THE BANNER SAGA 2 CHARACTERS SERIES

It’s unfortunate seeing this lack of cohesiveness between graphics and story in a 2016 game. But instead of sticking only to dialogue, Banner Saga 2 often includes perfunctory second-person narration between character speeches, such as “Iver places a large hand on your shoulder.” Because the character models don’t attempt to represent the actions in the text (Iver is never actually seen placing his hand on your playable character’s shoulder), there’s a sense that the expositional statements could be cut without sacrificing a given scene’s emotional impact.

During conversations, the game shifts to a series of giant character models speaking through text boxes, which isn’t a bad or unexpected aspect in and of itself. The tiring exposition of the writing and the lack of visual coherence to the storytelling are obvious from the start. Although few games have this level of play variety, developer Stoic doesn’t utilize well-established gaming trends, such as more technically sound cutscenes and a rotating camera, that could have prevented the character interactions and combat from being distractingly behind the times and awkward. As you watch your army march automatically across the screen and consume resources that must be managed for survival, the game will pause to give you control over dialogue exchanges and turn-based battles on a grid. Using medieval-period weapons and magic, the player leads an army of humans and human-like giants against an unquestionably evil race of armor-clad demons called the Dredge-just another safe fantasy premise that avoids commentary on actual race-based conflict. More of an episodic continuation than a sequel, The Banner Saga 2 wants to be an intense strategy game with an engaging story and winds up being tedious on both fronts.

THE BANNER SAGA 2 CHARACTERS SERIES

The banner saga 2 characters