[ Why I Loved It in our column we tell the games that we have not been able to get out of the effect for a long time, along with the aspects that affect us the most. ]

The Banner Saga series has its place for me. This comes from the fact that I was among the lucky minority who followed the trilogy from the first game, and that my first article in The Gamegezer was the review of The Banner Saga 3; It must be a nice twist of fate:)

The first game of the series came out in 2014 so unheard of. It was actually one of the first successful Kickstarter campaigns, so it had its own following. But as a natural consequence of being an independent production, it was one of those games that came without such big advertising campaigns, without being enthusiastically announced. Maybe that’s partly why I bonded with that first game. For myself, it was as if I had discovered a hidden treasure, a gem that not many people noticed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to tell you why this hidden treasure has affected me so much, how it has made me love him so much:

We set off under a banner…

I can’t help myself when Nors Mythology got involved, and that’s how I kind of met TBS. At the time, the Vikings weren’t as much of a topic as they are today, you know:) Naturally, I was trying to see what was infecting the North from the edge. And yet, it wouldn’t be without playing TBS.

As far as I could tell from their introduction, the game had a nice visual style, which I confirmed as soon as I started the game; So the first impression was positive. But of course, this is not enough on its own, it also has to draw you in with this kind of gameplay and story. I was wondering if you could do that, to be honest. That didn’t hold me back too long, thanks to you. From the first hours, I found myself saying, ‘This game happened’ and looking forward to seeing the final. This continued with the next two games, of course. And when I got to the final, I was happy with the joy I got from every moment of the three-game series, and I was in the spirit of sadness that it was over.

What drew me in like this whole series? Actually, there were a lot of things, and I could write pages and pages to tell them. Nors Mythology, references to current social and political developments (geopolitical developments and refugee problem), music, gameplay, even similarities to Game of Thrones can be mentioned. I can’t explain all of this at length, but let me open the door with a few short examples, and you can keep exploring the rest.

At the beginning of the game, the sudden stopping of the sun and the spread of darkness can essentially be seen as a Reference to Ragnarok. Because according to legend, a sign of ragnarok’s arrival will be the great winter (or the great night); What’s happening in our game is actually the arrival of such darkness. Can’t we make a similarity between the Giant Serpent on TBS and Jörmungandr or Níðhöggr?

For example, we were experiencing a loss similar to the shock we experienced in the first season finale of Game of Thrones in the finale of TBS’s first game (it would be more appropriate to think about the character, not the way it happened). A second resemblance comes as “Winter/Darkness is coming”, and both stories were a threat from the north. This threat transformed those who came before them and made them enemies (White Walkers vs. Distorted/Warped). For example, I can mention the throne fights in both stories; If we took the character rugga and put him on the show, he wouldn’t be any stranger, he wouldn’t grin at all, 🙂

It is also possible to compare jon snow to our main character becoming a leader step by step, gaining the respect of those around him. The decisions you made in the game had no way of pleasing everyone; You saw those of you who turned away during the adventure, and witnessed the moments when your alliances were shaken.

Let me finish this part with one last example. Bolverk’s name for the warriors he leads is Raven. Do you recognize him from somewhere?

The story of the game was a very settled and successful story, on the one hand intriguing, on the one hand, reversed with surprises, on the one hand adorned with sad details. “Why did the sun stop, what was the source of the rising darkness? Why did the Dredges, who had not been seen for centuries, suddenly appear? Why was the Giant Snake after us? Juno and Eywind were added to the questions of the main story, as well as questions about the different stories of both our main characters and other characters who appeared during the journey. Therefore, it is possible to talk about a story that draws the player in throughout the series.

TBS managed to connect me with the pleasure it offered in gameplay as well as its story. What we expected a turn-based strategy-ryo-type game to offer was generally successful. The tactical diversity in battles, the characters that develop step by step, the flow of stories branched out by preferences, and the natural consequenct of this have different endings…

It wasn’t just their role in the story that allowed us to build a strong connection with the characters, but also the roles they played in the play. Their class, their unique abilities, had a serious impact on our strategy in the wars. We had to consider factors such as the inability of those injured in the war to take part in subsequent conflicts, or the types of enemies or the atmosphere of conflict that might come across in that conflict, and we had to build our team accordingly. For which characters and in what features we will use the improvements we have, what purpose to spend (or accumulate) our resources for, the allies we will choose (or enemies), the direction we will go when we have to make a choice has always been part of a strategy, like many other things in the game. This strategic diversity, of course, also increased the enjoyment we received from the game.

One of the strengths of the TBS series is undoubtedly its music. Austin Wintory is the name behind the music that draws you into the game and makes you feel like you’re part of an epic story. The producers were well aware of that. Wintory, who made a huge contribution to the game atmosphere with his music in the first two games of the series, did not break the tradition in the last game; Listening to orchestral music playing in the background while watching paintings like paintings, which is indispensable in the TBS series, became a different pleasure in this game. It was up to us, of course, to express our gratitude to him in this regard.

From Iver’s remorseful story to Sparr’s life lessons, walking history Ubin;to our bard Aleo; Oddleif, who has become a sister to Alette; Nid, whose conditions have made him a master warrior; on the one hand, Folka;;on the one hand, Folka;’s great devotion, Eyvind’s black love, on the other hand, with the stories of other characters I can’t count here, the long story will be told in many more short ways. has been among the unforgettable series for me.