Banner Saga 2 Thread

Are nords too manly to talk about on Holla Forums or some shit? It's time to change that.

I heard Banner Saga was pretty mediocre aside from the art style.
Didn't know there was a sequel, though.
That's about all I know.

Combat system was ok. I wasn't too keen on how they set up the health and stats or the limited amount of enemy units but it was still decently deep tactically. The storyline was alright but you could cheese the food and followers shit too easy which took away some of the C&C they hyped. Overall I enjoyed it. Beautiful artwork in my opinion.

Frankly i didn't really like it much.
The pacing is incredibly slow, wich in itself isn't a problem, except it doesn't really lead to anything interesting happening.
The gameplay seems deep at first but it actually really isn't, it's more of a series of boring chores by the end.

Essentially this is a true 5/10 game.
Absolute mediocrity in every single aspect, it's a mediocre game made by mediocre devs that specifically caters to mediocre people.
If everything about you is utterly mediocre in every way, this is the game for you.

There is and you should play it. The first game was flawed but still good; the biggest gripe I had was how little impact the caravan had on the gameplay. That's fixed in the second; the

The gameplay and caravan are much better improved in the sequel. The caravan's clansmen now give you extra supplies during traveling as well as increasing the renown you get for victories in battles.

I'd agree that the first game didn't explore its tactical depth as far as it could have, but the sequel went a long way to doing that. With more units at higher levels, willpower and exertion become a bigger deal, plus there's a lot more combinations and different styles of units now. I've been having fun trying out different party setups on survival mode.

Really? How so? I thought the first game was rather fast-paced.


Aside from the caravan changes I mentioned, this is IMO one of the better things they delivered on in the second. Just about every surviving character has an important scene, with the last choice actually having a pretty big impact. Playing through as Rook has a lot of similar beats to playing as Alette, but still feels like a very different story with lots of unique scenes. Alette's an OP unit, but I prefer Rook's story for the heartache factor.

How did they change exertion? Are there more than two or three different enemy types in the sequel. I got sick to death of fighting the same motherfuckers every battle.

In the first game, you'd have a small willpower pool, and investing into exertion early meant sacrificing armour or strength you might need. That's not a worry They didn't really change it, but since your units all have much more exertion and willpower, you get so much more mileage out of it.
But what they did in the second game was that although units can continue to level, they keep the stat caps for each of them. e.g Since Hakon had 18 max STR in the first game, that's the same that he can ever get in this one without the use of items. All future STR points just add to one of two STR talents.
Since the enemies continue to scale, it's your use of willpower, as well as what talents you invest into and your party synergy, that makes the biggest difference.

Thankfully yes, and how. They didn't just expand the Dredge faction a lot, they also added the Horseborn and Kragsmen factions.

>Kragsmen faction is humanlike but more aggressive. Has war bears, tanky fuckers with a high damage output. If you have Eirik, you can steal one of their war bears and summon it for yourself.

Nothing much for human and varl fights, but the final climax has an interesting boss fight depending on your choice. If you choose to overthrow the king, then he and his kingsguard are the bossfight like Bellower was. He's a tanky unit who takes no damage so long as his units are on the field, and he can force all his kingsguard to attack together with his skill.

I'll also give a shoutout to Bolverk, whose berserk playstyle forces you to play very differently in his chapters than with Rook's.

The first one was pretty cool, assuming you like strategy games. Nothing incredible, but still a good time with some particularly good moments.

Haven't played the second one yet.


Maybe you just don't like strategy games much, user.

You're not alone. The second game's barely sold a tenth of the first one so far, despite being such an improvement.

It pisses me off, honestly. Do we not want good vidya to succeed?

I played it on release and was really disappointed by the ending and lack of complexity of the turn based gameplay clearly designed for tablets. Decided to replay it to prepare for the second one recently since I did not have my saves anymore, and this time around it completely felt like a chore, probably because there is a lot of waiting going on and I knew the story, which basically ends on the game blueballing us. I know they always planned to make a trilogy but for fucks sake, it has to feel satisfying on its own. The most fun I had with it was reading a steam review on release of the second one, having that exact same criticism but for the second one.

I'll still hurt myself and play it and then just wait for the third to come out, and this one better be good. The artstyle is fucking great though

I don't like cliffhangers much myself, but there was something satisfying about the first one's. You beat the main antagonist and saved your caravan, although at a tragic cost. You also got either the resolution of Rook's arc in that he puts himself on the line so his daughter can live, or the promise of a new arc where he has to rediscover his reason for being. The sequel delivers on the second, at least.

What do you think they should have done at Boersgard if they were going to end the story there?

I like strategy RPGs, so I will check it out.

it's pretty gud

I sacrificed Rook because "there is nothing worse than outliving your children" and he probably would have been miserable forever. Also I heard Alette will be the one leading the caravan once that he's dead and that people will be taking order from her, which doesn't make any sense.

Fuck, replied before reading the last sentence. Actually I feel like there should have been a proper Boersgard storyline, the game didn't handle staying in the same city for a while well, I would have wanted some more quests, fight and a diplomatic aspect to it. It almost felt like that's what they wanted to do but could not, so they added the "oh shit he's already here, he shouldn't be there yet"->boss fight->end

I wanted to sacrifice Rook because I liked him and didn't want him outliving his daughter but good lord Adelle is such a shit unit compared to him. I ended up doing both but I don't remember which choice is in my save right now.

Alette coulda been done better but she works. She gives a very different tone to Rook's, much more of a coming-of-age story, so just for that I'd recommend playing both. She gets support from Oddleif and other leaders who respect both the work she did in the caravan in the first game and also as Rook's heir. People who don't like her either leave or try manipulating her because they reckon she's much weaker than Rook was. It can work, too.

Alette is frickin' good in the sequel, don't worry. Overwatch is a good skill.


noice

A whole week of events like those would have been nice, though. A pity the devs ended up in a crunch during BS1.

Speaking of, fuck Bellower. That fight on hard mode is tough as nails every time. I love it for that, but god was he a pain to beat at first.

Did they change her skillset? I only remember vaguely that she had something about lining a shot that went through enemies and most times enemies weren't in formation for it.
A shame they took away his uber regen abilities after too many crybabies complained.
It was really hard to kill him with Adelle but Rook's skill worked wonders against him.

I know that feel, bro. Felt so fuckin' good to have a turn-based game so willing to kick me in the balls.

And no, Alette still has that 'Thread The Needle' skill. But what happens at level 6 for every character is that they get a second skill. Alette's is Overwatch, wherein she shoots at every enemy that moves across her attack range until her next turn, basically fucking up any moves they may make. What's even better, this works great with the skills of other units; for instance, if Ludin knocks an enemy away with Impale and Alette has Overwatch up, she attacks them as well. It's even better if you have Ekkil and he uses Guts to knock many enemies away at once. Pic related becomes more of a reality.

I love Rook as a unit, though, he can make a beautiful tactic emerge out of absolute nothing. He gets a new skill too, though the name escapes me. He can trigger an early Pillage, a high-risk-high-reward move that changes the turn order so each side moves all their units at once. No more waiting until there's only one unit left standing.

Alette also gets Mend if she accepts Eyvind's training to become a mender. No unit is as fluid as Rook, but she is really frickin' good.

Also, don't worry about difficulty; even if you find the main game easy, Survival Mode brings the difficulty back in spades. I'm having trouble getting through hard mode on that.

Is there another unit like that blond guy who had a unique class that excelled at tanking hits? And I mean in a sense that he had the most possibilities of dying from an event.

I myself can't afford it.

I plan on paying full price for the game as soon as I'm getting money from plasma donations again.

Alas, there's only one Gil, but he's far from the only tank. You know what I said about people getting new skills at level 6? Stone Wall can be one of them for guys like Hogun and Mogun; I'd make one of them learn it so I'd always have a tank, but Iver and Mogr were usually enough otherwise; their armour values are the best in the game, after all.

I was gonna snag it for people on the steam sale, but that's mighty good of you.

A miracle indeed. He got killed by the helmet guys on my first playthrough and I ragequitted soon after since I had to redo about 2 chapters to avoid that death.

Pick it up again. Banner Saga's a game about picking yourself back up despite your losses.

Ekkil ended up being one of my favourite characters. Poor sod has a big heart, despite being so mad. Onef can die in a fucking fire, though.