#The banner saga series#

YouвЂ™re not always forced into combat in The Banner Saga 3 rather your decisions often determine whether or not you can avoid a bloodthirsty battle by appeasing an unruly crowd with words alone. When an enemy hits home on a character, you feel it as your poor warrior staggers and stumbles around, struggling to stand upright and gripping onto their spear or staff for support. Your selection of warriors is always outmatched by men or monsters and the turn-based battles feel largely hopeless. When the combat gets going in The Banner Saga 3, itвЂ™s ruthless. Between the conversations, thereвЂ™s turn-based combat to be had-sometimes as a direct consequence of your choices-woven in between the story segments, as your characters move strategically across the battlefield, employing weapons and magic to hack away at their enemies turn after turn.

To describe The Banner Saga series as a вЂViking conversation simulatorвЂ™ would be selling it short, but conversations and crucial decisions form the main crux of the game. Picking up from the cliffhanger that The Banner Saga 2 ended on, the final chapter of the series is вЂњThe beginning of the end,вЂќ as the poet Aleo puts it.

MacReadyвЂ™s line of вЂњNobody trusts anybody now, and weвЂ™re all very tiredвЂќ in The Thing rings true for the characters of The Banner Saga 3, and it can all become a bit much when the hundredth character challenges one of your decisions thatвЂ™ll have drastic consequences for the rest of the game.

ThereвЂ™s nothing wrong with having everyone hate each other-you canвЂ™t really expect everyone to be overjoyed when reality itself is crumbling around them-but there has to be some give to this. Nowhere is this more evident than The Banner Saga 3, where everyoneвЂ™s really tired and, for the most part, really pissed off. The number of weary, miserable faces ready to stick a dagger in your back has only increased as the series rolled on, dwarfing the number of characters you could count on as genuine friends. The Banner Saga was never about happiness or making friends along the way-it was about survival, at all costs.

#The banner saga series#