The Banner Saga 2

The banner saga was one hell of a good surprise in 2014, and this is pretty much the continuation of the same project. Beyond a sequel, it feels like a very natural second part of the same game. This is because the visuals and gameplay mechanics remained largely unchanged.

There are a few more cutscenes, but these are brief and sparse. The art is still really beautiful, and i can see this game standing the test of the time due to how appealing the hand drawn art style is.

The game is still divided between story driven choose your own adventure like segments and turn based battles. I feel that the extra enemy types and abilities made the combat much more interesting this time around, or simply because i grasped the mechanics better from the beginning its naturally more satisfying to play.

The choose your own adventure parts seem more logical and less random as far as my experience went. The story is very involved and gripped me from beginning to end, both due to the interesting plot and lore as well as the interesting characters. Much like in Game of Thrones, you never know when the story will sacrifice one of the characters you placed so much money into, and this making everything much more involving. Its a pretty somber and bleak game when it comes to setting and themes, you're always next to starving and there is just never enough resources for you to upgrade your team as much as you liked. The addition of a training mode is a nice addition that can provide a few more resources making the game more beatable.

All in all its an excellent sequel to a great turn based game, and i will wait eagerly for the conclusion of this saga. Its amongst my top 10 of the year.