Ending was emotional, made me cry.
I'm going to keep it short-ish:
## Story:
I won't describe specific story details, but rather certain aspects of it.
The world-building is fantastic. There is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ map in-game with clickable lore popups for like every location and then some within the world of Banner Saga. Fortunately, you don't really need to know much about the lore of the areas to enjoy the story.
Speaking of the story, it's a little slow at the start, but builds up in pace around the third chapter or so. After you get past a place called Frostvellr is when I felt like the story became properly engaging. I won't lie - the story is damn simple. It's really not hard to follow along with, and it can feel a little like, "Really? That's it?", when you're first starting. However, at a certain point halfway through the game, some major ♥♥♥♥ happens that really hooked me in, which as mentioned occurred after Frostvellr.
In terms of characters, the standouts are really the father-daughter combo in Rook and Alette, the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ prince Ludin, the enigmatic varl Iver, and... a certain man and woman you meet towards the end of the game. And varls Hakon and Ubin. Saying that, they are only standouts in the way that they are basically the only characters with some personality. Not a lot of room is open within the story for characterization, however, due to the ending, I have reason to believe a lot of that will be happening in the second game. Moving on...
In the Banner Saga, you make choices. A majority of the choices are in small little events that don't have much impact beyond gaining/losing morale, supplies, or clansmen, but some can result in Hero deaths, major character deaths, and setting changes. One choice towards the end of the game can result in a bad end, but I believe that was the only one of its kind. Don't quote me on that.
Basically, really try to get into the mindset of Rook and what options make the most COMMON SENSE. Seriously. Choose the most effective, potentially direct options for best results in this game. AND DOUBLE CHECK BEFORE MAKING DECISIONS! There is no manual saving (at least, not that I could find), and I absolutely ran into some situations where I had to redo battles and entire days just to pick the actual choice I intended. Also, some of these little innocuous decisions can have a lot more ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ impact than you might expect.
## Combat:
Combat, at the start, can be a little confusing. Only near the end of the game, after a ♥♥♥♥-ton of battles (you need to fight as many battles as possible for max renown, which will buy supplies AND levels for your heroes), did I start getting a handle on it. The strategy that worked for me (and is probably intended) is this: whittle down the enemy's strength until they cannot chip through your heroes' armor and hurt THEIR strength. Then, you can focus on doing armor breaks and cleaning up the remaining enemies. It'll make sense if you play the game.
There are a lot of battles in this game. A lot. You need to battle for renown for supplies and level ups and items. I mention this again... because there's a lot.
These battles do NOT have much in the way of QoL. If you move your unit, you better be ready to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ COMMIT because there is NO UNDO for movement. Misclicked a square? Lol, suffer. Mis-gauged movement and are actually out of range? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ deal with it.
Fortunately, heroes are not permanently wounded or anything if they fall in battle... for the first time. If you let them rest (which there is almost always time for) they can recover and participate in the next battles as good as new! And wounds magically vanish when a battle is over, so if you manage to keep everyone alive even if with only one hp, they'll be good as new when the battle is over.
In summary of Combat: Repetitive, non-QoL, pretty entertaining sometimes, literally required if you want resources.
