Reviews

• 

  Yewsprit

  Jan 27, 2022

  Itsa good, yes.
• 

  Peace

  Jan 8, 2023

  The story is good and I am playing through just to finish it off... But, the devs made terrible design choices and the game runs terribly on my Alienware R4 laptop. Design choice problems: in a game about choices, most of the important stuff that happens is based exclusively on a single dialogue choice made at a single point in the story and generally seems like a meaningless choice at the time. These sorts of dialogue choices can lead to perma dead characters or near impossible to overcome circumstances. I'm fine with these situations if all my choices resulted in them; however, having a single choice determine the entire game and never being able to rectify that choice shows just how basic the "choice" system is in this game. The devs also clearly have "right" choices and "if you do not choose what we perceive as the ethical choice then you must suffer" choices. Again, this is poor story writing. The game also runs like trash. It crashes every hour or so. I have checked files and redownloaded to no avail. This did not happen with the other versions and considering this is the only game of the three that is not mobile, I imagine it is a programming problem and likely another reason they have been weird about porting this like they did with the others. Ultimately I am disappointed with how these devs did their product dirty at the finish line. I am still finishing the game, but my opinion will definitely not change.
• 

  BOXman

  Jan 14, 2023

  The fact they made THREE. 3. The number after 2. And still did not make a single change to the design that is still flawed is insane to me. -Story: This is meant to be the end, the entire conclusion to this dozens-of-hours-long saga. And it fails to conclude or answer questions that fit or make sense. For example, the entire apocalyptic event that threatens the entire world and universe was created by LOVE... By two people. Who knew how dangerous the thing they did was. Yet because of love, they said screw it let's just damn everyone who isn't us. I'm not accepting this as a valid reason no matter what. This is a cheap and lazy way to explain why this event even happened. I would have preferred if they kept it as a prophecy; It would have fitted better. Remember the choices you made back in Banner Saga 1? Well, guess what, depending on your choices of previous games, you may be completely locked out of the good ending. Or worst yet, your strongest or favourite character DIES. Now let's use our brains for a second. Let's say that you are now me. You have bought the game on Steam and you did play two. The reason you haven't also purchased the first game is that you already have it on your phone. So now I am forced to watch ROOK my main strong archer, die before my eyes because I didn't pick up a dredge baby in the first game. How did nobody see how flawed and ridiculous that design is? Every game costs $30. Meaning for me to save Rook and guarantee that he will reach the end. I would have to repurchase the first game. Play it for hours, then continue to play the second game. AND THEN COME BACK TO THE THIRD GAME. Approximately 70 hours of just pure pain. And wasted $90. ALL OF THIS IS JUST TO SAVE A SINGLE ARCHER. Continuing the subject of choices; the game still lacks any hints or valid reasons for the consequences that I made based on the choices I was allowed to choose from. Sometimes picking something can kill a character for no reason or destroy your morality. You have no way of knowing which choice will do what unless you look up the answers. And that ruins immersion and fun. -Gameplay: Now this is the most painful subject to talk about for the reason I am truly baffled that no changes were made. Even though the community has expressed many times how broken and unfun the combat is. They still didn't make a single change to fix the problem with the original design. If you do not know how the combat system works I'll try to explain. Your health bars are your damaged output. So each time you get hit, your damage is lowered for the amount of health you have. Your blue bar (Armour) is how much you can decrease from an attack. By that logic, each time you get hit you are weaker. since the start of every turn (you go, then the enemy goes); You will ALWAYS get hit, and so will the enemy. The only thing that stops hits is RNG stats for dodging or absorbing hits. Meaning you are forced to hit the enemy first by all means. Because strategy or tactics is impossible to do because you keep getting weaker. So you have to throw your characters at the enemy to make them weaker as well. That isn't fun. That is boring and infuriating. You can't improve your combat skills if only one strategy works, and it is by throwing characters at enemies and lowering their damage. It is a masochistic combat. Conclusion: Just infuriating combat with a weak conclusion to a series I was a fan of, so much so, I even bought the damn novel. 1/5
• 

  Lets Fuck Brandon

  Jul 28, 2018

  Banner Saga 3 is in my opinion the weakest of the series. The game in itself is enjoyable, however it does not feel up to the standards of the the first games. As someone who has replayed the first Banner Saga at least 4 times and the Banner Saga 2 5 times, gaining all achievements and level 5 steam badges, it is clear that I am invested in the series. Having fallen in love with the artstyle from the days of Factions, I eagerly awaited both the second and third games. Banner Saga 3 has issues, in my binge playthrough from 6pm to 1am (what a loser right) I encountered several graphical bugs, one of which ruined the climax for me and three random loading screen crashes as well as inability to unlock certain achievements. What makes the other 2 better than this is the pacing of the story, the scenery and variety in battlefields and enemies. 3's landscape is oppressive and dull, taking place in the walled bastion of Arberrang or the outside world, twisted and engulfed by the darkness, these wear their welcome out far sooner than the beautiful nordic-fantasy landscape the first two games took place in. Dialogue felt more spaced out and while some lead to interesting character development points, others clearly were only present to tie up inconsistencies. The ever-expanding character roster gains dredge, giving the player control of the enigmatic enemy of man, the dredge were one of the few refreshing aspects of the game however, legendary titles being the other. Some character interactions felt forced and the expansion of the roster means less time is spent with each of the characters. The combat is repettetive, but the wave mechanic is appreciated as you can now swap out injured units at mid points in battles. Having ridiculously high expectations for the game I was bound to be disappointed by anything that was not perfect, maybe I'll enjoy the game more once the rose tinted nostalgia goggles come off and I accept this game for what it does right, instead of comparing it to the sum of the series' three parts. In conclusion I'd recommend this game to any who have played the first two. **Edit I wrote this while sleep deprived and drunk, having accidentally deleted my first review and I've noticed I'd left things out. In retrospect I enjoyed the game more than my review let on.**
• 

  Milky

  Jul 28, 2018

  Here we are, at the end of all things. The Banner Saga 3 is the fittingly apocalyptic conclusion to the epic Banner Saga trilogy. I'll cover this without spoilers. In many ways, TBS3 is weaker than TBS1 and TBS2. Ultimately, it relies on your previous investment in the world and characters to establish and maintain your interest. Everything from the first two games is here -- the amazing art, the great music, the intriguing story, wonderful cast and, yes, the rather bland combat. The whole trilogy has struggled with the combat. In TBS1, they were still trying to get a hang of their unique formula. In TBS2, I feel they innovated on it and the combat is much moreinteresting. TBS3 is more of the same, better than TBS1 but not hitting the highs of TBS2. In many ways, the combat in TBS3 is by far the least interesting part of the game. Frequently, I found myself just wanting to skip it and get back to making decisions and seeing how my decisions over the previous two games played out. The new enemies aren't very interesting to fight at all which is perhaps some of the reason why the combat drags. Similarly, the wave combat mechanic doesn't really do much but make the battles longer. Without spoilers, I'll say the story both suceeds at what it sets out to do, creating an appopriately apocalyptic feel with many and many of your decisions coming home to roost, inspiring me to do another set of playthroughs at a later date. At the same time, the story passes by entirely too quickly. With all the combat, the game feels slow. With the general pace of the story, too fast. The overall tone and experience is wonderfully apocalyptic, though. Bad things will happen, characters will die, choices will be made, and none of it felt cheap or random. All in all, what's there is great but the writing feels a touch weaker (some stuff could use an edit for clarity, for example) and TBS3 feels disjointed coming right off the cliffhanger ending of TBS2. But I was satisfied with the ending I reached, so, that's all that matters. I would not say I'm satisfied with the overall story, however, and expected more answers, detail and information from the final part of the series. The problem with TBS3 is that, in many ways, it feels like this series never reached the potential I feel it could have. Since TBS2, the series has been dogged by a feeling of unrealised potential. I do not know whether this arised from budgetary issues, time, changes in the creative staff, or what -- but it's been a consistent feeling. This is a fascinating world and great set of characters tied to a game which, while pretty, is probably the weakest part of it. This is very obvious in TBS3 where, for much of the game, you just watch your caravan trundle up and down the walls of the capital city. On the other hand, the central mechanic of switching between Rook/Alette and the defenders there, and Ivar's caravan is really quite effective. To go along with that missing potential, the game feels truncated. Abrupt. In a hurry to reach the finish line. This is perhaps why the combat feels worse this time around, simply because it feels, more than before, it is there to extend the playable hours. But by my count, this is the quickest playthrough across the trilogy by around 2-3 hours. That feeling of abruptness is enhanced by the fact that there are many loose threads and questions that never felt appropriately answered. The increased voiceovers, particularly in the ending, make me wish for a series which could've done more, had more. Additionally, this is the first of the TBS games where I've noticed weird perfomance drops (fixed by a program restart), multiple crashes (three in nine hours), and some minor -- if annoying -- bugs. Nothing horrible but, again, contribues to that feeling of being rougher than previous entries. All in all, this is a solid ending to a saga that alternated between running and stumbling. It doesn't faceplate at the finish line, like some other RPG trilogies we can think of, but it feels like it staggers, happy for it to be over. This is, ultimately, worthy closure for anyone who loved the first two games. When the credits rolled, I felt satisfied with Rook's journey -- which, given some of the consequences he experienced, is high praise. Am I unhappy with my purchase? No. If you played TBS1 and 2, you owe it to yourself to pick it up, and this game gets a definite thumbs-up from me. But I do think I grieve for what might've been.
• 

  polestar5555555555

  Aug 5, 2018

  I am japanese. But i can not understand The Banner Saga 3 japanese translation (><). Very,very very poor tanslation !! Please fix it quickly.
• 

  Billy_of_Astora

  Aug 9, 2018

  “We almost had it all…” © No, it’s not about the characters in the game, as you may have guessed. It’s about the devs of this game, who managed to hit the jackpot with their first game of the trilogy, but then let it slip right through their fingers down the road. They say that even their first game was not successful in terms of commerce, and that was actually quite sad, because in terms of both art and gameplay it was solid, to say the least. Although, interestingly enough, the following commercial unsuccessfulness of the second game wasn’t tied to the content or quality either, but rather to a general disinterest of the modern players in such kind of games. And this is where a public image of the second and, most certainly, the third game goes wrong. Because these last two games of the trilogy were not even on the same level as the first one, but nobody got to address this thanks to the much more obvious cause of commercial failure, namely an average joe being bored with texts and turn-based combat. So all those people who did buy the second and the third game liked them anyway, at least most of them. This must mean that these games were actually good in their own niche, right? Sadly, it’s a little more complicated than that, and that’s what I want to talk about. I don’t wanna talk about the combat, the leveling, the decision making or any of the numerous minor issues of BS3 that may seem substantial, because for the most part there is little to no point in discussing any of it. You played or will play the game and see it all for yourself. There really is no controversy to be had there. The combat is still good, and with more instruments added it’s unsurprisingly much better than in previous games. The leveling also got another layer of depth, just as BS2 did, so your characters would get stronger still, but by a different mean. And this is awesome. So in terms of the game mechanics BS3 is solid. And the things like a character’s face and clothes are getting burned, but his image in the dialogues is staying the same as before – well, there is nothing to be argued about here either, the devs just didn’t make a corresponding artwork for whatever reason. It’s not good, but it is what it is. And traveling through the darkness feels rushed and boring for the most part, but I doubt there will be a lot people who would think otherwise. And characters’ faces look cheap in the animated scenes, and I could continue this on and on. But instead I wanna talk about why the first game was so good and what standards had it set up for the sequels, which they have failed to stand up to. What was the first thing that caught our eye in the first game? Right in the very beginning, when we were still overwhelmed by the numerous characters? It was the map of the world. Imagine the moment you opened your favorite fantasy book for the first time. What was usually the first thing you saw there? It was the map of the world you were about to discover. You knew nothing about it yet, but you most probably spent a fair amount of time looking at it before actually starting to read. It was usually a magic moment almost impossible to forget, once experienced. And this is the main reason why BS1 managed to hook you up right from the beginning, by making the same promise your favorite books did back in the days. So after approximately an hour into the game you found yourself reading names of all the hills and rivers of the tapestry world, trying to guess in which direction the story will take you next, and what landmarks you will get to see. The map itself was drawn fantastically well, which made the process of examining it even more charming. It was absolutely the same as reading a book, while looking at the map printed on the endpaper from time to time to see the places story had already taken you to, and then the places it might take you to in the future. And you were most probably just imagining yourself places you thought you won’t get to see. But we did get to see a reasonable part of the map in BS1. That is, considering we were told it was meant to be a 1/3 of the whole saga, at least back in those days when we thought it was gonna be a saga for real. See, that’s our problem right there. The first game of the trilogy started as a saga, literally. We got to visit fundamentally different locations, followed by the fact that story unfolded in a unique way in each of those. Therefore we were led to believe a great journey was ahead of us. But, unfortunately, that was not the case. This whole saga concept was dropped in the second game already. Your caravan still moved forward, but the checkpoints on the map you visited were those unique adventures no more. There was only one adventure – at the very end, and the rest of the game you just ran through bla-bla-bla whatever. You weren’t even looking at the map like before, because there was nothing happening in the world anymore. The world itself became a distant and unimportant decoration, because everything that did happen throughout the game could be happening just anywhere. Your position on the map became completely irrelevant to the story, and so the map itself became obsolete. With that in mind, devs just made you travel the distance greater than the one you travelled previously, but in almost twice less playtime, burying all those landmarks you were dreaming to visit as you go on fast forward. And, finally, here comes BS3. It’s a lot shorter than the previous ones. And, furthermore, approximately half of it is a super boring journey through endless stone spikes, floating in the air, with no caravan mechanics and with almost nothing happening along the way. So it is understandable why so many people felt this game had let them down. But I think that damage was done before the third game was even announced. Because by that time the saga has already ended. Or, in other words, it never actually continued, despite the encouraging message “saga continues” at the start of both BS2 and BS3. And by the time BS3 was on its way we already knew the tapestry world was gone, and the initial promise of discovering the world had been broken. And that, in my opinion, is the primary flaw of the whole series. That is what I think displeases people the most. Yes, I agree that BS3 feels cheap in a lot of ways, but our expectations were already wounded so deeply we couldn’t care less about how good the third game actually was. Because any pain it could possibly give us was by default far less painful than the one we were experiencing already. And that is why I personally was able to play through BS3 with relatively high enjoyment, but that enjoyment came mainly from the tactical side of the game. I know that people are calling it shallow and too easy, but It’s not an xcom or ja, and if you haven’t got a perfect save, and/or an overpowered pre-order character, and/or you are playing on hard, and you want to try out different characters and skill combinations, than there is surely some solid fun to be had in combat. All in all, the trilogy is no garbage by any means. Most probably, with excellent artwork and semi-hardcore battles being its major strong points. But the caravan management part, the part we were excited about the most, actually, turned out to be a joke. And telling people the game’s gonna be something it actually won’t has a price, and that price is a negative review. P.S. I’m not the only one who remembered how darkness looked like at the end of the first game, with the eclipse and fairy trees, and had a feeling that devs abandoned their initial concept somewhere along the way, am I?
• 

  G4unT M0tHrF@#%&R!

  Sep 2, 2018

  This is a spoiler free review to vent off my frustration and disapointment at the conclusion of this epic saga. If you read this, you have probably played TBS 1 and 2, so going into detail about the gameplay would be meaningless. Let's see what's new : - 5 new ranks (levels) offering further customization of your class with new passive abilities. - Heroic titles, granting extremely powerful passive abilities to up to 10 characters. - Wave battles. After some battles, you'll have the choice to stay and fight for additionnal renown / loot, or flee and go on with the story. Note : The training feature has been removed altogether, to fit the theme of impending doom. That's it. It could be great, but here's my issues with these systems : - New ranks : Well, that was mandatory. But the fact that your characters only gains new passive abilities makes for some boring character progression. Nothing new is added to the table in term of strategy. Still, a few new classes ("Special characters", more than classes) are added to the roaster to counterbalance this. Still, at some point in the game, you're loosing the feeling that promotion is a meaningfull event when you get "10 % chance to avoid STR damage" as an upgrade. Since the game is short (Around 8-9 hours, with very battles), odds are you'll never even get to see some of these passive works. - Heroic titles : Each titles are unique, and can be granted to heroes of rank 10+. these ranks can be upgraded 5 times, and some of them grant extremely powerful bonuses. Others are just pretty useless. But the fact that these titles are unique, and that some characters can die in story related events means you could loose a really strong title if you granted it to the wrong person (Hello Egil. Remember how the Dev hates you ?). I lked this addition to the game, although this feature could have benefited from more polish. - Wave battles : This is where it gets ugly. This feature does not fit the theme of the game, or even the gameplay, at all. At all time, an event can pull you in battle when your party isn't ready. This means you have to play carefully. Extending battles is counterproductive when you have no idea what will be thrown at you next, especially when the rewards are insignificant. More renown to spend on passive abilties ? Another item ? You'll get enough items by the end of the game to equip everyone with god like powers without ressorting to this. The risk is never worth the reward. - Training camp removed : I can understand the decision, but still : The game is so short, it would have been nice to set pauses in the story just so we could battle "for fun", without wondering if the casualties will impact the next battle. Also, since there are new classes, I would have enjoyed the opportinity to try new strategies in a safe environnement. I also think it's worth saying that survival mode is not even present in this game. Now, the story. This point is what motivates the writing of this review. Again, spoilers ahead. For story-based game, so short, the game does little to feed the player's expectations. Questions are answered, yes, but little more is done to provide a feeling of satisfactory conclusion. Some points can even be considered plot holes, or an example of shallow writing. Bolverk : I hated Bolverk in TBS2. You had to suffer playing this obnoxious protagonist until the end of the game, just for him to be possessed by Bellower. This could have brought some character devellopement, but sadly, Bolverk is absent for most of the story. He plays the role of the silent stalker, and re-appears as the last boss. And YES, this is Bolverk. Not Bellower. What happened there ? When players confront him, it is made extremely clear that this is him speaking and not Bellower. Even the last battle do not feature the shadow of bellower over him like in the last game. What happenned to him body ? Why isn't he in control ? What happenned to him after Bolverk's defeat ? If Bolverk is in control, he has few reasons to go after the party. Shallow writing. Bolverk was proeminent in two games, but barely had a character arc. - Rugga : a lot of the story revolves around Rugga. Siding with him or not is presented as a major choice, but it barely impacts the story. - The dredges : A lot about them is explained, and this is a high point of the storyline in my opinion. Still, the game does not deal with the fact that dredges are present in the city alongside humans, except to describes chaos. - Playable character deaths : Some characters death are described so quickly that you'll have to check your hero page to see if you read the text correctly. I read a line about Egil being stabbed while protecting Alette, and that's it. No reaction from Alette. The character is never even mentionned after this line. His death is only confirmed by his removal from the party roster. - The ending : Here we are. I never played mass effect 3. And I always considered the reaction to the endings to be over the top. Now I get it. the last chapter let you between 3 endings, as a list of choices. You prior decisions do not seem to matter. Once you've chosen, you'll be granted with a video, a short epilogue that is way too impersonnal, and roll credits. 20 years ago, Baldur's gate gave us a scrolling text detaling our party members life after the conflict. That's all what was needed here. So many things are left unresolved by the end, this is utterly frustrating. Let's remember : This is SHORT game that is all about the story. Players do not need a 100000 $ cinematic to be satisfied. A background and some text would have been enough. We're not even treated to that. Worst thing : If you let both main character die, you get treated with an extra ending. Really emotionnal, beautiful... For what is basically the wrong path to take. Seriously ? - Will Ludin take is responsabilities as king ? - What became of Eyvind ? (Like... He is a proven madman with the power to drain the light of the sun... Is it alright to let him be ?), - And Alette ? What's her fate after the battle ? Will she have sex with Oddleif ? (Ok, that's a personnal fantasy, move along). - Whatever happenned to Bolverk / Bellower ? Bellower is supposed to be immortal. - Are the humans ready to have peace with the dredges ? - Will Oli explore his weaving abilities ? (Yeah, right) - Will the ravens be considered heroes and exploit their heroic deeds for fame and fortune ? - Insert ANY character here. You get the point. Sure, this could be explored in TBS 4, but we're not there yet. The personnal stories could have been closed to wrap everything in a bow. At this point I'm not sure I want to play TBS 4. The only thing this kind of production has going for it is the story, and they blew it. The art is still wonderful, the music as well, but this is not enough when it's in the service of an ending that has been slapped together.
• 

  G00N3R

  Oct 2, 2018

  Banner Saga 3 is the final game in the trilogy developed by Stoic, where a group of Viking style warriors fight to protect civilians from an army of stone creatures called Dredge, and a mysterious darkness that is creeping across the land. The good • The turn based combat system functions in the same way as the previous games. If you haven’t played Banner Saga before, basically you’ll choose a party of 6 heroes and in each battle you’ll fight against between 6 and 10 enemies. You alternate turns with the CPU, moving one character each around a battlefield that is divided up into a square grid. Every character has strength, armour, and willpower. Strength represents both their health and their damage potential, so a character who is close to death will inflict almost no damage on an enemy. If the attacker’s strength is less than the defender’s armour, they probably won’t be able to damage their strength, so its often a good idea to weaken armour first. Willpower can be spent to move further around the battlefield, increase the damage of an attack, or to activate a special move. • One important change from the previous games is that when you fight a battle against multiple waves of enemies, you now have the chance between waves to withdraw injured characters and replace them with others who are at full strength. This allows you to make full use of a big roster, instead of having characters sitting around doing nothing. • There’s a new enemy type that has been warped by the darkness, which adds a further tactical twist to some fights. • The story is pretty intense. Alette/Rook has to protect the city of Arberrang from threats both external and internal, while Iver tries to find a way to stop the darkness. Stoic did a great job of making me feel like I was involved in a desperate last stand. Right up until the very last moment, I was never sure if anybody was actually going to survive. • You’ll frequently encounter story events where you need to make a choice, for example planning tactics ahead of a battle, and resolving conflicts between different factions within Arberrang. Your choices can affect the story, and the safety of the civilians you’re responsible for protecting, and its rarely obvious what the best choice is. • There are four endings, ranging from success, to complete failure. • It took me just over 11 hours to finish the campaign, so value for money is good. The bad • The ending is a bit anticlimactic. Its just like “congratulations you won, roll credits”. There is a post credit scene, but its still not enough. It feels like it ends about five minutes too soon. After spending 35 hours with these characters across the trilogy, and stressing out about whether my decisions were going to get everybody killed, I needed more time to enjoy my victory, to talk to the survivors, ask them what they plan to do now, and just generally get a sense of closure. • I suffered from four crashes/freezes on loading screens. Two of them happened immediately after completing battles, but before an autosave, which resulted in me having to replay those battles. • There’s still no option to sell unwanted loot. You have one resource (renown) which is earned by killing enemies and winning battles, and spent to level up heroes, buy loot which provides combat bonuses, and buy food for your civilians. I acquired some items that I just didn’t want to use (for example if they had a negative combat bonus), so I wish I could sell them, even if only for a day’s worth of food. The recommendation Banner Saga 3 is a very good game, and if you enjoy a well written story, and/or a tactical combat system, you should definitely play it. Its worth a full price purchase, but it might be wise to wait for a couple more patches. As this is the final part of a trilogy, you’ll definitely need to play the previous games first, or else you won’t understand the story. Fortunately, those two games are excellent and you can pick them up for a bargain price on a sale (they’re worth full price though).
• 

  Kroem

  Oct 28, 2018

  First off, this is by no means a horrible or non-functional game. However it is much shorter than the first two installments, the story ends very abruptly without much closure, there are none of the interesting combat challenges of the 2nd game and the survival mode has been carved off into paid DLC. Therefore, I don't think this really represents a value for money offering.
• 

  OrionThePunter

  Nov 26, 2018

  Lots of people have spoken about the gameplay and stuff like that. I'm not going to. I just want to say this: my measure of a good game, a good SERIES, is if, once I'm finished with it I begin looking for something similar to it to fill the void, I come up empty-handed. This series has given me that experience. There's nothing else quite like it. I know that as a review, its far from objective or balanced, but I've written what would convince ME to buy a game. Play this series if you haven't already.
• 

  Dan

  Dec 19, 2018

  i recommend this only to ppl who liked the first 2 games, because imo, this is the weakest of the 3.
• 

  WinterSachi

  Dec 25, 2018

  Oh boy, The Banner Saga is one of my favourite game series so far. Parts 1 and 2 are outstandish - with beautiful art, tragic story and very engaging tactic battles. However! While first two parts are something out of this world, the third installment isn't as great. True, it's an okayish conclusion, and I kinda (kinda!) like it but the game still has some issues: 1) Big amount of unnecessary animated cutscenes without proper timing which makes them a big pile of very quick videos. So... Why? I like how they did with the final scene in the first part [spoiler](the one where Rook or Alette dies and is buried)[/spoiler]. This one is pseudo-animated but has way more atmosphere and charm than all of these weird animated cutscenes. 2) Eyvind, Juno and Ravens plotline is a mess. It has core, some interesting dialogues, scenes, battles but overall it's just a mess. Most of characters have lost their charm completely, and you're not as interested in their fates as you were in previous installments. HOWEVER! The devs has made a perfect job with an Alette/Rook plotline. It's so cool, emotional and nerve-racking that I felt soooo sad [spoiler]when they all died in my playthrough[/spoiler]. 3) "Your choice matters" thing here is hit or miss. In some situations it's cool [spoiler](especially considering that almost all characters can die if you're very unlucky)[/spoiler], in others makes you questioning, especially when the imported save messed up your amount of clansmen and supplies and you're screwed. Plus, c'mon, it's not that hard to persuade Eyvind to do you-know-what-thing in the end - I was expecting at least some challenge. 4) The ending looks cool on paper but a little bit weird in the game itself. It's... well... messy. And quick-paced. [spoiler]5) Wtf is wrong with Bolverk? Was he posessed? Was he what? Why wasn't he warped? What is going on? He was so good in part 2 but then it all went downhill.[/spoiler] So! Overall the art and music are still top notch but the story becomes messy from time to time - especially in Eyvind, Juno and Ravens plotline, however I'm more or less satisfied with what I've got. Could have been better, could have been worse...
• 

  maniacO

  Jul 17, 2019

  This is it. The end of a saga. What a great underrated game. Thanks Stoic for this amazing story. This review will talk about the 3 games. I gotta say that when I bought The Banner Saga (first one) I didn't expect much but I got addicted instantly. I loved the gameplay and combat system. The travels and the stories along the way were awesome. The only problem if it is a problem at all was the fewer battles that the game had, since the combat system was so good I wanted more. The Banner Saga 2 was an improvment. We start to see the real threat in the story and we try to survive and make hard choices along the way. More combat than the previous entry also. And finally The Banner Saga 3 where we get to know the end to this beautiful saga. Lots of combat, hard choices, sacrifice and intense moments until the end. For a kickstart project that I heard back in 2014 I will never regret buying all these games. I hope I conviced you to buy this game. If you like chill night games, turn based combat, survival, choice making, good OST and great lore then this game fits that description.
• 

  The Hermit Gamer

  Apr 27, 2020

  Beautiful world building. Incredible writing and narrative. Interesting, fresh, engaging, but somewhat flawed combat system. This is a game that I will remember, and I'm glad I invested my time in it. If you are into strategy turn based combat, impactful decision-making, and a fantastic story, you should definitely play this trilogy. Pros: - Incredibly good lore - Excellent writing & dialogue - Interesting combat system that is both fun and frustrating, but ultimately engaging & compelling - Art work and animation style is beautiful (May not be everyone's cup of tea, especially if you're partial to high end CGI heavy games) Cons: - Decisions are impactful which is good, BUT, it is very hard to tell which decisions will not screw you over - Combat system encourages strange behaviour such as leaving most enemies alive but extremely weakened so that the turn base system doesn't favour the stronger enemies FINAL SCORE: 8/10 8/10 -
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  Kain Klarden

  Jun 7, 2020

  My relationship with The Banner Saga has always been weird. I liked the world and the story, yet I never cared much about the gameplay at all. So, every time I’ve played one, it was considerably late and after serious self-motivation. After all, I did want to learn how this Saga ends. And sadly, just like with previous entries, I’m left conflicted after playing the game. First thing of note is that just like with the second game, there is no good reason to start playing this game without importing save files from the previous one. This is a story in 3 volumes, not several self-contained stories that complement each other. Even the almost 3 year gap between me playing the previous game and starting this one was confusing enough, not knowing the story and the characters will lead to an even worse experience. Either way, if you’re not familiar with The Banner Saga, it’s a weird mix of The Oregon Trail, interactive fiction and turn-based tactics with a visual style reminiscent of Ralph Bakshi and Don Bluth animated features and set in a North mythology inspired world that is dying. So what you usually do in the game is watch as your caravan moves from location to location, occasionally stumbling upon encounters that require player choice with an inevitable consequence either right away or hours (and games) later, and also often being pulled into the turn-based combat. You manage the morale and rations for the caravan, the hero characters who participate in combat and can be upgraded or injured during combat and you make choices, some of which can lead to some of those hero characters dying forever. As before, The Banner Saga 3 is strongest when it focuses on its main story and the lore. And while I personally found one of the biggest revelations of the whole series to be somewhat lackluster, the conclusion to the overall story was good. It was also nice to see lots of characters, some present since the very first game, explored further and showing their growth and change. The visual style is stunning, rare animated sequences look great, music is fitting, occasional voice acting is solid. Gameplay-wise, it’s more or less the same as before as well, but with more tiny variations and class skills. As usual, I’m not into this sort of gameplay, so I’ve played on Easy and brute-forced most of the combat, so I’m not one to give an opinion on it. But I did find some of the changes and additions to be nice. And it’s also nice that this time around, combat can influence the fate of the characters, even if it’s somewhat rare and still doesn’t account any character nuances, just a simple – win/lose check. Overall, the game felt like it suffered from being another separate entry, though. There were moments where characters yet again died unceremoniously, described in one short sudden sentence and never mentioned again. And moments where the game goes “remember when…” and references something that happened several games and many many simplistic and often forgettable encounters before. And even though it did do the “your choices will boil down to numbers” thing far better than Mass Effect 3 many years ago (somewhat ironic given the roots of Stoic Studio), the whole ending section didn’t have as much of an impact as it wanted to have. I liked the Saga as a whole, yet, I can’t say that I would easily recommend it. It’s certainly unique and its world and visual style are fantastic. But is it worth the time investment of playing it in the end? I’m not sure.
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  vram1974

  Jun 30, 2020

  I might be able to overlook the frequent freeze bug during loading screens that forces you to alt-ctrl-del and restart the game IF and only IF you were allowed to save whenever you want. Since you can't save whenever you want and you are at the mercy of the autosave system, you can lose 30-40 minutes of progress due to this bug, which wasn't present in the previous two titles (which I gave a thumbs up for). Since this game is therefore officially buggy, it gets the red thumbs down.
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  Thawrn, Sleep Seeker

  Jul 10, 2020

  I came back to edit this review, and I have done my best to keep the ranting to a minimum while still voicing my intense frustrations clearly and passionately. I switched it from not recommended to recommended, but it only made it to recommended by the hair of its chinny chin chin. The game part of this is embarassingly poorly made when compared to the first two. I would not be proud to have been in charge of the updates. I know I am coming off probably overly harsh, but it's 2 years after launch and it's still glitchy, buggy, and a pain in my entire neck to slog through. As in, I switched to easy mode to cut the battle tries and retries (when it crashes, and it kept on crashing up until the end) down to a 30 minute minimum, but I still hit a record 14 restarts total and half of my game time spent catching back up to where the game crashed. After all that, I finally finished it. I know this is where some of you will say ''well why didn't you leave it at not recommended if you're so upset and angry and yada yada yada?'' But oh my god it's worth it, if only to feel the vindication of your choices carrying such heavy weight in the story. The story makes it worth it. I just wish the game part of this video game was worth a nickel of what I paid (decent price and I am satisfied with my purchase). It's like what those choose your story games Wish they could be. The story mechanics of this game and number of possibilities make my mouth water. I might actually go back and replay the first two again actually. But this one was just. EA and Bethesda have left a bad taste in my mouth for unfinished games. So when I perceive that a game's code just wasn't finished/smoothed over properly, or last minute changes got made and I wind up paying for it (with time) I get disproportionately upset. The bugs in this game are so simple that it's frustrating. Anyway Banner Saga's story is skald-worthy and you should play the first two and subject yourself to the third one for dark souls-level vindication. But not from skill pride, but from the pride of your actions in this fantastic world.
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  ChakLong

  Jul 16, 2020

  Still can't finish the game after 2 years because the game softlocks me with loading screens that never finish. It always happens after I spend half an hour playing and because the game has no manual saves for some reason, all that time is wasted and I start back at a random point in the game. And when I try again, it just happens again and that's another hour gone.
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  Burn

  Sep 25, 2020

  It’s part 3 of the trilogy, so if you didn't play the previous two, then don't play this game. But if you did play them and want to know the finale of the story, then, of course, you should definitely play this game. However, I'm disappointed with the abrupt ending and no epilogue ... anyways, if you take a step back and look at the trilogy as a whole, you will truly appreciate the whole greatness of this saga. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2180399200 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2166647804