--- title: "Banner Saga" subtitle: "Video game review" author: Seth publish_date: 2025-02-14 08:00 date: 2025-02-14 08:00 hero_classes: text-light title-h1h2 overlay-dark-gradient hero-large parallax hero_image: steam-deck.webp show_sidebar: true show_breadcrumbs: true show_pagination: true taxonomy: category: blog tag: [ gaming, video game ] --- When the video game **Banner Saga** came out, one of the exciting things about it was that its sprites were all hand-drawn. From screenshots and game play footage, it looked like you'd be playing a Ralph Bakshi movie or a good Saturday morning cartoon. That seemed really cool to me, and so I bought the game on the strength of that promise. And then I didn't play it for literally 10 years. Since getting a [Steam Deck](https://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/tech-review-steam-deck), I've actually been playing games in my Steam library. Recently I finally played and finished **Banner Saga**, and these are my reflections on the game. I like to cut to the chase. It's a good game. I'd play it again, or maybe I'll try its 2 sequels. I love the mix of combat and occasional bursts of story. It does a fantastic job of mimicing tabletop wargaming. I played this game while I was on a business trip, incidentally, so I didn't have access to my physical wargaming table and miniatures, and this game bridged the gap over the course of about 20 hours of game play. ## Hand-drawn animated sprites First of all, the game does a lot to deliver on its promise of hand-drawn animation. In a surprise subversion of expectation, though, it's the dialogue scenes, which would normally be easy to pre-render, that aren't animated at all, and the combat scenes that look and feel like a Saturday morning cartoon. I imagine the hard split between still images for dialogue and animated combat was due to budget limitations and, to be fair, I didn't mind it in practise. However, it does reveal much about the structure of the game. This isn't one of those games, like [Witcher](https://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/blog_witcher-3) or [Fallout](https://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/culture_fallout-new-vegas), where you run around roleplaying until you roleplay yourself into some kind of combat. The cutscenes from Banner Saga are beautifully drawn still images. **Banner Saga** is mostly a turn-based combat system with obligatory "roleplay" scenes spliced in to string the combat together into a story. It's a wargame campaign approach, like what you'd do on the tabletop, or in video games like [Mechanicus](https://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/game_warhammer-mechanicus) approach. You'll want to play **Banner Saga** for battlefield skirmish strategy, not for story or the roleplay. ## The Banner Saga story The lore of **Banner Saga** is a kind of Midgard story about the end of the world. The sun is dying, the old gods are all but forgotten, and the world has been cast into winter. The giants and humans have formed a begrudging alliance. Their enemy is the evil Dredge, shadowy figures overtaking the Earth as the planet falls into chaos. You lead a caravan trying to find sanctuary, and along the way you must battle the forces of evil. It's a perfect setup for combat, but that's all it is. During the game, I constantly felt like I was reading a book with the first chapter missing. Characters and factions are brought into the story as if you're supposed to know who they are already. There are character conflicts that come up without any background information. The storytelling happens mostly in dialogue, and you're meant to choose a response for whatever character is being talked to. The weird thing is that you don't just play as 1 character in the game. You're playing through 2 parallel stories that, I think, intersect eventually but I'm only guessing. I honestly couldn't follow either story, which is strange because I was ostensibly the one making the plot decisions. Not only was I supposedly making plot decisions, I was theoretically effecting my caravan. Depending on choices I made as either the general guy or as Rook (the ranger), my caravan lost food and other supplies, and sometimes even soldiers. It never seemed to matter, either to plot outcomes or to my final scoring. It sounds like I'm complaining, but actually none of this bothered me. It would have been nice to understand the story more than I did, but after a few combats I was fully invested in my campaign. I recognised early on that what story this saga did have was largely an excuse to get me from battlefield to battlefield. And that's enough for this game. ## Banner Saga interface The way you interact with Banner Saga is mostly intuitive. The battlefield is where you spend most of your time, and that works exactly like every other turn-based combat system you've ever played. You move your little digital miniature, you make an attack, maybe you use a special ability. Banner Saga features turn-based combat. You're in a less intuitive mode when the caravan stops to camp. While you're camping, you get a map view of the immediate area (which of course, like everything in **Banner Saga**, is beautifully drawn). You can click on some tents (or buildings, in a city) to enter a sub-menu where you build your skirmish teams, or enter dialogue scenes, and so on. I could never figure out what was click-able without way too much hunting with my cursor, and I never quite knew what to expect. Navigating a campsite can be confusing. I enjoyed building my skirmish teams, but (get ready for a humble brag) I didn't notice that I was earning upgrade points until midway through the game. This isn't the first time this has happened to me. In fact, I frequently play through half a video games as a 1st level character before realising that some flashing icon off in a corner is trying to tell me to level up. It's a sort of accidentaly self-imposed hard mode (which is cenvenient, because I rarely actually play on hard mode). That's what I did with **Banner Saga**, but once I did learn how to upgrade stats it was a lot of fun to do. You also find relics and wargear along the way, which you can assign to different characters to give them boosts or special abilities. Over all, the game is basically intuitive, and probably as I play more of these kinds of games I'll become used to some of the conventions I'm still new to now. ## Play Banner Saga Clunky storytelling aside, individual personalities within **Banner Saga** do start to emerge. When you get stuck with Rook and his daughter Alette, it's a little jarring, but the more time you spend with them, the more you get a feel for their plight and their love for one another. They eventually became my favourite characters, entirely for their story (such as it is) rather than for their combat abilities. Some parts of **Banner Saga** are a little unsteady and awkward, but the game as a whole is impressive and a lot of fun. It didn't take long for me to become fully invested in my campaign. I couldn't put it down, and I'll never forget the final battle, which I legitimately didn't think I could win. I played it so many times, with so many configurations of my warband, and I was very close to just deciding that it was a game I would never finish. Until I fought on, and defeated the Dredge. What a moment of relief and triumph, and as my little army marched onward after the final battle, it was with pride that I saw how long our banner had become. The titular banner of **Banner Saga** is a tradition in the game world. Armies carry a banner with the tales of their victories written upon them. After waging a war that stretches for miles, your army's banner will extend the length of your caravan. And frankly, you're going to feel proud.

Header photo by Valve.