Also available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, iOS, Android, Linux, OSX, and Windows The Banner Saga 3 is the culmination of an epic fantasy trilogy that puts you in the position of leader of a caravan of refugees fleeing a Dredge invasion and a mysterious world-destroying “Darkness.” As was the case with the transition from The Banner Saga to The Banner Saga 2, the jump to The Banner Saga 3 sees almost nothing change. There are a couple of very minor quality of life tweaks that were made, but those are so minor that a lot of players might not even notice them. The only other big change is, as was the case with the second game, a bump to the level cap; the max level is now 15 instead of 10. Otherwise, it’s pretty much another continuation. With the huge cliffhanger on which The Banner Saga 2 ended, there was a lot for The Banner Saga 3 to live up to. Personally, I found this third entry to be the weakest of the three, but that’s like saying that Fat Man was a weak bomb when you line it up against Castle Bravo and Czar Bomba; the weakest of three VERY strong entries is still pretty dang strong. By the time we get to this point in the narrative, the caravan has arrived in the last known free city in the world unswallowed by the ever-encroaching darkness, and it’s time to put up or shut up. The pressure is on as our heroes literally stare Armageddon in the face and try desperately to hold out against the slew of enemies pounding on the gates while a small team tries to venture into the Darkness and stop it from destroying all of creation. The only minor problem I had with the fact that almost nothing has changed since the first game is that by the time you get to the third ten-hour game with almost no change to combat, the battles can feel a bit boring after a while. You know your basic strategy, you know your preferred combat line-up, and you know what enemies have what abilities for the most part; a lot of the fighting turns into a wash/rinse/repeat scenario, and that’s not going to hold everyone’s attention. I still found it personally enjoyable, but it was certainly less captivating at Hour 25 than it was at Hour 3. Since this is a trilogy with no real visual or mechanic changes that flows pretty seamlessly in terms of narrative, it’s not a series you can really just jump into anywhere you like; to get a full appreciation for the trilogy and its story, you really have to start at the beginning. It’s fortunate, then, that the trilogy is available in a single package which is how I played it on Switch. The physical version of the trilogy, while coming on one game card, does require a download to start, so it’s not great in terms of preservation, but it is nice to have all three games in one bundle with one application to launch. The Banner Saga 3 is the epic conclusion to a Nordic fantasy adventure that I honestly didn’t expect to love as much as I did. The characters are interesting and pretty deep, the storyline is compelling, the world is fascinating, the combat is fun, and the choices you have to make are difficult with often gut-wrenching consequences with which you have to learn to live. It was a remarkable trip that I wish I could experience for the first time all over again, and I consider the trilogy to be an absolute must-own for Switch players. My Rating - AAlso available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, iOS, Android, Linux, OSX, and Windows The Banner Saga 2 picks up exactly where the first game left off, and not much has really changed. There’s no major gap in the story between the first game’s conclusion and the second game’s beginning, and the game’s mechanics and visuals are largely identical. The only change of note is that the max level for your characters has been increased from 5 to 10 which makes sense considering that they’re about to go through an entire second game’s worth of combat. The main narrative point driving this second game is the approaching apocalyptic “Darkness” that threatens to destroy everything - human, Varl, and Dredge - and seems to be unstoppable. While the first game had an uneasy atmosphere, Banner Saga 2’s atmosphere is downright foreboding with the lurking specter of global annihilation coupled with the continued pressure and attacks from the Dredge. As the overall circumstances become more desperate, so too do the situations in which your caravan finds itself. As the leader of the caravan, it’s up to you to find resolutions to these situations, and as is often the case in real life, many situations leave you little but a choice between “bad” and “worse.” I think Polygon hit the nail on the head in their review when they said “The Banner Saga 2 is intense and unrelenting in its mission to make you feel like the worst leader alive” because of the choices you’re forced to make really do feel that way. The combat is exactly the same as it was in the first game. It’s your standard SRPG affair with a team of six fighters chosen from your roster of probably WAY more characters than that. I usually ended up with three times as many fighters as I was allowed to field, and while I played on Bitch Mode (my term for Easy) keeping me from having any injuries kind of exacerbated how overstaffed my army was, the game is definitely generous with making sure you’re never lacking people to field in a fight. Partway through the game, a fourth race - the Centaur-looking Horseborn - is introduced, and this adds a new element to your combat strategy should you choose to employ your Horseborn character in combat. All in all, The Banner Saga 2 is a perfect follow-up to the original game even considering how high the original game set the bar. The game’s story continues to impress, the characters continue to develop and entertain, and the choices the game forces you to make continue to twist your soul and make you live with the consequences of your often ill-considered decisions regardless of whether those consequences are positive or negative. It’s a fantastic ride from start to finish that will leave you almost literally salivating to see how the story wraps up in the third installment. My Rating - AAlso available on Switch, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, and Windows With Catherine getting an expanded and enhanced port for PS4 and Xbox One, I was sorely tempted to pick up this definitive edition and finally see what all the fuss is about with Atlus’s tower climbing puzzle adventure. Then I remembered that I’m poor and already have the original release on 360, so I figured I’d just play that version instead of spending more money I don’t have. From what I’ve read, the re-release has another character that adds some pretty major points to the story, but whatever; beggars can’t be choosers, and public teachers in North Carolina are definitely beggars. You play as Vincent, a guy in his early 30s who’s, by all accounts, a pretty good dude but with a serious complacency problem. He’s in a long term relationship with Katerine, but while she clearly wants marriage, Vincent fits the stereotype of guy-who’s-terrified-of-commitment. Every night, Vincent meets up with his friends at the Stray Sheep bar, but one night he meets this young, flirtatious blonde named Catherine. Then, night after night, he starts having dreams about being trapped in his world full of talking sheep and being forced to climb a massive tower or die. What could this all mean? Who is Catherine? Why is everyone a sheep? The underlying theme in Catherine is order vs chaos. Most games that introduce choice mechanics are on a good vs bad dichotomy, but Catherine’s choices aren’t so cut and dry. Sometimes the choice that seems “good” will swing you towards the chaos alignment, and the choices that swing you towards the order alignment sometimes seem kind of harsh. I don’t see this as a flaw so much as a commentary that life isn’t as easily discernible as black and white as a lot of us sometimes make it out to be. For the first three quarters or so of the game, the story is fantastic. It’s got a solid romantic drama vibe going that really hooks the player and keeps them coming back to find out what happens next. The last part of the game, however, starts to weaken quickly. Once the secrets behind the game’s goings-on are revealed, it gets kind of disappointing. Not bad, per se, but much less intriguing and captivating than it had previously been. The actual gameplay starts off pretty simple to ease you into the puzzle-solving, but after the first nights, it gets downright brutal. The bosses especially can be exceptionally challenging. What I have to note, however, is that the game never feels unfair. There are enough continues that it never feels insurmountable provided that you have the perseverance to keep trying until you figure it out. You’ll need quick reflexes to solve some of the later puzzles, but it’s totally doable. Catherine was a frustrating experience at times, but it was an extremely rewarding experience. The puzzles really make you work your spatial reasoning skills, but they do so in a way that encourages you to keep trying rather than getting frustrated and giving up through checkpoints and retries. I can’t speak for the improvements and additions that were added in the PS4 and Xbox One remasters, but the original releases on PS3 and Xbox 360 are still totally worth playing in 2020, so I can only imagine that the polished and enhanced ports are even better. My Rating - B |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
March 2024
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