The Banner Saga Complete Pack Review – Prepare for the Finale

<p>Are you a fan of turn-based combat and story-driven games&quest; If you haven’t tried <i>The Banner Saga<&sol;i> yet&comma; now is a great time&period; The first two games have been released as a bundle for PS4 and Xbox One&comma; with an extra Survival Mode game&period; <em>The Banner Saga Complete Pack<&sol;em> includes all three games at one lower&comma; package price&comma; and the release coincides with the recent funding of <em>The Banner Saga 3<&sol;em> Kickstarter&period; Time to catch up and prepare yourself for one intense finale&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If you are not yet familiar with <i>The Banner Saga<&sol;i>&comma; it follows caravans of refugees fleeing a darkness that’s swallowing their world&period; It’s a story-driven game with dialogue-based decisions that affect the outcome of your playthrough&period; If you decide to stop and explore a burning village&comma; you may get the opportunity to recruit a skilled fighter&comma; or you may be ambushed by a dozen enemies&comma; losing clansmen and supplies along the way&period; In most other games&comma; it’s easy to determine which dialogue option leads to the safest outcome&comma; but Stoic&comma; the developers of <i>The Banner Saga<&sol;i>&comma; make it much more difficult and realistic&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><i>The Banner Saga 2<&sol;i> picks up immediately after the ending of the first game&period; Because this series is so heavily dependent on the story&comma; it’s highly recommended that you play the first game before playing the second&period; Having a convenient bundle like <i>The Banner Saga Complete Pack<&sol;i> is the way to go&period; You can import your saved game into the second game if you want continuity&period; Your companions&comma; levels&comma; accessories&comma; and supplies carry over&period; If you made terrible decisions in the first game &lpar;I’ll admit&comma; I did&rpar;&comma; you may decide not to import&period; If you don’t import a saved game&comma; you can decide between two main characters&comma; and most likely&comma; more companions will be available to you&period; Expect to have to re-level your strongest fighters if you take this route&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Survival Mode is an extra released with <i>The Banner Saga 2<&sol;i>&comma; and it’s included in this set&period; It’s suggested that Survival Mode is played only after completing the first two games because it unlocks almost every available character&period; Your goal in Survival Mode is to survive a total of 40 battles in a row&comma; with limited story interruption&period; You begin with a six-character party of your choice&period; All of them start at level three&comma; and you may level them up as renown is awarded&comma; just like the full games&period; Characters you do not pick to be a part of your first six are then locked&period; If you decide to add them to your party later&comma; you must spend 5 renown to unlock them&period; Accessories are acquired through battle&comma; which can help immensely as the game progresses&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;124350" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-124350" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-124350" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;04&sol;17014837&sol;bs4&period;png" alt&equals;"The Banner Saga Complete Pack&comma; Versus Evil" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"540" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-124350" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">The Banner Saga Complete Pack&comma; Versus Evil<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>There are a few differences between the battles in Survival Mode and the full games&period; The most noticeable difference is that characters who fall in battle die permanently and cannot be used in another Survival Mode battle&period; It is possible to remove and reassign their accessory&comma; but all the renown spent levelling them up is wasted&period; Another difference is battle turn order&period; In the full games&comma; your characters would trade off with the NPC fighters until the end of the battle&period; In Survival Mode&comma; once a fighter dies&comma; their turn isn’t replaced with another fighter on their team&period; This often leads to one side taking more than one turn in a row&period; Battles are timed&comma; and although restarting a battle is an option&comma; the number of times you are allowed to restart is capped&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>On your first time playing through the <i>Banner Saga<&sol;i> games&comma; it may take a while to immerse yourself in their world&period; The initial conversations and battles do a careful job of walking you through everything you’ll need to know to play well&period; Hang in there&comma; though&period; There are twists in the story line that will stick with you for a long&comma; long time&period; The strong narrative will keep you coming back for more&period; Even the second game ends with a cliffhanger&comma; which has many of us anxiously awaiting <i>The Banner Saga 3<&sol;i>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Keeping with the strong story theme&comma; there are no manual save points in the <i>Banner Saga<&sol;i> games&period; As long as you don’t quit in the middle of a conversation or battle&comma; your progress will be saved&comma; but it will automatically be saved over your previous game&period; This prevents players from making a new save file to protect themselves from a poor dialogue decision&period; Just like in real life&comma; you are stuck with the choices you make&period; It takes some time to get used to this idea&comma; and I found myself crossing my fingers that the two hours of progress I made would save correctly&period; On the console port&comma; the consistent auto-saving seems to have also lead to longer loading times between screens&period; The lack of save points is thematic&comma; but it requires trust and patience&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The incredible&comma; hand-painted&comma; 2D-style graphics help to create a unique and memorable experience&period; It often feels as though you are watching the vintage&comma; animated <em>Lord of the Rings<&sol;em> film instead of playing a video game&period; Small details are everywhere&period; While my soldiers were marching to the next town&comma; I’d find myself squinting to see what danger was lurking on the horizon&period; Silhouettes of the enemies could often be seen along the edges of the camp screens&period; On the battle maps&comma; NPC’s would be shown on the sidelines&comma; either watching intently or taking part in their own attack&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;124349" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-124349" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-124349" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;04&sol;17014816&sol;bs2&period;png" alt&equals;"The Banner Saga Complete Pack&comma; Versus Evil" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"540" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-124349" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">The Banner Saga Complete Pack&comma; Versus Evil<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Although the soundtrack is interesting and Viking-themed&comma; there were some poor sound design choices&period; A high-pitched ringing noise made when a character used a ranged weapon or willpower was enough to get me to turn off the volume during battles&period; This was most distracting during Survival Mode&comma; while I was constantly using these elements&comma; without much of a break in between&period; Like the ringing noises&comma; some of the war drum sequences had to be muted so I could better focus on combat strategy&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The port from PC to console was well done&period; I had the most difficulty adjusting to combat controls&period; On PC&comma; you could click to move a character to a specific spot during battle&comma; but it was trickier to get that quick precision with a PS4 controller&period; I can’t count how many times I accidentally placed a soldier exactly one square too far away from an enemy&comma; especially during the timed Survival Mode sessions&period; Without the option to move a second time&comma; I forfeited multiple turns this way&period; A few other combat mechanics were affected by the port&comma; but overall the <i>Banner Saga<&sol;i> series feels right at home on consoles&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Almost every choice made determines the course of your caravan&comma; and much like <em>Oregon Trail<&sol;em>&comma; there are random events that you may or may not encounter during a playthrough&period; One game may be drastically different than the next&period; You can gain or lose companions&comma; morale&comma; and supplies through dialogue choices&period; For the completionist&comma; multiple playthroughs are necessary in order to gain all of the achievements and trophies available in the series&period; Even the Survival Mode offers different achievements for difficulty level and variations in the party&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Overall&comma; <i>The Banner Saga Complete Pack<&sol;i> provides a memorable&comma; story-rich experience for mature console gamers&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s convenient&comma; bundled form will get you all caught up for the third&comma; and final&comma; release expected to arrive in 2018&period; Patience is required&comma; but well-rewarded&comma; and you’ll not likely forget about your time leading a caravan of refugees away from a great&comma; mysterious darkness&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong>A PS4 review copy of <em>The Banner Saga Complete Pack with Survival Mode<&sol;em> was provided by Stoic or the purpose of this review<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;