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I'm not sure why it's taken two years since The Banner Saga's debut on computers for this handsome, world-weary tactical role-player to arrive on consoles [edit: Bertie points out to me that it's because the developer's original partner for the port folded]. But if, like me, you've let it pass you by, its appearance on Xbox One and PS4 this week presents a welcome excuse to catch up before a second instalment is released later this year.The Banner Saga belongs to that first wave of games that attracted significant funding on Kickstarter by appealing to players' nostalgia. Unlike many others, though, the developers Stoic, with roots at BioWare, didn't make a promise to resurrect or spiritually succeed a particular fondly remembered classic or moribund genre. Instead, it offered an original cocktail of references: Norse myth, apocalyptic fantasy, 1950s Disney art (the end credits - and one character name - pay tribute to Sleeping Beauty stylist Eyvind Earle), grid-based tactical combat, and - perhaps the key component - the classic survivalist text adventure about pioneer life, The Oregon Trail. The end result feels like something remembered (the game's tone and illustration style recall, for me, the wonderful World Mythologies books of my childhood) while being, in fact, refreshing and novel.
In a fantasy land with a strong viking flavour, humans have made a fairly stable peace with Varl, a race of horned giants who live for hundreds of years but can't reproduce. (The Varl were created by the gods, but the gods are now dead.) Threatening both is an army of stone men called the Dredge, who have lain dormant since the last great war but are now pouring forth from the north, driving people and Varl alike from their homes. There's a still more worrying sign: the sun refuses to set, hanging low and immobile in the sky, day and night. I loved the eerie, counter-intuitive terror of this idea, and wish the game had made more of it, but it sets the scene perfectly.
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