Game:

The Banner Saga 3 (2018)

Duration: 16:31

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BS3 continues to iterate on the War system from BS1- the new hotness is fights with multiple waves. You're given a turn limit to defeat all the enemies on the map; if you succeed, you can swap out your deployed units and fight another wave. Units aren't healed between waves so if a unit takes damage you'll have to swap them out; this encourages you to use more of your roster. If you don't manage to win in the turn limit, the next wave is automatically deployed- you get no opportunity to swap units out, and must deal with the new wave while the old wave is still around. The final wave has no turn limit. If you defeat every wave without failing a turn limit, you win a bonus item prize- since there are no traders in the Darkness this is the only way for this team to acquire items. If you complete the first wave in the time limit, you're allowed to retreat and finish the map there without fighting the other waves- all you miss out on is the XP and bonus item.

Is it any good? On balance, yeah. Are there flaws? Yeah. It is very frustrating that rather than tell you where the enemies in a new wave will spawn, it just vaguely gestures what direction they're coming from. It's a step away from having enemies spawn on top of you and instantly gib you like in BS1, but it seems so easy to take it further and they haven't done that. Overall though I'd call it a fun addition.

The entire team is force deployed for wave one. Juno is new as a playable unit- she was deployable last chapter but here she's forced. Juno is sadly not very good..her gimmick is that if she falls in battle you gain the ability to control her spirit, and you can revive her by reuniting the two. This does technically make for an unbeatable combo with Dytch or Eirik- if they go invisible then Juno can continually die, revive, do minor chip damage, die, revive until every enemy is dead. But it's slow, and Juno's damage output and other abilities are weak. Sparr, Oli and Folka also feel quite underpowered for this stage of the game- it makes the first wave more challenging. Once I get the chance to swap out the dead weight for wave 2 things are much easier- I even get to show off the final new guy, Apostate.

Apostate is an incredible unit. This is the stonesinger Zefr recruited back in chapter 13 and it retains its dredge abilities, including Umbrage. Umbrage channels for a turn, and on completion it gives all allies -4armor/5+strength. This is a great deal by itself, but consider that unlike the dredge, you can heal that armor with Eyvind. Now consider that it stacks with multiple uses. Now consider that the -armor effect is counted as an armor attack, and it can be dodged or reduced or blocked by anything that reduces armor damage taken. Now consider that Krumr and other varl can use Forge Ahead to speed up the charge process. Apostate is crazy powerful and will be a staple unit going forward. The rest of her toolkit is 'fine', but Umbrage is so good that nothing else is worth using.

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