The Banner Saga 3 Reviews
The Banner Saga 3 offers the darkest entry yet in this beautifully animated tactical RPG trilogy. Choices matter and come fast and furious, making this journey a thrilling roller coaster from the opening moments to the ending credits. Combat can be a bit of a chore once you find your footing, and the story ends all too quickly, but The Banner Saga 3 is a rich and powerful experience and a worthy end to a breakout trilogy.
Stately, vivid and tragic, this brooding epic finally reaches its climax.
A daring, exciting and bleakly powerful payoff that handsomely rewards your investment in its characters.
Not a good standalone game but a fine ending to the trilogy, that manages to make three games feel like one.
This concluding chapter is uneven due to breakneck pacing and minimal characterization, but it's ultimately a satisfying finale that remains true to the melancholy soul of the series
Smart adjustments to mechanics make the act of playing the Banner Saga series finale feel as suspenseful as the story it tells.
The story I ended up with, with its highs and lows, felt like my story, forged by the calls I made in the stress of battle, and I own them. For better or worse.
“Nobody trusts anybody now, and we're all very tired” perfectly sums up this final entry in The Banner Saga series. Our fleeting time in this world has never been a happy one, and everyone is all the more weary at the end of it. We've had plenty of memorable moments with various characters along the way, but it's in this entry that the entire journey falls into a bloody maelstrom, as the game steams full throttle towards its brutal conclusion with unfortunately barely a thought to spare for its characters.
Alas, main characters sometimes receiving a single line of dialogue to describe their end, if anything at all, is what makes The Banner Saga so unique. Life is fleeting, as it is for the hundreds of clansmen I lost throughout the past four years, as it is for my characters who wandered off and never returned, and as it is for the ultimate conclusion to The Banner Saga.
The Banner Saga 3 closes the book on an incredible saga of turn-based action and dark, haunting storytelling. It's hard to make player choices and branching narratives successfully payoff over the course of three games, but Stoic Studios have done just that. It's a shame that they never tried to revamp or update the sluggish combat speed along the way, but that's a small price to pay for a once in a lifetime narrative experience like this.
The Banner Saga 3 closes the epic journey created by Stoic. However, its condition of being the ending makes the game a constant rush and, in the end, the decisions and climaxes lose their purpose.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
A fitting end to the trilogy, and fans of the series so far will not be disappointed with the new gameplay features or the excellent storytelling.
From the beginning, this series has very much been about the journey to the destination in both a literal and figurative sense, and now we've arrived at the end, it's clear that this was the strongest point all along. The development of characters and the gradual progression of the story naturally have less emphasis this time around, as this is the end of the saga, but what you do get is multiple endings with fitting outcomes. Now all that's left is for you to decide whether or not this game and series are for you, much like the many choices present within the games themselves.
Like closing the final chapter on a thousand-page-long fantasy novel, The Banner Saga 3 delivers a dark and thrilling conclusion to remember. Though at times it might prove to be a bit more of a challenge than some might expect, The Banner Saga 3 is the culmination of Stoic Studio's four-year-long journey through a tense and memorable world that's entirely worth seeing through to the end. While I'm sad to see The Banner Saga series come to a close with its third and final act, The Banner Saga 3 finishes it all in a brutal and brilliant fashion. The story may be over, but The Banner Saga‘s world is one that I will surely yearn to come back to.
Despite those hiccups, however, The Banner Saga 3 is good. Really good. Anyone who has played the first two will undoubtedly be picking this game up anyways, but for those who are unfamiliar with the series and curious as to how it all ends: do yourself a favor and pick up the trilogy whenever you get a chance. It's not often that games are made with the kind of style and substance that The Banner Saga 3 has been, and, much like a good book, it's nearly impossible to put down until it all comes to a close, where, inevitably, you'll feel like a small piece of you was left with it in exchange for something new, the way all great stories make us feel.
Despite some gripes about the translation from PC to console, The Banner Saga 3 does an admirable job wrapping up a grim tale of separation and loss. And it does that with challenging and fun tactical battles as well as fascinating player choice throughout.
As the final chapter of the trilogy, The Banner Saga 3 should not be bought with the hope of finding some kind of gameplay innovations, but to savor the last part of an epic journey in search of safe place and truth.
Review in Italian | Read full review
It's true that from an innovation standpoint, The Banner Saga 3 doesn't do a lot different than its predecessors, but that also means the same great tactical RPG system that has been in place since the beginning makes one final push for the endgame.
The Banner Saga 3 doesn't offer real innovations or unexpected elements, but, nevertheless, it's a great concluding of an interesting and thoughtful tactical RPG series that will please all fans of dramatic fantasy stories.
Review in Russian | Read full review