Banner Saga: After the End

[Part of my Banner Saga play through]

Looks like victory to me!

Emerging from the basement, the few survivors of Arberrang are greeted by the warm sunlight of a once again moving sun. After taking in the view, Rook nods to his compatriots to enact "the plan". Aleo stabs Bastion in the back, but the dagger is too weak to kill the dredge who smashes the bard into paste as retaliation. Rook and Petrus take it down while Ludin and Yrsa murder the remaining dredge scum in Rook's revenge plan.

At the same time, Hakon tries a similar surprise attack on Canary, but misses wide and gets a poisoned javelin in the back instead with Scathach and Ro'Ech double mule kicking him on either side of his head to make it explode in a shower of blood. Fasolt manages to club Ro'Ech to death and catch Canary in his big hands - promptly throwing her off the cliff face onto the jagged rocks below to see if she can fly. Scathach runs him through before old Ubin catches the last horse born unaware with a mighty axe swing, beheading him. Then comes the grisly task of turning them into supplies.

The remaining survivors: Ludin, Rook, Ubin, Yrsa, Zefr and Petrus are left to decide if they will try rebuild Arberrang or begin marching elsewhere to see if anyone else survived the end of the world.

Insight: Welp, that was my "try be an idiot and get everyone killed" run through of Banner Saga though in part three I did try to make more sensible decisions when it came to Arberrang's defence and doom timer. I really liked that bit though, and wish they had more of it early on.

Banner Saga: Saving the World

[Part of my Banner Saga play through]

Arberrang is on borrowed time as the darkness engulfs it. Fortunately Zefr and the plentiful court menders can put up a huge light shield to protect the town but they must be defended from direct assaults by the warped. Prince Ludin and his archer guard Yrsa volunteer to take charge of that while supported by Scathach, Ubin and Bastion to defeat waves of the scum. Despite doing really well they eventually have to fall back further and further to the inner keep as more and more menders are lost. Apparently not happy with the current death count, Canary also kills fellow horseborn Derdriu for centaur-girl reasons.

 

So it's our last-last stand then?

Eventually it is only the great hall still shielded as the warped continue their attacks, which the survivors - even the terrible fighters like Aleo, defend as long as they can - losing Tryggvi. After the third day, they need to enact Yrsa's plan of burning the roof and hiding in the fortified basement in hopes that someone will save them. Luckily they did manage to buy enough time for Iver and the Ravens to make it to the White Tower where Bolverk somehow awaits, but is absolutely steam rolled by Iver this time around as the one armed varl downs the ex-Raven leader mid-sentence.

The wounded giant serpent reappears at this point, offering Eyvind a deal: instead of dooming Juno to an eternity of imprisonment, he can kill her before going back into the new sun. It's price is to devour only half the world. Since Eyvind is seriously considering this, Iver doesn't take the chance and chops down the mender from the back. The witch Alfrun takes his place for the original plan which recreates the black sun, locking Juno, the serpent and the darkness away.

Unfortunately Alfrun is not as strong as Eyvind and is destroyed in the process - which also obliterates the White Tower and everyone nearby. Though they saved the world, she, Iver, Bersi, Oli, Sparr, Eirik and Valgard are disintegrated!

Insight: I managed to buy Arberrang 21 days and 21 hrs on the "doom clock" and only had 12-13 hours to spare at the end.

Banner Saga: The Light in the Dark

[Part of my Banner Saga play through]

Somewhere inside the darkness, Juno, Eyvind and Iver march back to Ridgehorn with remaining ravens Folka, Oli, Sparr, Dytch and Bersi using the magical light of the menders to protect them from being warped. They are not the only survivors as at the Strand they rescue remaining survivors Eirik, Valgard and the witch Alfrun (who also can cast light) from a warped attack. With nothing better to do the trio join the crew on their quest to save the world.

Not far behind is the enraged Bolverk, now possessed by Bellower, because absolutely zero people died in that tower collapse. Thanks to constant attacks from the warped, he manages to catch up to them at Ridgehorn itself and when Folka tries to get him to see reason, he chops her to pieces. Eyvind blasts Bolverk away with lightning and the remaining squad quickly enter the secret gate into inner earth: home of the dredge.

By gate I mean a giant hole that they jump down.

It is here Juno explains what's going on. After she was executed for mender crimes, Eyvind revived her with the power of the inner earth's black sun which cracked it open - releasing the great serpent and the expanding darkness. They just need to reach the altar at the White Tower where Eyvind will return the energy, trapping Juno, the darkness and the serpent in a new black sun for all eternity.

Alfrun whispers to Iver that she doesn't trust them to do what they say but without a better plan, they simply have to go along with it - and quickly too, if they want any of their friends at Arberrang to survive. Thus begins their charge through the warped darkness, and the start of the countdown timer till the end of the world.

Insight: I found Dytch's hide ability to often be a waste of time. Just hack away at enemy armor already so that his allies can kill them faster. The only exception is if its his starting move and/or if you are using him as an invisible block by staying hidden and standing in a position that enemies need to walk through. They can't walk through or attack him while hidden... awesome for prolonging fights. Lol.

Banner Saga: A Bed of Enemies

[Part of my Banner Saga play through]

Much like the old tower, the relationship between the refugees and Ludin's father, King Meinolf, is also collapsing as they found their new leader in governor Rugga - who manages to stab the old king with a poisoned dagger just before getting his allies to attack the walls, desperate to get away from the growing darkness. So many are slain in the conflict that with the King's dying breath, he allows everyone inside the walls. Rook makes sure Rugga isn't one of them, which gains the approval of royal guard Petrus. Nid has the opposite reaction, and takes the first boat out of there to continue fleeing with a number of other cowards. As for Ludin - he's happy to pass all the responsibility to Rook.

One of the best parts of the game.

After a few days of quelling riots, Fasolt (the unkillable) arrives with the dredge army hot on his heels, rallied around a new leader called Ruin who uses a massive black anchor grappling hook to tear at the outer walls of Arberrang. Fasolt and Hakon aren't keen on Oddlief's cowardly plan to weaken Ruin with explosives so that's exactly what Rook opts to do and it works. They then drive a wedge right through the attacking dredge and its old Ubin who finally brings Ruin down, causing the remaining dredge back off and basically weep for they too fear the oncoming darkness.

"Let them rot," Rook decides, but is quickly countered by the arrival of Zefr who somehow survived the tower collapse. The old mender explains that the darkness will warp them into fiercer foes if left out there, so Rook and Oddlief make the bold move of opening the gates and inviting them in - and seeing Oddlief carrying a baby dredge she had kidnapped from the battlefield just earlier encourages them to do so peacefully.

Rugga's loyalists are having none of it though, and are quick to spear Oddlief to death upon returning into the city - causing further rioting and panic. Eventually with the help of a massive dredge guard called Bastion, Rook and Petrus round up all these rebels and burn the lot of them alive as a lesson for the others. That's how good rulers do it.

Insight: At the start of Banner Saga 3, everyone's gained level so make sure to spend all those points when you can! Petrus is especially handy since once per combat he can summon another guardsman into battle! On the Raven's side, you might also get Eirik who can do similar by summoning a bear!

Banner Saga: Flight of the Ravens

[Part of my Banner Saga play through]

Elsewhere, Bolverk and his crew of Ravens which include Folka the shield maiden, Sparr the old skald, Oli the axe thrower, Dytch the rogue and fellow varl Bersi who once served as Prince Ludin's bodyguard are on a secret job for Juno to dump a large box into the sea. Their road takes them through murdering refugees while out pacing dredge and eventually to the mining town of Bindal which is run by captain Gudmundr and menders Nikels and Zefr, where a large force of dredge finally catch up to them.

When Bolverk explains he's doing a job for Juno, Nikels and Zefr don't believe him as the mender council executed her months ago. Prying the box open they discover it contains the body of Bellower, and suddenly Zefr understands why the dredge have been pursuing them. To escape the dredge army at the wall everyone evacuates into the deep mine with Gudmundr sacrificing himself to seal the passage behind them to buy some time.

Not that it matters as there are dredge in here too, including the necromancer Eyeless who keeps reviving the fallen. Zefr explodes Nikels to escape from that, only for the team to run into warped dredge who absolutely wreck the party at every turn. When the survivors make it to the surface, they barely have time to look at the giant black dome in the distance as Bolverk calls for a death march to get past the swarming dredge and across the small human bridge of Old Ford which is guarded by Fasolt - who somehow survived the fall of Einartoft!?

So many spectators. They'd easily win if they all decided to charge.

Eyeless catches up to the Ravens here, and after a short battle on the bridge is brought down by Oli's axes, but not slain. With both sides too injured in the clash, a stalemate is formed giving Bolverk and Zefr the time to push on with Bellower's corpse while everyone else remains to hold the bridge. By chance, they run into Juno, Eyvind and Iver at an old tower and immediately attack, with Bolverk beating Iver down before Eyvind drops the entire structure on top of them all.

Insight: For a mender, Zefr's magic ability sucks as enemies can also benefit from walking over the tiles her boons randomly appear on. Best used as for her armor repair skills instead. Also somewhat worthless is Bolverk himself. Sure he has good multi-attacks but until he levels up and gets his "bear rage" on (which lets him counter) he's an easy target to beat down.

Banner Saga: Split the Party

[Part of my Banner Saga play through]

Trapped between the dredge and a waterfall, Rook, Ludin, Hakon and Bolverk hold off the dredge while Eyvind and Juno construct a floating land bridge for them to flee across. While it works, the chasm is huge and the menders can only maintain part of the bridge at a time resulting in many - mainly the slow, injured, old or unlucky - falling to their deaths (no named characters though).

As a result, when they do get to solid ground once more - Bolverk decides to go his own way with his Ravens and much of the supplies. Mogun tries to stop him but is beheaded for his trouble and seeing this, his twin Hogun retires from axe swinging and returns to being mundane clansman. Rook lets them go and pushes on to Arberrang via the plains where they encounter a trio of injured horseborn (centaurs): Scathach, Ro'Ech and Derdriu. The menders heal them and the trio join Rook's "herd". Hakon doesn't like them which means they must be ok.

"Peekaboo!"

Out of nowhere a massive serpent suddenly appears and swallows Juno but Eyvind tears open its side with lightning to get her out, causing the snake to retreat. Since this monster yet poses a threat to the caravan, Juno, Eyvind and Iver depart to lure it away while urging Rook to make haste to the capital of Arberrang.

Before he can do so, governor Rugga attempts a coup against Rook but fails and gets all his allies killed while he himself runs off to safety. This fight gets the attention of another horseborn herd but luckily they only need to beat down a few of them before their leader, Canary, decides she wants to be part of Rook's herd too. There's not much he can do about it so they just push on until finally they reach the capital which already has scores of refugees outside the walls. Lucky for them, the returning Prince Ludin is the golden ticket which grants them all passage inside the city. Much like the people they lead, Rook and Oddlief celebrate this momentous occasion.

Insight: Horseborn are very fun - they move fast and can move again after a melee attack. Derdriu and Canary also have poisonous javelins which are handy against heavily armored foes. Scathach (the blue painted one) is the best of them mobility wise. As enemies, using spear wielders like Ludin and Trygvvi to bleed them is good since they can't help running around all over the place.

Banner Saga: The Fleet of Boersgard

[Part of my Banner Saga play through]

Having waited for weeks to no avail, Rook finally orders the party to move on - much to Eyvind's disapproval. They eventually reach Boersgard city which is defended by Bolverk the broken-horn varl along with his "Raven" mercenaries who let them in after seeing what Rook's team can do to the dredge (besides, there's only twenty or so of them). Agreeing to flee onward to Arberrang, the Boersgard governor Rugga begins dismantling his own people's homes to build a fleet of ships to escape down river while the fighters are tasked with defending against the dredge, and rioting civilians.

Old Ubin shows up a few days later bringing news about the fall of Einartoft to an immortal giant dredge called Bellower, but he also brings the answer to that problem in the form of Eyvind's master and love interest, Juno - who has delayed from meeting him earlier as she was preparing a magic arrow to take down this cretin. Wanting to play hero, Alette volunteers to take this shot as "she is much better than her father".

Sure enough, Bellower and his dredge army follows close behind - giving no time for the "escape ship" plan to work. While the fighters hold back his army Alette takes the shot and misses, leading to Bellower crushing her to death and chopping off an arm from Iver while Rook retrieves the arrow and tags the monstrous dredge in the back. This weakens him enough for the twins, Hogun and Mogun, to chop him down. Seeing their leader fall, the remaining dredge flee buying enough time to turn the housing of Boersgard into the Boersgard fleet and everyone sets sail down the river.

That's taking twins a bit extreme.

During the voyage Eyvind uses his magic to save Iver's life, while Rook meets other thankful survivors like Aleo the poet and Tryggvi the crazy spear man. For days things seem to go their way, until the river ends in a waterfall and they are forced to dock right into another army of dredge!

Insight: The stupid magic arrow is a new ability you need to select. Would have been handy if there was a tool tip or something to clue me into that.

Banner Saga: A Measure of Quality

[Part of my Banner Saga play through]

The dredge threat extends to the other side of the continent, where Rook, a hunter, and his daughter Alette manage to raise an early alarm to get their small village of Skogr quickly evacuated away from the incoming horde. The caravan includes their old varl friend Iver, a young warrior named Egil, twin axemen Hogun and Mogun, Oddlief the Skogr chieftain's widow (he didn't make it) and Nid, Oddlief's apprentice archer.

Alette, you are a terrible hunter.

Like many other refugees they are denied shelter in the walled city of Frostvellr and so march on, picking up Iver's varl buddy Krumr and the rival warriors Onef and Ekkill as they pass. Since Ekkill looks like a psycho, Rook decides to keep him tied up just in case. Unwilling to get caught out in the open by the dredge forces, Krumr suggests going to the next safest place - the varl city of Einartoft which is protected by a massively long stone bridge to the East where they are allowed entry only thanks to Iver's reputation.

Here they meet the varl King Jorundr as well as the survivors from Hakon and Fasolt's caravans, including Eyvind - the mender Hakon rescued previously. To protect the city, Eyvind wants to destroy the bridge but King Jorundr has none of it - instead calling for a last stand from most of his people - including Fasolt, Ubin and Krumr. Apart from the humans, only varl that are injured, cowardly, and useless like Hakon are ordered to continue on with Rook to try reach Prince Ludin's home of Arberrang.

Upon reaching the lakeside town of Sigrholm, Eyvind asks that the team wait for the arrival of his master and so Rook obliges. As the town is full of thieves, supplies and people go missing daily until there are no more stores on the wagons and no more extra people outside the "hero roster". Onef decides to try take over at this point, killing Egil before being put down by Alette. Ekkill is pleased. Too pleased in fact, so Rook banishes him from the party. Rook knows it's not the number of people that matters. It's the quality.

Insight: Rook's mark prey ability is very handy if you position your allies well, but it also means he's probably moving last. Also it gets less good as your survivors level up.

Banner Saga: The Worst General

[Part of my Banner Saga play through]

Just because the sun has stopped in the sky doesn't mean people stop paying their taxes. It is for this reason the pair of varl (horned giants), old Ubin and Gunnulf, have come to Strand - and just in time to save the chieftain from "another" assassination attempt since his current bodyguards, Eirik and Valgard the turtle, are somewhat useless.

By chance, the allied fleet led by the varl Prince Vognir and the human Prince Ludin docks in town and since old Ubin is friends with Vognir's crew of Hakon and Mogr, he and Gunnulf soon join their caravan headed to the varl capital. Barely a day out of Strand and Ludin already needs saving from a random dredge (under earth dweller) stealing cattle. Since Hakon and Mogr are busy saving him, it is Prince Vognir who is killed by another dredge scout.

Hakon slaps Prince Ludin into unconsciousness and orders another varl, Fasolt, to take Ludin and his retinue to safety while keeping the majority of the varl army with himself to investigate the increasing numbers of dredge. While the early conflicts are easily won, once dredge numbers begin equaling that of the varl they start losing battle after battle thanks to Hakon's inept tactics, with Gunnulf among the fallen.

Should be an easy win... or not!

Seeking aid from the menders (spell casters) at Ridgehorn, they find the place already destroyed by the dredge but manage to save an unconscious mender they find in the tower. Pinned by dredge forces at this location, Mogr sacrifices himself by creating a diversion to let the rest of Hakon's party escape.

Insight: Mogr is a beast! Definitely the best of the starting varl.

The Banner Saga

While I've already reviewed the first two games, I only recently got the third (which is more of the same) - so I figured why not play it all again and do a story it? Spoilers ahead if you've not played them yet, otherwise sit back and enjoy my clunky play through of the entire saga! As always, I'm taking some creative license so your play through might not match mine, even if you pick the same choices. :)

Chapter 1 - The Worst General
Chapter 2 - A Measure of Quality
Chapter 3 - The Fleet of Boersgard
Chapter 4 - Split the Party
Chapter 5 - Flight of the Ravens
Chapter 6 - A Bed of Enemies
Chapter 7 - The Light in the Dark
Chapter 8 - Saving the World
Chapter 9 - After the End

This story has concluded! Thank you for reading!

Sword Legacy: Omen

Where I assume the bad guy is French.

A surprise attack forces an enraged Uther Pendragon to flee from his lands and then attempt to unite Britannia in his quest for vengeance! Oh, and to save the girl but mostly for vengeance!

Hacking off scalps with a knife!

This is a very on the rails tale and shares many similarities to the Banner Saga, only here more focus is given to the turn based strategy combat sections where you pick four people in your team to deploy on missions to basically kill everyone else.

Combat is fun though, and there's a bit of inventory management and equipment upgrading to be had aside from the unlocking of more skills which vary between characters. Not quite as good as Banner Saga in my book, but if you like tactical combat this one might be for you. I give it 2.5 dragon hearts out of 5.

The Banner Saga I & II

An interactive piece of art.

There's a lot of walking in this game.

The world is ending, but goddamn it's still pretty. Truth be told I was gifted Banner Saga II first, played a bit and was so enthralled by the art style, music composition, and detail to the map and characters that I bought the first one to play through it properly. I'm glad I did too, because you get to build more of an attachment to each character in the story, who also double as your units in the tactical battle sections.

While this is no XCOM, there are still basic strategy options in play here mainly due to the shared stat of Strength, which is the damage you do and how much you can take before getting KO'ed. Since your squad will do less damage as they take more damage, ensuring that getting "first strike" is pretty important which often leads to battles where you just sit put and wait till the enemy is in range of a full charge. I like that.

These units can be levelled up by spending renown (which I should mention you can also gain via the training tent in II), which happens to be the same currency to buy food to keep your small army of followers happy and alive. Since characters can unexpectedly die, leave or turn against you this can be frustrating for some players who dislike "blind choices". Not for me though, I love the decision making section (and the "stuff happens, deal with it" part that comes after) - considering it to be the main part of the game.

Everyone obeys the squares!

The negatives for me is that both games are on the short-ish side (an understandable side effect of having the branching effect) and that they end somewhat abruptly with you wanting more! Guess that's not such a bad thing. I give these sagas three banners out of five, and am looking forward to the next one!