The Banner Saga Preview

There’s a new preview of The Banner Saga over at RTSGuru, based on some hands-on experience at PAX with the same segment that is currently being covered with the Let’s Play videos from Stoic. Here’s a snip:

We headed into battle on a separate field characteristic of the forest we were fighting in, and all battles look to take place on separate tactical maps themed to the area. The combat system is the same as in the free to play multiplayer The Banner Saga: Factions that came out earlier in the year. While the core game coming this fall is a single player experience, Factions serves not just as a tactical multiplayer standalone game but as a preview of what to expect from the upcoming release.

For those that never played Factions, you earn Renown from battles, which allows you to execute special abilities, determine how far you can move, and how much damage you will do. So you’ll move first, commit to that, then determine how to attack. For alette, her special ability goes in a line, so moving to line up with an enemy before he took his turn was critical. You could lengthen your battles by not expending as much Willpower and simply using regular attacks, but players should be able to find their right mix. An indicator with numbers shows exactly how much damage you’ll do to the enemy, so it’s easy enough to learn but will still bear some challenge on multiple levels.

The Dredge can spawn minions over time, so it’s important to both keep your distance from him while fighting (something my Alette had some real trouble with as he kept chasing her down) and keep watch for further enemy spawns. The battle with the Dredge took a few minutes, so it’s probably reasonable to expect that as things get more complex, with more units on the field, it will be a paced affair. That said, things felt right with the pacing of this particular fight, as Alette’s arrows and Rook’s sword whittled down the enemy’s armor and health, then that of his minion. Alette was taken down, since the Dredge took quite a liking to her and kept whacking her at close range, even though I’d consistently move her around and back. I guess her more limited movement range and how I’d line her up to use her special ability on him didn’t sit well.

After his defeat, I had another decision to make regarding our supply cart, which had been knocked out of our reach and our beast of burden was freaking out. I chose for Alette the option that maybe we could grab it without being seen if we did it fast. And that turned out to be a good decision as we gained supply, calmed our beast, and headed on our way.