On top of deciding when to spend your precious Willpower and where to assign your damage ( Armor or Strength) you must also decide which troops to take into battle and how to improve them. Letting your troop rest instead of moving or attacking will regenerate some Willpower, but Vikings cannot always afford to be so peaceful.Įarlier I mentioned customizable troops. Willpower is a set of special points that allow your troops to do extra things on their turn such as moving an extra square or dealing an extra point of damage. So while the overall system is simple (Move, attack Armor or attack Strength) there lies in waiting a surprising amount of depth. Another interesting note is that there is absolutely no healing or recovering in a fight so if your poor little viking raider is on his way to visit his ancestors, he better try and leave a big enough impact for his companions to avenge him. Every point of armor that is above the attacker’s strength also increases the chance they will miss, so the real tanky units of the game will be almost impossible to deal damage to at all if their armor is not brought down first. However, since your potential damage is reduced for every point of armor the defender has, it might be a good idea to take some of that armor out first. If you manage to bring somebody down a few points not only are they closer to dying but they are going to be able to inflict less pain on you come their turn. Armor is a simple abstraction for blocking or reducing damage dealt with the formula being Strength – Armor = Damage. The more strength a soldier has then the hardier they are and the harder they hit. Strength in Banner Saga Factions is a stat that combines both HP and damage dealing potential. Move your Viking, attack if possible, choose a target and whether you want to do damage to their strength or their armor. Playing the game is easy as can be as players take alternating turns ordering the troops one at a time. The premise is pretty simple, two players meet on the field of battle with their customized army of 6 units and do battle with only one side walking away the victor (or alive for that matter). The fact that the tactics game just happens to revolve around vikings and giants is a big bonus. Long story not quite as short, the gameplay is a great addition to the genre of grid based tactics games. Getting past all that the real question becomes, is it fun? Well long story short: Yes! Yes it is! Truly The Banner Saga Factions has the most beautiful presentation I’ve seen in a game in a while. The sound is also well done with the music fitting of the Viking inspired setting and the crunch of steel on shield satisfying if ever so brief. The main menu for the game that leads to all of the different options is also well presented with a few animated assets to keep it lively, such as a patrolling guard or longships sailing in the background. Now this is perfectly reasonable as the sheer amount of work that goes into each animation is obvious, I just happen to be greedy. Sadly when it is not a units turn they are either stationary or in their idle animation. There are animations for attacking, special abilities, movement, taking damage, dying, and even an idle animation for every unit. If I had one complaint it would be how often the units stand still in battle. The animations are fluid and believable, every part of the game’s art is top notch. That wonderful art style is not restricted to just cutscenes, instead all of the game’s units and menus are drawn in the same way. I could literally go on for a couple pages just talking about the art style but instead I think it is easier just to let you see for yourself.Ī still from the Factions introduction cutscene For the hefty price of Free, players will get a competitive tactics game in a hand drawn art style that is reminiscent of old Disney movies. While the single player portion is still in development the multiplayer component The Banner Saga Factions was just released to the public on Steam. The game trilogy got some major attention earlier last year when it surpassed its Kickstarter goal at over 700x its original amount. The Banner Saga is a mature tactics game brought to us by Stoic Studio, an indie group comprised of ex-BioWare veterans.
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