The Banner Saga 2 – Review

Our review on the first part of The Banner Saga trilogy hasn’t been online that long, yet we can already present you with our thoughts on the second part. Even though Bellower has been defeated, people are still not safe, as the dredge are marching on rapidly, and Darkness is coming. The saga continues.

Story

The Banner Saga 2 continues right where part one left off. If you already played the first game, you can now implement your last save file, to get going once again. If not, you’ll have to decide which character to play with. Either you choose Rook, the leader of the caravan and father of Alette, or you choose Alette herself. Choosing Rook means Alette will have died, while choosing Alette makes her the new leader, after the death of her father. Depending on who you choose, the storyline will be a bit altered, but stays roughly the same.

You’ll have to lead your Viking clans and the giants, known as varl, to Arberrang, the capital of the humans, in the hopes of it being a safe haven, as dredge are lurking around every corner and the Serpent might attack any time. The journey is full of hardships, and you’ll have to establish your leadership more than once, and try to make the right decisions when unexpected things happen. To do so, you are assisted by the varl Iver. On your way to Arberrang, there are lots of encounters with hostile groups, often dredge, but also horseborn may give you a hard time. You’ll have to pick your fights wisely and, if unavoidable, choose the best warriors you have.

Graphics

The game is all hand drawn, with attention to detail and color, which elevates its entire look. Every now and then there are small animated cutscenes, sometimes with a voiceover, but often with speech bubbles to indicate the conversations. Most of the cinematics however, only show one image of each person in the conversation, shifting to whoever is talking. This image does have some movement to it, such as waving hair or the character’s eyes blinking, making it a bit more agreeable to watch. Nonetheless, the characters’ appearance doesn’t alter during the various cutscenes, where the backdrops luckily do. Despite the little animations, this can make it all less attractive, even though the characters themselves look very nice.

Sound

When launching The Banner Saga 2, the music immediately gets you into the right atmosphere, one of a hunted people looking for a secure place to live, yet with danger lurking around every corner. Also the Viking-like look of the game is reflected in the music. There is a different tune whenever you’re fighting battles, that is more uplifting, and also your training sessions have their own tune to accompany you.

As mentioned before, every now and then there are some voiceovers, but there is no real voice acting, as the text just appears at the bottom of the screen. Since there are a lot of cutscenes to go through, it can get a bother to have to read so much text and it would have been agreeable to have some voice acting every now and then to make everything just a tad more accessible. Nonetheless, certain sounds are added whenever the texts call for it, such as a thunderstorm or knocking on a door, making them seem a bit more lively.

Gameplay

Since The Banner Saga 2 is a turn based tactical role playing game, strategy is the only thing to consider. You’ll have to make sure to get as many people to Arberrang as possible, yet you also have to be able to feed them all, have them rest enough and protect them from danger. In short, you’ll have to keep their moral up, as a low moral results in less willpower during battles. To do all of this, you’ll have to make choices constantly, which influence the story, even though the overall storyline stays more or less the same. Your choices may result in battles, where you will have to choose the right warriors to achieve victory.

While on your journey to Arberrang, you’ll have to make sure all clansmen, fighters and varl are fed and happy, obliging you to make camp every few days. Every day that passes, morale declines and supplies run lower. When you camp in a town or village, there is often a market where you can buy supplies or special attributes that might help your warriors in battle. Nonetheless, you’ll need renown to pay for this all, which you can gain by winning battles, be it on a real battlefield or at a training. When you’re on your way, the clansmen will also scavenge for food. You can train clansmen to become fighters, but you’ll have to keep a good balance between fighters and clansmen, in order to have enough food and a good morale.

During the many cutscenes, a lot of story content is thrown at you, quite frequently resulting in a battle. Before actually treading the battlefield, you can choose the warriors you wish to fight with. Keep in mind what kind of enemy you are dealing with, as spearmen might come in more handy than men with axes. Also varl will prove to be very valuable, as they are stronger than humans. Every character has strength, armor and willpower. Strength resembles the strength with which you can attack an enemy, as well as how much alive you are. If you break someone’s armor first, you will later be able to administer more damage to his strength, something that often comes in handy. Willpower can be added for more impact, but depending on the morale of your group, it can either go down or up. Once you know these basics, the fight can begin. Every character has its turn to move and attack, thus it’s mainly a matter of planning your moves. If you’re feeling like you could use something extra, you can use a character’s special abilities to do more damage.

Whenever you use a certain character in battle, this character might be up for promotion after victory. This promotion costs renown, but will grant your character more power in future battles. Also the things you might buy at the market can amp up your characters, thus you can accustom all characters just a bit. When a character gets defeated in battle, he will need time to recover. The only way to do so is to set up camp and let the whole caravan rest for a few days. It can be costly though, so again, you will have to make hard decisions.

When playing on the normal difficulty level, all battles are very doable, yet you will have to think about every move you make of course. You can however also opt for the easy or hard difficulty level. The controls are pretty straightforward and prove to be quite fluent. There are no real issues to report, which makes the gameplay even more fun.

Conclusion

The Banner Saga 2 doesn’t look that much different from the first part, by which we only mean to say that the graphics are still top notch. As there is a lot of story, with quite some text to plow through, it would have been nice to have some voice acting, but the playing experience is well worth it. If you’re one for tactical thinking to fight for survival, this one will be right up your alley.

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