The Banner Saga

Much has been said, and will continue to be said of the freeing power of digital distribution.  Being able to bypass retail publication channels allows developers to push passion projects like never before.  The latest case is the brainchild of three ex-Bioware employees who decided they would rather strike their own path pursuing their own interest.  Stoic, as the trio decided to name their fledgling company, found success on Kickstarter and charged ahead with their hearts full and heads high.

The Banner Saga is their creation and from the beginning it aimed to be different.  Take the games setting for example.  The story takes place in a Nordic medieval time period.  Sound original?  Well, what if I told you there were no elves, dwarves, orcs, or goblins.  The only races are humans and the Varl, a race of horned giants.  The Varl aren’t even a ‘typical’ race.  Each Varl is crafted by one of the world’s gods – the Varl are all male and can’t reproduce on their own.  Their survival of their race is dependent on the continued creation by the gods.

This becomes problematic when all of the gods seem to disappear.  Did the gods die or simply leave?  Either way, without their presence the world is not in good shape.  To compound the situation the Dredge of reappeared.  The dredge are a race of innumerable armored beings who don’t seem to care much for humans or Varl.  If that summed up the issues the game’s protagonists faced that would be quite the challenge, but things continue to spiral downhill.

If you haven’t played the game this will undoubtedly sound strange, but the game actually plays in a manner reminiscent of the old Oregon Trail games.  You travel across the continent with a large group of clansmen, fighters, and varl.  You don’t ever have much control over where you go, but much of the game is spent watching your caravan plod forward.  Along the way, you need to always make sure you have enough supplies to keep the caravan fed and happy.  You also keep running into various obstacles and are frequently required to make decisions on how to proceed.

There are two mechanics which breakup the caravan march: dialogue and combat.  The dialogue is pretty standard, yet basic banter between characters.  The combat utilizes a turn-based tactical system.  Great care was made to create a system of rules for how combat is governed, in addition to all your characters stats.  It takes a few rounds to get used to all the systems and from then on combat is pretty straight forward . . . too straight forward.

One of the biggest disappointments in the game is how boring the combat gets.  Early in the game and shortly after getting a hang of how everything works, you begin to realize that there really isn’t much variability in combat.  With the exception of the game’s final boss, every enemy you will face the entire game is seen from very early on.  There is almost no variety in the combat and it quickly becomes extremely boring.

This is something you are constantly reminded of because one of the main types of decisions you have to make in the game is ‘planning’ large battles.  This basically entails you choosing how involved you want to be in combat.  The more you decide to charge in and take matters into your own hand (meaning begin a combat encounter), the better your caravan fares.  Taking a more hands off approach (which is very tempting just to not have to go through another round of combat) results in heavier losses for your caravan.

So what about the characters and story that’s told?  Well again, it leaves a bit to be desired.  The biggest issue is that there are simply too many characters the game focuses on.  The Banner Saga is a small project made by a small team, but character development is spread too thin.  This is made even worse by not having a main, central character. The first half of the game has you switching back and forth between two separate groups of people on opposite sides of the continent.  As things move forward, characters who seemed important disappear and people you might think weren’t very important stick around for a long time.

The end result of all this is a presentation that focuses more on the world events and less on any one character’s specific tale.  Towards the end of the game, enough exciting things are happening to keep you interested but a very significant part of the early game is spent bouncing around between different characters with not a whole lot actually going on.  Stoic would have been better served focusing more on fewer characters.  This would have allowed deeper conversations.

The developers are all ex-Bioware – the absolute master at conversations.  The company that made talking to a party member across a campfire in Dragon Age: Origins magical.  The company that made consoling fellow soldiers in the confines of a small vessel for hours at a time an enjoyable and moving experience.  The Banner Saga falters because the conversation is spread so thin among so many different characters that everything is kept at a very superficial level.

The problems don’t stop there.  While claiming to focus on choice and consequence, the game instead relies on trying to force consequence.  You are constantly put in lose-lose situations presumably because the continued defeat and loss will somehow build a deeper connection with what’s happening in the game.  The game’s currency system is simplified beyond reason.  ‘Renown’ is earned from winning battles and that single currency is used to level your characters, buy supplies to feed your caravan, provide gear for your characters, and everything.

One shining star in all of this is the game’s artistic style.  Reminiscent of old-school Disney movies (minus the fluid animations), this is one area where Stoic hit gold.  With a team of three you obviously aren’t going to put together anything in 3D that looks amazing so the better question becomes how can you give your game an effective yet economical artistic style.  Stoic found the answer.

As the first game in a planned trilogy, there’s hope that more improvement can be found in the future, but it will be a difficult task.  Combat needs to be revamped with a focus on variety, there needs to be a better focus on fewer characters, and most of all Stoic should focus more on expounding the Oregon Trail / caravan mechanic they’ve employed.

Moving from a large studio, where each of the developers probably held a very specific and segmented role, to a very small studio where you you have to put together every element of the game is no doubt a daunting task.  Hopefully The Banner Saga proves to be a good learning lesson and we see more improvement in the future.