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Lu 

The Banner Saga

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Holy crap, how have I not seen this before? This looks beautiful, the animation style and art are sublime. I'll definitely keep an eye on this. 

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I played a few matches with Clyde (as he mentioned) and was absolutely ruined. I have never been good at strategy games, mostly because I don't have a strategic mind, or devotion enough to memorize any one game's systems, but I do enjoy a lot about this game.
It has some small quirks any indie game would, but they are pretty noticeable as there aren't many in this genre that are indie made. Nothing too infuriating... I look forward to playing the full version when I can afford it.

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Two and a half hours into the game. I've had about a half-dozen battles. I'm not nearly as down on it as the rest of the internet. It's slow and ponderous, yes, but also beautiful in a way that many "improvements" would run roughshod over.

 

I will say, however, that a "I fucked up this battle, please reset it" button would be much appreciated, especially when you don't know what any of the stats mean and just had your varl one-shotted out of nowhere.

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Some-times I miss parts of the story because I'm too busy taking screen-shots for my desk-top back-ground.

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I've finally gotten a couple guys high enough that I have dedicated armor-breakers and a clean-up crew. I really enjoy the combat now, although the promised King of Dragon Pass-style overworld was somewhat oversold. Still, this game is making the slow trek from "good" to "great" in my mind.

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I just reaches chapter three and I can't tell if I should increase the difficulty. I've had a couple of battles where one of my party members falls, but I don't see how that negatively affects my chances of further success. I wonder if I should be having a harder time.

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I spoke too soon, that mechanic was just introduced.

I'm really enjoying the game. One thing that bugs me is that the writing is lacking clarity. Maybe I'm used to very specific rules from visual-novels that I've been taking for granted. I tend to get confused about who is speaking, who I am making choices for and sometimes what my choices actually are.

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I'm so glad that I'm playing this during winter. The cold and the frost that I experience between game sessions adds to the tone.

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I've purchased the game based on all the good things I'm reading, also because of the art. Looks good so far, but I'm only at the beginning.

It's a shame though that there are no subtitles during the cutscenes, sometimes I can't understand what they say.

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I've purchased the game based on all the good things I'm reading, also because of the art. Looks good so far, but I'm only at the beginning.

It's a shame though that there are no subtitles during the cutscenes, sometimes I can't understand what they say.

 

Yeah, the subtitles thing is odd, so is the save system (it seems to save pretty religiously after every action, but only archives the saves that follow major plot beats, meaning if a choice or a battle doesn't sit well with you, you should figure that out now rather than later).

 

I'm still over the moon about this game and really don't understand all the complaints about it being inaccessible or confusing. That said, I did just have a "boss fight" against an invincible boss, which I'm not crazy about. Didn't developers figure out a while ago that players are never happy about losing and that they should just have a cutscene if their story hinges on a dramatic loss by the protagonists?

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I did just have a "boss fight" against an invincible boss, which I'm not crazy about. Didn't developers figure out a while ago that players are never happy about losing and that they should just have a cutscene if their story hinges on a dramatic loss by the protagonists?

Are you talking about 

the bellower?

You must be ridiculously good at this game if you thought for a moment that you could beat it. I looked at the numbers involved, backed away to avoid its first strike and then watched as it killed me immediately.

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Are you talking about 

the bellower?

You must be ridiculously good at this game if you thought for a moment that you could beat it. I looked at the numbers involved, backed away to avoid its first strike and then watched as it killed me immediately.

 

I had Iver at level five with an item that gave +3 strength, so I was able to use Shield Bash to whittle away all of the Bellower's armor without getting hit... until I realized that every time he bellowed, his health and armor were restored to full. I'm not complaining, because I did my best, but I think it's a clumsy fight that's much less dramatic than a cutscene of the same thing.

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I really want to play this game. I recently discovered that I love strategy games, specifically ones where you control single units such as Final Fantasy Tactics or XCOM:EU. I threw away way too many hours playing Final Fantasy Tactics on an emulator. I might have to pick this up in a couple of weeks when I've paid my rent. 

 

I'm glad I know who the invincible boss is now though because that would have infuriated me. I'm the kind of guy who would constantly reload my saves just before the boss killed me thinking "what the fuck am I supposed to do?" only to realise hours later that I was supposed to die all along...

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I really want to play this game. I recently discovered that I love strategy games, specifically ones where you control single units such as Final Fantasy Tactics or XCOM:EU. I threw away way too many hours playing Final Fantasy Tactics on an emulator. I might have to pick this up in a couple of weeks when I've paid my rent. 

Banner Saga: Factions is free. The first couple of multiplayer matches are pretty stressful, but if you can stomach it you'll be able to get a good idea of what is so special about this combat system. I love Factions, it's a satisfying chess-like.

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Well I just spent an hour or so on Banner Saga:Factions and it was pretty damn fun. I didn't win a single match, but I (think) I still enjoyed myself. I don't have a clue what most of the classes do and how best to utilise them in relation to what my opponent is doing, but I'm sure that will come with time. If anyone fancies (read: Clyde) teaching me a few trick or two I should be on around 6:30pm GMT. 

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Me me me me me me. NowI just have to do the time conversion and figure out if we are friends on steam

Edit:

I will probably be shopping for a toaster-oven at that time but We should make sure we are steam friends in case an opportunity arises.

Edit: added.

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Well I just won my first online game and it was incredibly fun. It came down to 2 vs. 1, with me on the low end of the odds. I ran away into the corner and used the horn to get all my archer's will back, and then I just picked off their 2 characters due to them having low armor. I had no idea what the horn did, but thanks to the symbols on the horn looking like will symbols I just clicked away until I got 'em all back. 

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For every kill, you get an extra point of willpower that can be used with any of your characters.

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How does Factions work?

Do you have a persistent team that levels up, or are your units stateless and the progression based on unlocking new, more specialized (powerful?) units?

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You earn reknown and can spend it on upgrading persistent party members or expanding the capacity of your barracks (make it so you can have more party members available to you). You are matched with players who have a roster with the same quantity of upgrades.

So for instance, I upgraded all 6 of my units once, then I expanded my barracks so I could have more than those 6, then I used reknown to hire 6 more units that I could upgrade in a different path (once).

You can upgrade units more than once, but I like having variety available and matches above power-level 6 are more rare.

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So far it seems that you've got a persistent team that levels up the more games you win/the more characters that your characters kill. 

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can you sack characters you already have? Would there be a reason to? Would you describe any games you play as "grinding"?

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You can sack characters, but I wouldn't ever. The only reason you would is if you ran out of space in your barracks and if that was the case, I would buy extra barracks-space.

Someone might consider the game grindy if they were impatient to get to the upgraded units. Personally, I enjoy playing matches with characters who haven't leveled at all as much as I do with characters that have been leveled. Because you can only play matches against teams of the same power-level, I don't think that having fully upgraded characters is as valuable as having many characters at all possible levels.

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Personally, I enjoy playing matches with characters who haven't leveled at all as much as I do with characters that have been leveled. Because you can only play matches against teams of the same power-level, I don't think that having fully upgraded characters is as valuable as having many characters at all possible levels.

 

I can't speak to the multiplayer game, but having one overleveled character is nice in singleplayer because the AI usually focuses on neutralizing it before you one-shot all their weaker units, so you can build a strategy around cutting up all the guys they send to do so.

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Factions actually sounds like a F2P game worth playing. No wonder it isn't making them any money :P

Definitely going to try it and give them some money if it's even sort if good.

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