn't imagine how a warrior could swing a sword one way to break armor, then a different way to damage health. I got no immersion from the combat system. It was just a logic puzzle to be solved. And the final battle is stupidly difficult on normal. I didn't bother finishing it.

    The art is truly beautiful. Kudos to the artist. I didn't mind the many walking scenes that were designed to emphasize the smallness of the characters against the vastness of the wilderness. When the world began to literally fall apart, I felt the loss of beauty. If you don't slow down to enjoy the art, you're missing the best part of the game.    … Expand
  28. melekeddine
    Mar 8, 2014
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The banner saga is not a bad game.i enjoyed playing the game although i was never been able to finish it because of the last battle i tried many times yet all there was is failure.
    The good : the game soundtrack and the artwork were amazing,the fights were actually pretty good and i was impressed by all strategies you could make .
    Now the bad :the story started pretty slow and most of the time i was reading texts and choosing random answers.The game says that you can choose your destiny but all i saw was answers that lead to the same result********spoiler:for example onef betrayal left me in frustration and rage*******.the game difficulty was pretty good until i reached the end of the game where i was left helpless against the enemy(and why the **** must alette join the fight???)

    IN the end the game is pretty good but as you progress through the game you just start hating the game!!!    … Expand
  29. Kolox
    Feb 24, 2014
    5
    While the setting and overall idea is ingenious, I felt the story of the game didn't do it justice as it felt shallow and rushed. Perhaps I simply had too great of expectations from the story, as it ended up feeling like a storyline from older Final Fantasy games - big evil comes, engulfs the world, got to find someone who can stop it and there is a lot of sacrifice on the way.

    The    While the setting and overall idea is ingenious, I felt the story of the game didn't do it justice as it felt shallow and rushed. Perhaps I simply had too great of expectations from the story, as it ended up feeling like a storyline from older Final Fantasy games - big evil comes, engulfs the world, got to find someone who can stop it and there is a lot of sacrifice on the way.

    The gameplay was most problematic at first - at the beginning, I liked both difficulty and variety of character skills..until the variety died out, and each anoher battle felt exactly the same. The experience-per-kill system later on forced me to only use characters that I have leveled up, instead of using interesting combinations.

    But my biggest issue is with the savegame system. A player can only save if he stops for a camp - it was probably done so people wouldn't save during battles and before making decisions, but people have lives and they sometimes can't finish a battle because they need to go somewhere or are simply tired - so a 20 minute fight has to be suddenly started over because I can't save. And those battles are long because the animations take a bit of time.

    All in all, I have a rather mixed feelings about the game - its not a game I would recommend to anyone, but at the same time, I'm far from calling it 'bad'.    … Expand
  30. Bigern
    Feb 15, 2014
    7
    Liked the story but even on normal difficulty the dredge were taking huge mechanical **** all over my guys and killing them in 1-2 hits constantly. Not sure what I was doing wrong as I am an RPG veteran and skilled player (Silver in LoL and beat Skyrim on medium hard difficulty) so I usually do quite well at this sort of thing.
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Awards & Rankings

64
#64 Best PC Game of 2014
35
#35 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014
51
#51 Most Shared PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 74 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 59 out of 74
  2. Mixed: 15 out of 74
  3. Negative: 0 out of 74
  1. Pelit (Finland)
    May 11, 2014
    85
    Banner Saga is a fine - but towards the end a bit repetitive - turn-based viking adventure. [Feb 2014]
  2. games(TM)
    Mar 12, 2014
    80
    It's an outstanding start for a trilogy, and one that we can't wait to see to its end. [Issue#145, p.116]
  3. Hyper Magazine
    Mar 9, 2014
    80
    A fantastic combination of fantasy storytelling and RPG tactics. One hell of a debut from Stoic. [Apr 2014, p.62]
See all critic reviews »