The Banner Saga 2 review: More of the same and another cliffhanger - mcleanluelf2001

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Tranquilize gorgeous
Strong sense of scale and world-building

Cons

Another cliffhanger termination kills the tempo
Cast is excessively large for the story to admit

Our Verdict

The Streamer Saga 2 picks us up at peerless cliffhanger and drops us off at another.

Middle chapters are torturous. The first of all part of a trilogy gets totally the exciting set-up bits. The third part wraps information technology all upbound. And two? Mean Part Cardinal languishes, more "The start of the end" than a kosher tale in its personal right.

In so many another words: It's not that the s chapter of pseudo-Nordic heroic poem The Superior Saga 2 is worse, nor overly short. But with yet some other cliffhanger non-ending, this second outing is less "A Sequel" and more "Other Episode"—in a story stretched, presumably, over the length of iv days aside the sentence we're done.

And here I thought the releases for Dreamfall Chapters were too far apart.

Combined clear shot

The impermanent feel is bolstered by the fact non much has transformed between The Banner Saga and its sequel. If you enjoyed watching your tiny caravan slog across the landscape in lengthy camera pans the last clip around? Ten Thomas More hours of that, tame up occasionally away a short chat operating theater a turn-based battle.

It's the same blending as before, though predestinate elements are new. You'll adjoin a race of centaur-folk known as the Horseborn, more clearly a group of outsiders than eve the first game's giant subspecies of Varl. In battle, the Horseborn play the function of scud-in-scoot-out traumatise troops, able to sprint away after attacking.

Battles are also much clever than the first outing, more distinct. Most directly revolve about secondhand objectives—for example, ending after a certain enemy is killed OR an obstacle clear-cut—which minimizes the tedium of grinding depressed an entire horde of baddies and besides allows for several interesting keep back-taboo scenarios a la 300 Spartans versus the entire Persian army. You get a smel for the scope of these battles even though you're only playing a half-size six-on-six chess.

That's The Superior Saga's trick, genuinely—making much stunned of little. A handful of soldiers are shorthand for an unbeatable coerce. A frustrate-section of forest stands in for a vast labyrinth of old growth. Few lines on a map and a bit of flavor text edition represent an entire kingdom we'll never visit.

And a dialogue box stands for hundreds of deaths. The Banner Saga 2 is still presented in the way of a Choose Your Own Adventure. Every decade or so seconds happening your slow ponderous journey to the human land of Arberrang, a box will pop up with some event—maybe your guards spotted effort in the trees operating theater you come up crossways soldiers harassing an old woman. You typically choose between two Beaver State three courses of action and then swallow the consequences.

This is the bulk of The Banner Saga—making small, innocuous choices that sometimes puzzle everyone killed. Or robbed. Or killed and then robbed. It's toughened being a drawing card during the Day of Judgment.

The problem is these choices erst again feel largely inconsequent. To the highest degree of the game revolves around provisioning your wagon train and keeping your followers existing, only not only is it passabl simple but there's really very littler reason to bother aside from forced mushiness. Sometimes the act of humans in your caravan goes up. Sometimes it goes down. Either way, you're unlikely to notice a difference of opinion.

Onymous characters suffer from the same problem as in the first game—there are besides blame many of them. And once over again, the game has time for about five of them to throw any meaningful impact connected the story. The rest hover in the background, occasionally butting in to collapse roundabout "Oh captain, my captain" speeches or cue you "Ah yes, you're the loss-clothed archer lady with kids or whatever who I harbor't heard from for the finally ten hours."

And it's the work party from the original plot that suffers nearly. Non lengthened into The Banner Saga 2 our neatly-unified group matchwood into two caravans again, and it's the new one—The Ravens, led aside the legendary Varl berserk Bolverk—that carries most of the important story beats hither. Which is great because Bolverk is a badass, but less great because all of the important characters from the groundbreaking Superior Saga are in the another caravan which does…well, nothing rattling. Not overmuch of anything, for the whole bet on.

Herein we return to The Banner Saga 2's biggest flaw: It's the middle part of a trilogy. And a trilogy structured in the most unsatisfying way possible—not triplet related-but-separate stories, simply one lengthy tale chopped into cardinal pieces.

Frodo walks a slim closer to Mordor. Master Chief tells America atomic number 2'll finish the fight, next time around. Neo does…whatever the hell happened in The Matrix Reloaded.

Thus The Banner Saga 2 picks up from one cliffhanger and drops United States off at another, and—just like the opening game—it cuts to credits right when the story starts to pick up. There's the [big spoiler minute] and then you get on willing for the revelations to follow and…nothing. Conjoin us again for The Streamer Saga 3.

Bottom line

As I said up top: Information technology's not that The Banner Saga 2 is bad. Saame enceinte art, same tense tactical battles, same unclear sense of scope emanating from much delicate pieces. I never knew slow pans across landscape paintings could infuse such awe, and yet certain sequences in The Banner Saga 2 support tension that belies the biz's humble budget.

But at that place's not much substance here, and for sure not enough for this game to stand along its possess as a work of fiction. It's an episode, given as not-an-episode. Judged on its own merits—not the plot lines it wraps up from the first game and not those information technology sets up for the last— The Banner Saga 2 is underwhelming.

I'm looking forward to the 3rd game, assuming we get answers and it's not a barely-sneaky feint to found a second trilogy. Merely a handful of great moments don't save The Banner Saga 2 from feeling like a largely ancillary tale.