Review RPG Codex Review: The Banner Saga

[A user named cat]

 

[Bubbles]

I've never consumed a Dorito in my life. No Mountain Dew, either.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

I've never consumed a Dorito in my life. No Mountain Dew, either.

 

[PocketMine]

Tbh i would like this game more if it had fail state like oregon trail considering how easy it is to break this part of the game. Seriously just wait until no followers and no supplies left game will still go on like nothing happened. You still get random event showing yours followers and game names people who arent there. Your party will still fight even after few weeks with no food. You only get minor morale penalty but nothing changes.

 

[Bubbles]

Tbh i would like this game more if it had fail state like oregon trail considering how easy it is to break this part of the game. Seriously just wait until no followers and no supplies left game will still go on like nothing happened. You still get random event showing yours followers and game names people who arent there. Your party will still fight even after few weeks with no food. You only get minor morale penalty but nothing changes.

The review argues that failing to buy supplies punishes the player two-fold, both by incurring a stiff morale penalty (-2 WP to every hero is equivalent to losing 12 kills' worth of Willpower in every battle, and locks you out of getting the +2WP from good morale) and by horribly breaking immersion through the badly implemented road events.

If you play on Easy, you can deal with the low WP no problem, but there's no reason to do this on Hard. The sensible solution is simply to invest in supplies.

 

[crawlkill]

RPGCodex reviews have rendered me unable to distinguish sarcasm from praise. I legitimately cannot tell which of the positive statements here are genuine and which I'm supposed to take in exactly the opposite light.

 

[Bubbles]

I'm fairly sure that all of Lambchop19's posts in this thread are meant as parody.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

They're simultaneously parody and seriousness. Like some sort of Schrödinger's cat of forum posts.

 

[MicoSelva]

I have put around twenty hours into this game (so far) and really, really wanted to like it, but its flaws outweigh the good parts by a significant margin, and it suffers too much from design oversights like the zero population caravan. That last thing is inexcusable. To put things into perspective: when I was eleven I made a board game about pirate ships racing towards a treasure island and it had the same problem, but I realised that in the first test run. So, no leniency towards Stoic from me.

I would probably be able to overlook the flaws, even major ones, if I got hooked by something else, but this game is pretty boring overall, despite the cool setting and really awesome presentation.

Overall: it is not terrible, but there are many, many other games more worth of your time out there.

 

[ROARRR]

They should stop making the game and do the movie! ah yeah!

 

[PocketMine]

The review argues that failing to buy supplies punishes the player two-fold, both by incurring a stiff morale penalty (-2 WP to every hero is equivalent to losing 12 kills' worth of Willpower in every battle, and locks you out of getting the +2WP from good morale) and by horribly breaking immersion through the badly implemented road events.

If you play on Easy, you can deal with the low WP no problem, but there's no reason to do this on Hard. The sensible solution is simply to invest in supplies.

I played on Normal and planned another playthough on Hard but as MicoSelva said there better games on my playlist and not enough time.

Morale penalty isnt very punishing on Normal i had no problems with fights only exception is the final battle. Also there are random events that raise morale and before end random event gave me enough supplys. Tbh it wasnt that much supplys but your party doesnt consume much without followers.

 

[Bubbles]

Most games are best played on Hard.

 

[PocketMine]

Its different from game to game but most games actualy only throw more trash mob at you or hp bloat enemies on hard.
Personaly i like games without difficulty choice most.

 

[Bubbles]

Overall: it is not terrible, but there are many, many other games more worth of your time out there.

Out of last year's crop, I'd personally slightly prefer Blackguards and Neo Scavenger over TBS, but all the others I've played are somewhere between slightly and significantly worse.

 

[Zetor]

Hm, I've had my eye on this for a while... how does it compare to Telepath Tactics (minus the bugsmicro-issues)?

 

[Grokalibre]

I have put around twenty hours into this game (so far) and really, really wanted to like it, but its flaws outweigh the good parts by a significant margin, and it suffers too much from design oversights like the zero population caravan. That last thing is inexcusable. To put things into perspective: when I was eleven I made a board game about pirate ships racing towards a treasure island and it had the same problem, but I realised that in the first test run. So, no leniency towards Stoic from me.

I would probably be able to overlook the flaws, even major ones, if I got hooked by something else, but this game is pretty boring overall, despite the cool setting and really awesome presentation.

Overall: it is not terrible, but there are many, many other games more worth of your time out there.

Couldn't agree more, the game is right at the frontier between bad and terrible.

 

[Infinitron]

I've said this before, but The Banner Saga's combat is basically Sawyerism on overdrive, Sawyerism on crack. It's so Sawyerist that even Josh Sawyer himself doesn't like it. And it probably manages to achieve Sawyerian ideals more effectively than PoE did, by virtue of having a narrower scope of mechanics.

Interestingly, there are some anti-PoEists who like it, because what they dislike in RtwP works for them in TB (thinking of Sensuki here). But others dislike both games for similar reasons.

 

[Copper]

I've said this before, but The Banner Saga's combat is basically Sawyerism on overdrive, Sawyerism on crack. It's so Sawyerist that even Josh Sawyer himself doesn't like it. And it probably manages to achieve Sawyerian ideals more effectively than PoE did, by virtue of having a narrower scope of mechanics.

Interestingly, there are some anti-POEists who like it, because what they dislike in RtwP works for them in TB (thinking of Sensuki here). But others dislike both games for similar reasons.

Bear in mind that Sawyer appears to be hatin' without playin' in this case, at least according to the time I asked Roguey (I could be drunk though).

 

[Infinitron]

I suspect he may have played it but probably not much

 

[HiddenX]

My review

 

[agris]

Solid review, your use of punctuation and capitalization was especially prominent.

 

[Kz3r0]

"I didn't like this game very much and the fact that there are people who disagree reveals some structural faults in contemporary society"

 

[Roguey]

Bear in mind that Sawyer appears to be hatin' without playin' in this case, at least according to the time I asked Roguey (I could be drunk though).

He played for 1.6 hours, which I think is a good enough investment to form an opinion.

Slightly related, he could only stand to play Serpent in the Staglands for about 25 minutes before sinking 10 hours into Cities: Skylines.

 

[Copper]

Bear in mind that Sawyer appears to be hatin' without playin' in this case, at least according to the time I asked Roguey (I could be drunk though).

He played for 1.6 hours, which I think is a good enough investment to form an opinion.

Slightly related, he could only stand to play Serpent in the Staglands for about 25 minutes before sinking 10 hours into Cities: Skylines.

My mistake. (I also indulged in a spree of building/4X games after abandoning Eternity as a nice palette cleanser.)

 

[Kz3r0]

Serpent in the Staglands for about 25 minutes before sinking 10 hours into Cities: Skylines.