Metroid Dread, a return to form from a beloved classic. A review

 Imagine, the year is 1986. Nintendo has kickstarted the entire gaming industry, and now everyone is trying to get a piece of that video game action. So along comes Metroid, a game that stood in sharp contrast to Nintendo's usual fare. Instead of a bright and colorful fantasy adventure, like in Super Mario or Legend of Zelda. Metroid was a dark, menacing sci-fi series heavily inspired by Alien. But nonetheless, Metroid rose to the heights of similar classics of the time period, thanks to its unique sense of exploration and atmosphere. It also became well known that if you completed the game within a certain time limit, you would get an alternate ending that revealed that Samus Aran (the main protagonist of Metroid) was a woman the whole time. Keep in mind that female playable characters weren't really a thing at the time. So having a female protagonist (even if the game itself did everything it could to hide the twist) was a really big deal. Nowadays everyone with an Internet connection or a copy of Super Smash Bros knows about Samus' true identity, and as such the more recent Metroid games don't even bother keeping the secret anymore. 

Anyway, the Metroid series enjoyed a plethora of highly praised sequels, such as Metroid 2: Return of Samus, Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, and the Metroid Prime Trilogy. The series as a whole redefined exploration and character progression, and in case you couldn't tell, Metroid was one of the two games that helped create an entire genre of videogames known as the Metroidvania (the other is Castlevania). Which is coincidentally my favorite genre of video game. Shantae, Hollow Knight, Ori & the Blind Forest, all of these games (and many more) have all pulled inspiration from Metroid and without Metroid's success, those games wouldn't exist. But despite Metroid's impressive legacy, the series is not flawless. Case in point, 2010's Metroid: Other M was so controversial that it temporarily killed any interest Nintendo had in expanding the Metroid universe. That was until 2017 saw the release of Metroid: Samus Returns, a remake of Metroid 2 developed by MercurySteam, which was a big enough hit that Nintendo contacted MercurySteam and basically asked them, "Hey we heard your remake was really good, but wanna try making a brand new game from scratch?" And so MercurySteam was tasked with effectively catching lightning in a bottle twice, and started work on Metroid Dread. Fun fact! The creator of the Metroid franchise, Yoshio Sakamoto, actually had the idea for Metroid Dread's plot all the way back in 2006. The reason why Dread didn't start development back then was because at the time, there wasn't a Nintendo game system that had the kind of technical power behind it to support the scale and ambition he had in mind. So he kept putting the idea on hold... for almost two whole decades. When he got the news that MercurySteam were working on a brand new Metroid game, Sakamoto (who was brought on the project as a designer) took the opportunity to FINALLY put the plot idea he cooked up 14 years ago in action. Guess good things come to those who wait, eh?

Metroid Dread takes place some time after the events of Metroid Fusion, and serves as a kind of grand finale to all the lore and story arcs that have been going on. That said, the game still prioritizes making the actual gameplay as high quality as possible, and the game can generally be enjoyed even if you're unfamiliar with Metroid lore. Though if you want that lore anyway, here's a quick recap. Samus Aran was a little girl that was orphaned at a young age. She was adopted by the Chozo, a race of cool and mysterious crow people who also happen to be warrior-poets. The Chozo discovered a parasitic lifeform known as the X, which can mimic the appearance and abilities of any creature it assimilates. Given the X's ability to spread across an entire planet's ecosystem within minutes, the Chozo were naturally freaked out at the galaxy-ending potential the X possesses. So using their knowledge of genetic manipulation, the Chozo tribes banded together and created the Metroids, a race of jellyfish-like monstrosities that are not only immune to the X, but can also straight up eat the X to become stronger.

 But then the Metroids went rogue, and ironically became an even bigger threat than the X ever did. Metroids were designed to be the perfect beast of war and thus had no natural counter in the wild, and the Chozo tribes were slaughtered by Space Pirates before they could design something to defeat the Metroids. So armed with the last remaining weapons and armor of her people, Samus Aran hunted the Metroids to extinction and became the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy. But then these guys called the Galactic Federation discovered the Metroids' existence, and basically said, "Hey! Why don't we clone this perfect beast of war with no natural counters for our own morally dubious purposes?" So the Galactic Federation started cloning Metroids, and said clones were stolen and released by Space Pirates (the same ones that wiped out the Chozo). So Samus was hired to hunt the new Metroids to extinction again, since she's already done before and is the most qualified warrior for the job. And Samus got to avenge her space crow family while she was at it, and killed all the Space Pirates on her way out.

Now that the Metroids are officially deader than dead, the X parasite came back, and attached itself to Samus, nearly killing her. The only reason she survived was because she was injected with a vaccine made with the last remaining trace of Metroid DNA in the entire galaxy, giving her access to the Metroid's immunity to the X. And since Samus was given Chozo DNA to help her survive on the Chozo's home planet, Samus is technically a three-way hybrid between a human, a Chozo, and a Metroid. And the unique thing about Samus's armor, is that it was designed to update and redesign itself to accommodate any biological changes in the wearer. So when Samus got that vaccine, her armor began to mutate as she adjusted to her hybridized form. And this is the official explanation for why Samus's armor design changes every other game. So anyway, Samus hunts the X parasite to extinction (are you noticing a pattern?), and destroys the research station that was cloning Metroids while she was at it. Everything I just described was the plot of the original four Metroid games (the Prime series are treated as side-adventures and can be safely put just about anywhere in the timeline and still make sense, and Other M is being ignored entirely, for obvious reasons). 

Fast forward to Metroid Dread, where we get a quick primer recapping most of the lore literally five seconds after starting a new playthrough. Some time after the events of Metroid Fusion, the Galactic Federation receives a mysterious video message showing there is at least one X parasite still at large, stranded on a planet labeled Z.D.R.. So the Galactic Federation... doesn't hire Samus to deal with it. They instead send in the E.M.M.I. (pictured above), special androids designed for exploration and research, to go deal with it. And guess what? They lose contact with the E.M.M.I. just mere moments after landing on the planet, and Samus is hired to investigate the disappearance. And to the surprise of absolutely no one, it turns out the E.M.M.I. were compromised. Somebody hacked them, and now they are spooky killer robots that can easily overpower Samus Aran herself if she's not careful. 

To make things harder for Samus, she gets ambushed by a mysterious, rogue Chozo warrior five minutes after arriving on the planet. And the fact that a Chozo is alive and well at all is a big deal, since they were wiped out by the Space Pirates years before Dread takes place. Samus puts up a good fight, but said Chozo warrior eventually knocks her out, and strips her armor down to all but the most basic functions. Basically forcing Samus to start from square one as she tries to escape the planet. It's here that the game officially starts, with Samus having only a simple energy blaster, some basic missiles, and a melee counter. You control Samus with some classic side scrolling, run and gun platformer/shooter gameplay as you slowly work your way back to the planet's surface, collecting upgrades for Samus's armor as you progress. And in typical Metroid fashion, you often need to revisit older areas that you already explored when you get a new ability, since there are usually secrets to be uncovered with that new ability.

And I have to say, the movement and shooting in this game is great. Samus runs surprisingly fast for her size (she's over six feet tall, or just under two meters for readers more familiar with the Metric system). And when you combine Samus's speed with her wall jump, she starts off with tons of mobility that makes navigating the various biomes of ZDR a delight. And her mobility only improves as she gets more upgrades for her armor. You can aim Samus's various weapons in one of two ways. The classic way, where Samus shoots straight forward or straight up. This method can be used while running. But the method I prefer is with Free Aim Mode. Basically, if you hold down the left bumper on the controller, a laser sight within Samus's gun will activate, allowing you to aim in any direction 360 degrees. This allows for much more precision than normal aiming, which makes hitting targets much easier. The only downside of Free Aim is that Samus cannot move while the laser sight is active. You can also perform a melee attack, which if timed right, can stun an enemy and let you get some free hits in. New to this game is a dash attack, that basically lets you punch enemies while running without sacrificing your momentum, which in turn reinforces the emphasis on mobility and speed that the game is running with (pun completely intended). Your options for combat, puzzle solving, and exploration expand tremendously with each upgrade. Samus as whole just feels speedy and powerful, and the controls are silky smooth to boot... Except for one puzzle that requires you to swing around with the Grapple Beam ability like Spider-Man. The Grapple Beam itself is fine, and there are some great puzzles and areas that use it creatively, but this one puzzle was admittedly a little janky if you do it as intended. Although it might just me being bad at the game, but I did find it difficult to aim the Grapple Beam while in midair. I still can't tell if this a controller issue, my own incompetence, or the fault of the game. I'll give MercurySteam the benefit of the doubt and say the problem was probably with myself rather than the game, simply because the other controls work so fluidly it seems unbelievable that this one puzzle would expose a flaw in the control scheme itself. 

Despite Samus's power and mobility, she is completely helpless against the E.M.M.I. robots. There are seven of them in total, and with the sole exception of one, they are all formidable opponents. The E.M.M.I. can kill Samus with one attack, and though that one attack CAN be countered with Samus's melee move, the timing is so strict that doing so is a last resort and an act of pure desperation. Instead, you have to use stealth to sneak past them, like in the picture above. And I love the E.M.M.I. myself. The way they're animated is so unnerving, the way their limbs twist and contort as they squeeze through gaps seemingly too large for their body. The way the E.M.M.I. move and climb around the environment honestly reminds me of the Xenomorphs from Alien. And given that Metroid borrows a lot of inspiration from Alien anyway, I have a feeling the resemblance is at least somewhat intentional. And the E.M.M.I. get progressively more dangerous as you progress, starting out slow and dull, and gradually becoming faster and more intelligent. The only way defeat the E.M.M.I. is to get a temporary upgrade known as the Omega Cannon, and even then only a perfect headshot will put them down permanently. The only saving grace is that the E.M.M.I. can only enter certain rooms, all of which are marked by spooky, pixelated entrances, so you always have a rough idea of where to expect them to be. The E.M.M.I. are an intimidating foe, and I find myself "dreading" every encounter with them (pun also intended). 

The highlights of the game (at least for me) are the boss battles. Almost every boss battle in the game is a spectacle. From a giant Space Pirate locked up in a volcano, to a scorpion-like monster that turns invisible, to X parasites mimicking fallen Chozo warriors, this game has a ton of bosses. And they all feel tough, yet fair, with hard hitting attacks but fairly obvious patterns you can dodge through. And if you pull off the melee counter successfully, you can start these interactive cinematics called Grab Sequences, where Samus grabs ahold of the boss's weak point and you are free to fire missiles into it point blank for free damage. And the animations for the Grab Sequences are some of the coolest animations in the game and help remind you that Samus isn't just a bounty hunter, she is the greatest warrior in the whole galaxy. The only boss I wasn't a fan of was Escue, a giant X parasite beetle with lightning powers. The only reason I dislike Escue is because the boss coats itself in a lightning aura periodically, rendering it invincible. The only way to get past the invincibility is to wait for it to wear off naturally, which takes a surprisingly long time. And I personally don't care for bosses who can become invincible with no manual way to remove said invincibility. That kind of boss design just stretches what would be a decent fight out to a point where it feels monotonous. But the fact I only disliked one boss speaks volumes to the boss battle quality over all. Every fight feels like a deadly dance as you slowly learn your opponents patterns and gun them down when the opportunity arises.

I also enjoyed the story. I won't spoil anything, especially since Metroid Dread isn't even a full month old yet (it was released on October 8th). But I did enjoy the story, and it did wrap up story arcs from the lore pretty nicely. And again, without spoiling anything, Metroid Dread's final boss is one of the best final bosses I've seen in a while. I'd rank it as being on par with the Nightmare King Grimm battle from Hollow Knight, which is high praise considering how amazing that fight was. But I can't think of a good way to segue into my next point, but I'm bringing it up anyway. Metroid Dread can, at times, be a difficult game. It's never unfair, but the tutorial is fairly minimalistic. MercurySteam have clearly designed the game working under the assumption that the player is capable of figuring out everything by themselves. As such, you're never pointed in a specific direction aside from the Adam AI's vague instructions to reach "the surface." And if you ever get stuck, keep in mind that Metroid as a franchise LOVES putting hidden passages that only reveal themselves if you shoot specific parts of the terrain, and Metroid Dread is no exception. Destructible terrain will usually have some minor visual differences to make them stand out more, like being a shade of color brighter than the rest of the room, or having small cracks in them. So basically, search every nook and cranny you can, and you will (usually) be rewarded.

In terms of presentation, Metroid Dread is (at least in my opinion) gorgeous to look at. The early game areas are bleak, cold caves and sterile laboratories, but as you get closer to the surface, the colors and location design grows warmer and more inviting. It starts off dark since MercurySteam is trying their hardest to instill the sense of dread that the game is named for, but as Samus gets closer to her goal, the sense of dread fades and is replaced by a sense of wonder instead. The creature design is also top notch. The alien monsters Samus contends with walk a thin line between sleek and grotesque. And the lighting is amazing. Like there's a section in the third major area where Samus enters a pitch-dark facility, and the only light in the building is the green glow of her armor, and the red eyes of the alien monsters, shining faintly in the darkness. It was a really cool idea, one that I liked a lot. And Samus herself looks great. This is probably the best design for her armor yet, sporting snow white accents that somehow synergize with Samus's usual colors. Honestly it looks so good that seeing Samus without the white accents now looks a little strange. And credit to the animation team. Samus goes through the entire game barely any dialogue, and yet her animations convey so much emotion and personality. And they did an excellent job at making Samus look cool. Like her reaction to seeing a giant Space Pirate named Kraid show up is to silently stare at him dismissively. She entered the room fully expecting a fight (and entered a battle stance as soon as she stepped inside), and she relaxes her guard once she realizes she has to kill yet another Space Pirate. This is just another day on the job for Samus, and a lone Space Pirate (especially one that's been chained up) is so far beneath her that she doesn't treat him as a threat at all. This isn't the only moment where Samus's body language does all the talking, this is just the most prominent example I can give without delving into spoiler territory. Also, even though we don't get to see Samus's face often, the few times we do, they manage to convey a lot of emotion in just her eyes, and I think that's impressive.

In terms of sound design and music, Metroid Dread is pretty good. The most distinct sound in the game is definitely the various beeps that the E.M.M.I. use while searching for you. They sound almost cute without context, but those beeps are nerve-wracking when you're trying to sneak past them. What makes it worse is that the beep will often be the first thing you hear when you enter an E.M.M.I. room, and you can use the loudness of the beeping to figure out how close the E.M.M.I. are to you. The music in general is moody and atmospheric, so while it's great to listen to while exploring the depths of planet Z.D.R., it isn't the kind of soundtrack you listen to by itself. Not that it's a bad thing. MercurySteam wanted the music to set the tone for the adventure, one of intensity and "dread", and the soundtrack succeeded in pulling that vibe off. I will say the fanfare when you get a new item or start a new playthrough is always a joy to listen to, and is by far the most heroic sounding piece of music in the whole game. The voice acting is few and far between, but what little there is, I enjoyed. The most talkative character that actually speaks English in the game is Adam, the AI companion that guides Samus on her journey. And his voice is literally a text-to-speech program, so there isn't a lot to comment on in terms of vocal performance. All the other voiced dialogue is in the (fictional) language of the Chozo (yes, even Samus herself only speaks in Chozo, because, you know, she was raised by them). And I must give my compliments to the voice actors for making the Chozo language sound like a believable language that could potentially exist in real life. You know your fictional language is good when it sounds like something a real person can speak in. They put Tolkien levels of effort into designing a fictional language, and I can respect that.

Before I finish with my overall conclusion, I want to mention something about Metroid Dread. The game does have some hidden unlockable secrets as a reward for certain milestones. For example, you can unlock bonus artwork for collecting every item in a given area, or from beating the game on higher difficulties, or from beating the game within a certain time limit, or any combination of the above. Metroid Dread is a relatively short game, taking me only 11 and a half hours to play through the entire game casually. And I can see the short length being a turn off for some people. And indeed, this game made me think about the "value" of video games. Dread is currently priced at $60. And there are Metroidvania games out there just as long, if not longer, than Dread with a much cheaper price. Hollow Knight is a massive game, with roughly 70 hours of content to go through (most of it is optional), and yet that game is sold for $15. But here's an interesting debate. Is a game inherently better if it has more content to go through? I'd say no. In my mind whether a game is worth its price is dependent on the quality of the experience, rather than the quantity of the content. And in my opinion, Metroid Dread definitely feels like it's worth the price with how well made the game is. And the short length might be a blessing in disguise, since it makes the game easier to speed run, if you're interested in the hobby. 

In conclusion, Metroid Dread is an excellent return to form for the franchise. It's an intense, heart-pounding adventure that manages to strike a nice balance between being heroic and uplifting, and spine-chillingly spooky. It's a delight to navigate its sprawling world, and the game is tough without ever feeling unfair or poorly balanced. The fact it manages to wrap up 30+ years of lore in a satisfying finale is also rather impressive. Honestly, given everything Dread manages to accomplish, it might be my vote for Game of the Year. With that being said, Metroid Dread gets a "This is Beautiful!" rank from me. Or five out of five stars for normal people. 

Disclaimer: All images were found on Google Images. They are not mine. Metroid and Metroid Dread are the property of Nintendo and MercurySteam.

deltarune, UNDERTALE's true successor. A review (of the first two Chapters)

2015 was a special year. Why? Because it was the year in which a gentleman by the name of Toby Fox released one of the most prominent indie video games of the decade. UNDERTALE was born, and immediately garnered a following in pop culture thanks to its charming world and lovable characters. The game was an overwhelming success, which is especially impressive when you remember that Toby Fox had a very small team and even fewer resources to work with. Fast forward to 2018, and Toby Fox was becoming increasingly prominent in the gaming industry. He got to make music for Game Freak (the guys in charge of making Pokémon games) and even managed to convince Masahiro Sakurai to include Sans the Skeleton (UNDERTALE's unofficial mascot) in Super Smash Bros as a Mii costume. Then one day, he made some spooky posts on his social media accounts and then casually released AN ENTIRELY BRAND NEW GAME, FOR FREE, on Halloween, without warning. And given Toby Fox's reputation as a trickster and goofball, I can safely say that him just dropping a new game out of nowhere on a national holiday is perfectly on brand for him.

The game that was released was deltarune: Chapter 1. And as the title implies, this first chapter is just the first entry in a very ambitious project Mr. Fox has been working on. deltarune is currently planned to be a seven-part series (Chapters 1 and 2 are already available), with each Chapter being about 6-7 hours long. Oh, and Toby Fox himself admitted he's been planning out the main storyline for deltarune since 2012. But shortly after Chapter 1's release, Toby realized that his team is too small and it might take far too long to finish the project, so from Chapter 2 onwards he'll be working with a larger dev team. But anyway, deltarune is a story-driven RPG with a focus on comedy and solving problems in creative, nonviolent ways. So, basically, just like UNDERTALE. deltarune takes place in the same universe as UNDERTALE, but Toby Fox has stressed that it is NOT a sequel or a prequel. It's an alternate timeline where certain events played out differently. And I should warn you, you should probably play UNDERTALE before playing this game. Why? Because the game literally warns you straight up that knowledge of UNDERTALE's story and lore is pretty much required. And you know what that means, right? IT'S RECAP TIME, BABY!!! *ahem* If you never played UNDERTALE, basically your character gets trapped in the Underground Kingdom of Monsters. The Monsters themselves are not actually evil and are mostly benevolent, but are trapped because of a war they lost centuries ago. You either become an impromptu therapist for the monsters and help them out with their problems as they try to escape to the surface, or kill them all in a bloodthirsty rampage. Oh, and there's also some time travel shenanigans since the act of saving your progress and manipulating save data is an in-universe ability that your character stole from the main villain, and not just a gameplay convenience. 

deltarune meanwhile takes place in an alternate timeline where the war that wounded up banishing the Monsters seemingly never happened, letting the Monsters live full and happy lives in the surface world. And deltarune wastes no time in establishing the biggest difference between it and its predecessor. You see, when you first boot up the game, a mysterious voice instructs you to create a body for your character. No matter what options you pick, your creation will be discarded and replaced with a premade character, a teenage human named Kris. The voice says that no one can choose who they are in this world, and the whole game tries to reinforce this one central theme; That your actions don't really matter that much, and you just have to roll with whatever life gives you. Which is pretty much the exact opposite moral of UNDERTALE, which is every choice you make will have consequences and you can't run away from them.

Anyway, Kris is the adopted child of Toriel, the kindly goat-like Monster Queen from the first game, who is running a school in this timeline. And while driving to said school, Toriel casually remarks about Asriel (Toriel's biological son and Kris' "brother") is supposed to be back from college soon. The fact that Asriel is even alive in this timeline is a very big deal, since his death kickstarts the entire plot of UNDERTALE. And honestly I love seeing all the little hints into this timeline's Asriel's life. Because we never really got to see what Asriel was like when he was alive (the closest we got to that was a brief conversation with his ghost/spirit), and the fact that this version of Asriel is described as that perfect Christian kid that got straight A's in school and goes to Church ever Sunday is oddly heartwarming. Also, fun fact, there's some dialogue and flavor text in Chapter 2 that implies that Asriel has a thing for dragon girls. So, uh... That's a thing.

Anyway, Kris arrives in school and is late for class. And since they were planning out group projects, Kris has to "choose" a partner. Reinforcing the "you have no control over these characters" theme, no matter who you choose, you'll be paired up with Susie, the school bully. And Susie herself tells Kris to their face that they shouldn't bother answering her questions precisely because Kris (and by proxy, the player) have no real agency in the project. But once the teacher's chalk goes missing, Susie and Kris are sent to the supply closet to get more... Only to get pulled into another dimension known as the Dark World. Which is inside the closet. Cue the Chronicles of Narnia jokes. The bulk of the first Chapter is spent exploring the Dark World, with Kris and Susie meeting new friends like the adorable yet secretive Ralsei and the wacky and cartoonish Lancer. Ralsei also informs Kris and Susie that they are (probably) the heroes described in a prophecy, predestined to save both the Light World and Dark World from certain doom. Susie, being an edgy rebel, refuses to partake in the prophecy and beelines for the exit. And indeed, up until the very last area of the Chapter, Susie will not listen to the player's commands, and prefers to do her own thing. …Which is kicking tail and chewing everything even remotely edible. And she's all out of edibles.

The only way to exit the Dark World (at least initially) is to track down these places called the Dark Fountains and close them up, which is something that only Kris can do. So Susie reluctantly cooperates. At least until she befriends Lancer, who is the son of the King of Spades, the main villain of this Chapter. Lancer tries very hard to be a villain himself, but his idea of "evil" is comedic and harmless, and he and Susie form this kind of Team Rocket style dynamic. And honestly, not only are Susie and Lancer's antics hilarious, the friendly bond they form is rather heartwarming. Eventually Lancer switches sides once he realizes that Lightners (the catch-all term for creatures born in the Light World) aren't that bad, but his loyalty to his tyrannical father leaves him conflicted. So Lancer decides to imprison his new friends for the sake of their safety. Susie does not take kindly to this, and we get this super intense showdown between Susie and Lancer. And I love the showdown scene. Lancer refuses to back down despite Susie's intimidating demeanor, but he doesn't willingly harm her at all during the ensuing boss fight. And Susie can't bring herself to kill Lancer, despite lashing out violently against every other enemy she faced up until this point. Lancer reveals the reason he trapped the Lighteners was to protect them from his father, who has a murderous hatred of everything from the Light World. And Susie learns that sometimes, brute force isn't necessary and from here on out, she'll actually listen to the player's commands.

So our heroes go to confront the King, and in a franchise all about compassion and mercy, the King of Spades lacks both of these. He's pretty much the only antagonist that cannot be reasoned with or talked down, nor does he have any characteristics that make him sympathetic or relatable. He's a despicable monster in every sense of the word, and that is a breath of fresh air. All of the villains up to this point (and even back in UNDERTALE) are either tragic anti-villains with legitimate reasons for their actions, or comedic goofballs who weren't that evil to begin with. The King, meanwhile, wants to commit a literal genocide and uses his own son as a meat shield. And when he's weakened enough, he feigns surrender so he can take a cheap shot at the heroes. Once he's defeated, Susie and Ralsei have a surprisingly meaningful conversation that I think delivers the main moral of this Chapter; That while trying to solve problems with peaceful solutions is preferred, there are some people in the world who are sadly too dangerous to be reasoned with, and have to be confronted with force.

Anyway, Kris and Susie seal the Dark Fountain in the King's Castle and return to the Light World. Their adventure took up most of the day, so all the students are returning home at this hour. And to my surprise, you can actually explore the town and talk with all the major residents before returning home yourself. Most of the conversations are lighthearted and jokey, but there is some meaningful lore stuff in there as well. Like the fact that Sans the Skeleton has returned, this time running a grocery store. And during the conversation he makes a joke about "befriending" Kris' mother... So that argument I had with my friend many years ago about whether Sans and Toriel were romantically involved have now come full circle. Thank you, Toby Fox. Very cool. Anyway, we also get snippets of Kris' backstory through their interactions with the various residents of this quiet rural community. Namely, they were apparently a rather mischievous prankster before we took control of them, playing morbid pranks on their neighbors. They also used to be quite talented with the piano, but it appears that they can't play it well when influenced by the player. And I bring all this stuff up because in UNDERTALE, the player was supposed to be a separate entity from your character. You're not supposed to self-insert in this universe. You are attached to the main character, but you aren't literally them. And deltarune is making a similar connection. Kris is a person with a preestablished history and personality, you're just using their body to interact with the game. And in both this Chapter and the next, when you make certain dialogue choices the other characters will react to any implied inconsistencies between your desires as a player and Kris's desires as a person living in this world. And I think that's cool, personally. Because no other game series tries to make the player themselves into an important entity in the story. And it makes the final scene of Chapter 1 that much more... Concerning.

This next section contains massive spoilers for the end of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, so feel free to skip. So in the final scene of Chapter 1, just before Kris goes to bed, they rip out the Player Soul (which you've been using to control Kris's body this whole time) and brandish a knife. In the real-life three year gap between the release of Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, there were hundreds of theories of what this ending was supposed to mean. These ranged from Kris simply freeing themselves from the player's influence while they go cause mischief in the night, to Kris secretly being Chara all along (Chara being the narrator of UNDERTALE, who potentially turns evil if you complete the No Mercy Run). Personally, I gravitated to the "Kris is Chara" theory because Kris looks like an older, more mature Chara (they even have the same color scheme when in the Light World). And Chapter 2 answers these questions, with a lighthearted joke about Kris sneaking out to eat some pie behind Toriel's back. Somehow, Toby Fox turned a genuinely unsettling cliff hanger ending into a joke. And then he turned around and revealed that "free" Kris is an actual danger to the universe, since the Chapter 2 ending strongly implies that without a Player Soul stopping them, Kris is the one creating the Dark Fountains in the first place. Which is bad, because if there's too many Dark Fountains in the universe, these creatures called the Titans will awaken and destroy everyone, Lightner and Darkner alike.

Okay, spoilers over. Overall, I enjoyed Chapter 1. It was a great introduction to a new cast, and the main characters are just as enjoyable, possibly more so than UNDERTALE's cast. I love Ralsei and how he manages to be simultaneously cute and wholesome and yet so knowledgeable of the greater world around him it's actually kind of concerning. He teaches you the controls and mechanics, and in any other franchise I wouldn't bat an eye at this but this is a Toby Fox game, and I know he likes to turn mundane game mechanics that players take for granted into canon in universe abilities (for example, manipulating save data is treated as in-universe time travel). So anyone showing even the slightest hint of knowledge towards game mechanics in this franchise has me concerned. On a lighter note, I also really enjoyed Susie's growth from a violent bully to a proud protector of her new friends. The writing and dialogue are as great as ever, with that signature wit and borderline surreal commentary that Toby Fox has become known for. And the combat system has dramatically improved from UNDERTALE. It still has the Fight/Spare system (while you can fight by attacking with your weapons repeatedly, you can instead have Kris use context-sensitive commands called Acts to calm enemies down peacefully), but now with the addition of additional party members and the ability to cast magic spells, there's a lot more variety in your options and in some cases, there's now more than one way to Spare enemies. The Bullet Hell sections (where you have to avoid enemy attacks by maneuvering a little cartoon heart around various obstacles) have also been improved, with more diverse attack patterns and even Bullet Hell traps that activate outside of combat while exploring.

But if you think we're done talking about the story, boy are you wrong! That's right, I'm covering Chapter 2. You can technically start your playthrough from here, but I wouldn't recommend it. Not only do you miss out on some story context (like Susie's character development or Ralsei's true form), but despite the game telling you your choices don't matter, there actually is some carryover from certain actions taken back in Chapter 1. Like in Chapter 1, you get "tricked" into designing a robot for Susie and Lancer (you can customize the robot's appearance), and in Chapter 2, a flamboyant puzzle maker named Rouxls Kaard (pronounced "rules card") uses that exact same robot during his boss battle. In fact, Chapter 2 seems to have more branching choices that actually have a consequence. I mean yeah, the ending is still roughly the same no matter what, but while Chapter 1 had virtually no difference between a Pacifist Run and a No Mercy Run (the only difference is what kind of reward you get from the bonus boss; Armor for Pacifists, and a new weapon for the Merciless), Chapter 2 has a unique Snow Grave Run. Which is somehow darker and more disturbing than anything you did in UNDERTALE's No Mercy Run. But more on the Snow Grave Run later. Chapter 2 picks up one day after Chapter 1, with Kris being sent to school once more. Only this time, Susie showed up on time and is no longer bullying everyone else (the worst she does now is some lighthearted banter). We get (re)introduced to two class mates in particular who made cameo appearances in Chapter 1; Berdly and Noelle. The former is a cocky and arrogant bluebird and the latter is a sweet but timid reindeer. I bring them up because if Susie and Lancer were the stars of Chapter 1, Berdly and Noelle are the stars of Chapter 2.

Noelle walks in on Susie and Kris just as they try to reenter the Dark World for a new adventure, but rather than causing trouble for our heroes, she invites the two over to the local library so they can all work on their group projects together. But why Kris and Susie specifically? Simple! Noelle has a positively enormous crush on Susie, and Noelle's been looking for an excuse to hang out with her specifically. But guess what? The library has been consumed by a new Dark Fountain, transforming into a new Dark World. And while Chapter 1's Dark World is themed around various card games and board games, this new Dark World is themed around technology and the Internet. And thus a new adventure begins, this time in the Cyber Dark World. And I LOVE this chapter. It's wild, wacky, and brings in new lore. For everything. And I really like the two new additions to the main cast. Noelle is a sweet yet awkward nerd, and her interactions with the other characters (especially Susie) are adorable. And Berdly is an absolute buffoon. Arrogant to a fault and hilariously inept. And honestly, Berdly gets some of the best jokes in the whole Chapter (even if most of them are made at his expense). From building a statue of a much manlier version of himself, to confessing his love for Susie upon realizing that she is a TRUE GAMER(tm). The dude is literally every "neckbeard" stereotype rolled into one, and the whole thing is played for laughs. Honestly, I was half-expecting to see him refer to himself as an "Alpha Male" unironically.

But I have to talk about the best character in the entire Chapter; Queen. Queen is a chaotic mess of computer terminology and Internet "lol so random" meme-humor, and I absolutely adore her. Because Queen is literally an anthropomorphic personification of the Internet. She started out as a peaceful program only wanting to make people happy, but has been twisted into a toxic and misguided tyrant, and has in turn converted the Cyber Dark World into a crazy theme park of madness. Also, she gets the best jokes, from customizing her prisoners' cells based on their search history or demanding Kris pick up bananas that appear inexplicably in the middle of the street. Queen steals the show with every scene she's in, and she is by far my favorite antagonist in the whole franchise. It also helps that she has one of the most unique and interesting boss battles so far, with her using a brainwashed Berdly as a weapon in the first phase and changing the entire combat system to a loving homage to Punch-Out! in the second phase.

But this Chapter in particular has a bit of a dark side. And that is mostly relegated to the Snow Grave route. …Which is officially called the Weird Route in the game's source code, but the fandom has collectively decided that "Snow Grave" describes it better and sounds a lot scarier. But what exactly is the Snow Grave route? To make a long story short, it's the equivalent of a No Mercy Run, but somehow darker and more disturbing. In this optional story line, you help Noelle become strong enough to defend herself... By turning her into your obedient attack animal. Despite the fact that you wind up with a smaller body count than the No Mercy Run, it's still disturbing in the sense that you are manipulating and mentally abusing a sweet and innocent high schooler into committing mass murder on your behalf. It even culminates in you forcing Noelle to murder Berdly with the titular Snow Grave spell, which instantly kills him by freezing him solid. And Berdly's death is the point of no return. No matter how many enemies you Spare afterwards, you can't undo the blood on your hands once you kill Berdly. And it gets worse. Once Noelle realizes that she killed her closest friend, she tries her hardest to convince herself that everything was just a bad dream. And then, when you return to the Light World in the epilogue, you can give her a quick little reminder that the events of the Snow Grave Route were real, which only serves to traumatize her further. The whole route is dark, and is quite possibly the creepiest thing Toby Fox has ever put into a game. Of course, I haven't even touched the Snow Grave route myself (can you believe I actually LIKE being a good person in video games with branching morality?), and I doubt I will until all the remaining Chapters have been released, so that we can see the full consequences of this storyline. I mean, I appreciate the fact that the Snow Grave route exists, since I can't really think of a game that lets you alter the course of a main character's growth and development in such a drastic (and frankly horrific) manner. But I also like that you don't HAVE to go down this path if you don't want to. You can either corrupt Noelle and turn her into a weapon, or support Noelle through her struggles and help boost her self-confidence in a positive and healthy manner that DOESN'T involve murdering her best friend in literal cold blood. The Snow Grave Route is completely optional, and is so well hidden that it is literally impossible to stumble across by accident, since the requirements to start it are so specific. 

Overall, Chapter 2 was amazing. It's significantly wackier than Chapter 1, and has some of the most creative puzzles and boss battles yet. It also has the nightmarish Snow Grave Route that exists to remind us all that Toby Fox really likes putting creepy alternate storylines in his goofy games about quirky creatures and pacifism. But the locations were great, the comedy was great, the story was great. Great times all around. I'm not entirely sure how Toby's team could top this Chapter, simply because it has set such a high bar for future Chapters.

As for presentation, in terms of artwork, deltarune just looks better than UNDERTALE ever did. Yeah, it's still fairly simplistic pixel art meant to invoke the imagery of 90's era games like Earthbound, but the sprites are cleaner and more detailed. They have more expressive animations and there's some very distinct color choices for the locations and characters. I especially like the new character designs. Every single character is unique and instantly recognizable, and even though the generic enemies are mostly goofy and comedic (most of them being walking puns), there are some enemies with legitimately cool-looking designs. Namely the Were Wires from Chapter 2. The dialogue portraits for the Lightners (such as Susie and Noelle) are still monochrome, like in UNDERTALE, but Darkners (like Ralsei and Lancer) get fully colored dialogue portraits. Personally I would prefer having everyone's portraits be fully colored, but at least there's an easy visual distinction between the two races. And on a darker note, the animation for the Snow Grave spell does admittedly look really... "Cool." One could say it's a "chilling" animation. Oh, don't give me the "cold" shoulder, you "snow" these jokes are so n(ice). In all seriousness the Snow Grave spell's animation is very impressive and honestly looks like an attack animation from a more traditional RPG. Unfortunately, deltarune is anything but traditional, and you can't fully enjoy the spectacle of Snow Grave without being hit with the reality that you mentally abused a reindeer just to get a neat magic spell, then forced her to murder her best friend with said spell.

In regards to music and sound... haha... HAHAHA!!! Do you really think I can get through a Toby Fox game without gushing about the music!? Toby Fox is a master at making catchy music that fits the scene perfectly. He even brought back some remixes of songs from UNDERTALE. Although I find the fact that Sans' theme song sounds exactly the same as it did in the original game with no changes whatsoever to be amusing. After all, Sans being too lazy to change anything about his own theme song is perfectly in-character for him. But on the subject of new tracks, I loved Field of Hopes & Dreams, which plays early on in Chapter 1. It's punchy and heroic while also somehow being full of whimsy and playfulness. And Rude Buster (the song that plays when fighting generic enemies) is leaps and bounds better than its UNDERTALE counterpart, Enemy Approaching!. Queen's theme is gaudy and pretentious, invoking the imagery of a prideful noblewoman. And of course, the theme songs for the two secret bonus bosses are also fantastic and catchy. The Chapter 1 bonus boss, Jevil has The World Revolving as his theme, and it's this insane carnival track that has the chaotic clown energy of Jevil himself. The Chapter 2 bonus boss, Spamton NEO, gets BIG SHOT for his theme, and is much more techno compared to the rest of the soundtrack and has this deliberate glitchy effect on it. Makes sense, since Spamton NEO is a malfunctioning robot. The sound effects are also charming. That little "beep" when you navigate the menus is oddly soothing, if that makes sense? Oh, and also Lancer's cartoon "Splat!" noises are hilarious for how unexpected they are.

In conclusion, deltarune manages to be a worthy successor to UNDERTALE, and in some ways it manages to surpass the original game. With a cast of colorful creatures, a soundtrack full of catchy and memorable songs, and some pretty neat lore going on in the background. And yet, deltarune is forever linked to UNDERTALE, so it's difficult to judge one without comparing to the other. But does it stand on its own? The answer is... Kind of? Not really. This game's entire premise is that it takes place in the same world as UNDERTALE and operates on the same "rules", but it follows the adventures of a different cast of characters and some events in the timeline played out differently. Basically, if you ever watched Marvel What If...? then you have the basic idea. And because of that, if you don't know anything about UNDERTALE, you likely wouldn't understand the changes deltarune makes fully, or why those changes are a big deal. Like I said, Asriel is alive in this timeline, and his death is literally the incident that kickstarts the plot of the original game. The monsters are already living on the Surface World, implying that either the war the Monsters lost never happened or that the Monsters won and defeated humanity (I think it's the former rather than the latter myself, if only because it more easily explains why a family of Monsters would adopt Kris, who is clearly a human). Mettaton and Dr. Alphys never meet in this timeline, meaning the former never became a celebrity thanks to the latter's technology. And that's just the changes I can think of off the top of my head. But anyway, if you enjoyed UNDERTALE chances are you'll enjoy deltarune because of how connected the game's are. If you haven't played UNDERTALE but are still interested in deltarune, my advice is to try it out. And if you like it, why not track down UNDERTALE so you can see just how far Toby Fox and his team have come? With that being said, deltarune: Chapters 1 & 2 get a "Oh, this? This is Beautiful!" rank from me. Now all we have to do is wait another three real life years for the next Chapter. But before I finish this review, I just want to point out that the word "deltarune" is literally just an anagram of "Undertale" (meaning that the two words are spelled using the exact same letters, just with the order of said letters changed around). Just a neat bit of trivia.

Disclaimer: All the images used in this post I found on Google Images. They are not mine. deltarune and UNDERTALE are owned by Toby Fox. 

The Banner Saga, and the importance of choice and consequence: A review

Can you believe I had a whole trilogy of video games in my collection that I never finished? Heck, I only beat the first Banner Saga game the other day, despite owning a copy of the entire trilogy for over three years. How did this happen, you ask? It's all because I made a rather amateurish mistake. I was a fool. An absolute moron. I fell for the classic blunders. I accidentally deleted my save data in the first game right before the final boss, forcing me to play through the whole game again. And this game isn't short! The first game alone is about 10-15 hours long. And this is on top of being a very story-focused game with branching storylines based on the choices you make. And in my frustration at my own incompetence, I cheated and followed a walkthrough on the most "optimal" choices. And you know what? I actually kind of hate the fact I did that. Not only did I spoil myself on some very big story moments, but with the benefit of hindsight, trying to make the "best" choices defeats the purpose of choices in branching narratives. And because of that frustration, the moment I got back to where I was, I shut off the walkthrough I was following and played the rest of the game blind. And I actually enjoyed it more when I did that. Let this be a lesson. Don't look up what the best and worst choices in games are, trust in yourself and roll with what life gives you. There's no save-scumming in real life. We have to live with our decisions, and hope that we made the best deal out of a bad hand.

 

But since I have you here, let's review Banner Saga. The first game in the trilogy, to be more specific. Developed by Stoic Games (an independent company that I believe is made up mostly of former BioWare employees) and published by Versus Evil (yes, that's the name of the company), the trilogy is a story-driven strategy role playing game heavily inspired by Norse Mythology. The gameplay across all three games stays relatively the same. You routinely switch between fighting monsters and bandits in combat encounters, making choices in Choose-your-own-Adventure style Visual Novel sections, and deal with randomized events while traveling the roads. What's interesting about these games is that similar to BioWare's Mass Effect trilogy, if you get the trilogy all on the same system, and if one game detects save data from the previous games, then the story will update to reflect your choices. Yes, decisions made in Banner Saga 1 can potentially have direct consequences all the way up to Banner Saga 3.

Our story begins with a narration telling us that the Gods are dead. Just straight up dead. It's Ragnarok time, baby. What killed the Gods? No idea. Anyway, the Gods are all seemingly dead, and with their absence, some weird stuff is starting to plague the lands. Namely the sun has stopped moving. Or I guess the Earth stopped rotating, but shh, the characters in the setting don't know how space works. Because they're all Vikings. Anyway, the only reason why society hasn't been melted alive by the sun yet is for the simple reason that they are also trapped in an eternal winter. So the coldness of the winter balances out the heat from the sun. At least that's how I interpreted the situation. Anyway, humanity managed to largely ignore the weirdness of a Godless world and carry on with their lives. They even manage to forge an uneasy alliance with a race of horned giants called the Varl. But when an ancient race of stone warriors called the Dredge start waking up and rampaging, it's up to a certified Viking Dad named Rook to lead his family and people to safety. Oh, and a Varl soldier named Hakon meddles around in human-Varl relation politics while desperately trying to keep his people from going extinct. It's a bleak, yet fascinating concept for a world. One where acting like a traditional hero may not work out every time. Oh, you're trying to stop a riot? They'll ignore you, because why should the rioters listen to a stranger who's only been in town for a day? You might even need to do some morally questionable stuff just to survive, like mugging a farmer and stealing his crops just so your caravan can have enough food to last the rest of the journey. 

The campaign switches between Rook's perspective and Hakon's perspective every other chapter. The former is fairly light on combat, but puts a much stronger focus on resource management. And while managing your resources is still important in Hakon's chapters, they focus much more on combat. Which makes sense for the characters. Rook is a single father trying to keep his clan out of trouble, only resorting to violence when left with no other option. Hakon meanwhile is a general and warrior. He's been smashing dredge, bandits, and enemy soldiers for centuries (Varl have life spans so long they themselves don't know how old they can get before dying). And by process of elimination he eventually becomes Warrior-King of the Varl (since all the actual Varl royals are dead), so he now has even more responsibility to deal with. And part of that responsibility is beating up the bad guys.

Something you'll be doing a lot of in both campaigns is traveling. The travel sections (which to be honest, make up most of the runtime) are apparently inspired by Oregon Trail. The caravan travels to their destination automatically, only stopping if you give the order to set up camp and rest or if you get interrupted by a random event. Like I said earlier you have a few resources to manage. And bear with me, the resource stuff is probably the most complicated thing in the game. The caravan's population is divided into three categories. Clansmen, Fighters, and Varl. Clansmen are regular civilians. Farmers, merchants, musicians, that kind of thing. Fighters consist of soldiers and mercenaries. And Varl are, well, a race of horned giants. Clansmen do not partake in combat directly, but some events will allow you to train them into becoming Fighters. Fighters will fight in certain events (known as Army Events) but cannot be controlled directly. And Varl work the same way as Fighters, but have a higher chance of actually winning battles when left to their own devices. It's kind of hard to overpower a 12-foot giant armed with bison horns and super strength. Varl are rarer than Fighters, however, and there are very few chances to recruit Varl for your caravan. So if you get the option, you'd be a fool to turn away Varl recruits. 

Note that the caravan getting completely wiped out apparently does NOT result in a game over or end the campaign prematurely. It does effect morale though. Morale is a resource that gives named party members such as Rook and Hakon a boost to their Willpower (which can be spent to either cover more ground when moving or to enhance the power of an attack) at the beginning of a combat encounter. Positive morale increases the Willpower boost, negative morale decreases it. Also, do you really want to be known as the clan leader who let his subjects starve to death until only his closest comrades remained? So even though you *could* ignore the caravan stuff completely, there at least is the morale mechanic to incentivize you to keep everyone alive. How do you keep them alive? With Supplies. Supplies represent everything a Viking clan needs for survival in a post-Ragnarok world. Food, clothing, medicine, and of course, mead. The larger the population of the caravan, the more quickly you'll burn through supplies each day. How do you get more Supplies? Some random events reward you with Supplies based on your choices, but the simplest solution is to just buy Supplies from a market (every named city or village will have a market available). Which brings us to the final major resource, Renown. Renown is earned either by acting heroically in events (such as choosing to save a baby from a burning tent yourself instead of having someone else do it for you) or by killing enemies. But here's the catch. Renown is used not only to buy supplies, but also to upgrade your characters. So you have to strike a balance between keeping your party members up to date, and making sure your caravan has enough Supplies to last until you reach the next town. And sometimes you can go a really long time without a town to restock on supplies. Renown is quite possibly the most important resource in the game, and you should obtain it whenever possible.

In regards to the story, I adored it. The only characters I disliked where the ones that were intentionally written to be despicable, such as Onef, the shady masked guardsman who will gladly double cross you the moment you stop being useful for his schemes. I loved Rook and his interactions with his daughter Alette. I loved the jolly attitude of Gunnulf, the Varl sell sword that joins Hakon's crew at the beginning of the game. I loved Egil for being a total dork who was surprisingly competent on the battlefield. But I think my favorite character would be Iver, the stoic Varl war hero who hoped to leave his violent past behind him. I especially liked Trggvi, the eccentric half-insane spearman that gives surprisingly good advice, even if most of what he says doesn't make sense at first. Like how he says (paraphrase) "Never trust a man in a helmet. If he hides his face he's hiding something else." And sure enough, the one thing all the characters that are destined to betray you have in common, is that they all hide their faces behind masks and helmets. Thanks, Trggvi. Your advice saved the caravan from Onef's swindles. Fun fact about Trggvi, he actually wasn't in the game originally. He was a bonus character given to people who donated to the Kickstarter campaign of the first game back when launched back in 2015. However, the Banner Saga Trilogy collection makes all the Kickstarter-exclusive content, such as Trggvi, available in retrospect. Just a neat little bit of trivia.

Although I did have the final major story choice spoiled for me, this was the one time where having knowledge of what was coming both better and worse. I would have preferred not knowing the impact of the choice. But at the same time, knowing the consequences somehow made the decision easier. Not from a mechanics perspective. Because the impact is roughly equal for both options. But rather, the decision was made from a role-play perspective. Wait... Roleplay in a roleplay game? It's more likely than you think. The remainder of this paragraph is a really big spoiler (along with most of the paragraph after this one), so feel free to skip this part. First a little context. Rook's caravan has been hounded by the Bellower, leader of the Dredge, and has both Rook's group and Hakon's group cornered in the coastal city of Boersgard. The Bellower is stated to be immortal, and cannot be killed by normal weaponry. Juno, a powerful and mysterious sorceress informs Rook that the Bellower has one weakness; A Silver Arrow. The Silver Arrow by itself will not kill the Bellower, but it will remove its immortality, allowing normal weapons to harm it. Rook and Alette are both talented archers, but you only have one shot. Who should be given the task of shooting the Bellower? The Bellower will always return any attack dealt its way with twice the pain, and with that ability in mind, whoever fires that arrow is doomed to perish afterwards. 

(We're still talking spoilers here) The consequence of this decision is whoever you DON'T choose to carry the Silver Arrow will become the protagonist of Banner Saga 2. And to the testament of the writing, the choice is heartbreaking no matter what. If you choose Alette to fire that arrow, it would be Rook finally letting Alette be independent and learning to not be such an overprotective parent, only for Alette to get killed right after making the shot. If you choose Rook to deliver that arrow, Alette has to watch her father make one last sacrifice for the good of everyone before dying a hero's death. I sat at that screen for a good while, contemplating on what to do. I've been told that Rook's campaign in Banner Saga 2 is a delightfully tragic tale of revenge and grief, of a man torn apart by losing everyone he ever cared for. Alette's campaign still carries the tone of grief, but focuses more on Alette living up to her father's legacy and becoming a heroic leader in her own right. Both of these campaigns sounded like the best kinds of emotional rollercoasters, and are ambiguous enough to where there really isn't a right or wrong choice. But considering Rook has been doing everything in his power to protect his family and his friends, I felt that Rook would rather die than put any of his loved ones in harm's way. Especially when faced with the equivalent of a demon king. Also, in the wise words of King Théoden from Lord of the Rings, "No parent should have to bury their child." So I had Rook fire that arrow in my playthrough. The Bellower was weakened, sure, but it still managed to crush Rook's ribs before the rest of the party could put it down for good. We won, but it was a bittersweet victory. The epic Viking funeral for Rook's body was just the cherry on top of the tearjerker sundae. And to be honest, I actually prefer this ending to the "Alette dies, Rook lives" ending. I don't know, it just makes more sense to me, both thematically, and in terms of representing the kind of sacrifices that a (good) parent will do for their child. 

Okay, spoilers over. Overall, the story was great. Great characters, great scenes. And great stress for when things inevitably go wrong. That's kind of the main takeaway from Banner Saga. The world is broken, and things will go wrong. So it's up to you to make the best out of a bad situation. Again, I don't think its possible to do a No-Death run of the game, at least not without breaking something in  the game's design. Even if you make it all the way to Boersgard, with every possible named recruit and a maxed out caravan, that spoiler-filled ending choice will result in a casualty. Even if you follow a walkthrough you'll experience hardship and sorrow, but you got to move on. The world doesn't stop to let one man grieve. And you know what? That is a harsh, but much needed lesson. Not just for video games, but life in general. Banner Saga got me hooked. I'm too emotionally invested in the struggle of Rook's motley crew as they try to outrun the apocalypse. And I can't wait to see how their story continues in the second and third games. And I can finally play Banner Saga 2 without feeling guilty about seeing the story out of chronological order!

The combat is (thankfully) the simplest part of the game. You select your party members and deploy them in six-person teams. Combat is turn based, with you navigating your group on a chessboard-like grid. You and the enemy alternate turns. This means you move someone, the enemy gets to move one unit afterwards. The alternating turn order is abandoned when you enter Pillage Mode, which activates when there is only one enemy left. When Pillage Mode triggers, the alternating turn order is ignored and you can move everyone on your team consecutively. This basically lets you dogpile the last enemy and clean up the battle swiftly. Each party member is assigned a class. The classes vary for humans and Varl.  For example, humans can become archers and attack from a distance, but Varl cannot. Varl can become Strongarms and push friend and foe alike all over the grid, but humans cannot. Varl are giants, and to represent their large size, a single Varl takes up 4 tiles on the grid, while humans only take up one tile. This means that while Varl are stronger in melee than humans (for obvious reasons) they don't do very well with chokepoints. Feel free to mix and match humans and Varl and try out all kinds of strategies. 

The most unusual thing about the game is how it handles health and damage. Namely, your health stat and your damage dealing stat are one and the same. If you have 10 hit points, you can deal 10 damage in a single attack. But in return, you can only survive an attack if it deals less than 10 damage. You can improve your character's survivability with Armor (duh). Armor will absorb attacks meant for your actual health gauge, but it can be broken if you concentrate on it exclusively. The more damage your armor takes, the more damage your real health will take in future turns. Additionally, you cannot deal damage to an enemy at all if their armor is higher than your health. Example, if you have 10 hit points but attack an enemy with 11 armor, nothing happens because their armor is just strong enough to negate all the damage. And every time you attack an opponent, you can choose whether you want to attack their health directly for focus on breaking armor. So basically, break their armor first, then finish them off.  I really like the combat, and I found myself making choices, not just in Banner Saga 1 but throughout the whole trilogy that would cause a combat encounter partly because I just liked the combat that much. That, and winning battles is the quickest way to earn Renown, which is basically the lifeblood of the campaign. 

One thing that I find odd is that party members do not die if their health hits zero. They get an "Injured" status condition that forces them to start with a reduced health gauge for all successive battles, until you rest in camp long enough for that character's wounds to heal. On the one hand, its nice knowing that you can afford to be more aggressive in Banner Saga than in similar games like X-COM or Fire Emblem, because party members in these kind of games are usually gone forever if their health hits zero. On the other, the knowledge that the only thing that can get party members killed are the story choices winds up making you even more paranoid about whether or not you've made the right decision. For example, while keeping spoilers to a minimum, there are no less than four different choices that can potentially kill off Egil, and one of those choices doesn't take effect until two chapters after you made it. Admittedly, Egil being so easy to accidentally kill off was part of the reason why I used a walkthrough in the first place, since in my first playthrough, Egil had his skull smashed in five minutes after I recruited him. And really, the only reason I would even suggest looking up a walkthrough is just to keep Egil alive. Like, all the other choices that can kill off characters are fairly obvious. Gunnulf struggling to pull up a wagon full of treasure that's slowly sliding off a cliff by himself? It's obvious if you don't help him or tell him to stop that he'll pulled down with the wagon and fall to his doom. Prince Ludin is thinking about charging into the Dredge invasion by himself? He'll get swarmed and overrun if you let him go. But most of the choices that can kill off Egil don't even hint that he's remotely related. For a early-game spoiler free example, Rook choosing how he wants to save Alette from a Dredge sneaking up behind her somehow determines if Egil sacrifices himself or not to save Alette for you.

In regards to the presentation, this game is beautiful. The artwork is hand drawn, and when the landscapes aren't being ravaged by the Dredge menace, they are simply gorgeous. The character designs are also distinct, instantly recognizable, and just visually pleasing. The animations in combat are weighted and lively. Like when Gunnulf attacks an enemy, you can feel all the power and force he is putting behind his greatsword just by how he lifts it up slowly before slamming it down on his foes. Or how Rook slams his hatchet into the ground to free up his hands so he can use his longbow. Or how when Trggvi takes damage, it knocks his spear away, and he spends a moment scrambling on the ground to pick it up again. The animation is reminiscent of 70's-90's Disney animation, and that is the highest praise you could grant something being done in traditional style.

The sound and music is also top notch. From the way weapons made a loud clang as they tear through armor, to the sound of the bowstrings getting pulled back before letting loose, the sound effects are top notch. The music was composed by Austin Wintory (of thatgamecompany's Journey fame) and it is dang near perfect. It fits the theme of surviving a Nordic apocalypse to a Tee. With triumphant horns signaling your victories, and somber trills of wood chimes highlighting the tragedy in this world. Add in occasional vocal tracks that can sound anywhere from a heroic ballad to a heartbroken lament. Also voice acting! It's... barely in the game at all. Part of me wishes there was more voice acting, but I understand that Stoic Games is a smaller team, and voice acting is deceptively expensive. As such, almost all the dialogue is present in silent text, usually with some kind of background music so that the game isn't completely quiet. So be prepared for a lot of reading. That said, the little bits of voiced dialogue (mostly Rook and Hakon narrating their experiences) are a welcome surprise. I also like how all the voiced dialogue (however little there is of it) gives the characters distinct accents that I believe are supposed to be a recreation of actual real life Nordic accents. And any fantasy setting where they give the characters distinct accents instead of something that sounds vaguely American is an immediate plus in my book (no offence to American English, I just want variety in my fantasy voices).

In conclusion, The Banner Saga can best be described as THE emotional roller coaster game. It can be equal parts stressful and fun, tragic and triumphant. The artwork and music is some of the finest I've ever seen and heard, and the story and world are fascinating to behold. All I ask of you, is that you play the game relatively blind and make choices based on you feel in the moment is the right call, and just roll with whatever tomfoolery the game throws at you. Now, if you already finished the game before and just want to see the alternate routes (or if you're determined to keep Egil alive as long as possible), feel free to look up a walkthrough. But for me, the real magic comes from trying to salvage a situation that perhaps could have gone better if I was smarter or paid closer attention. Which reflects the main focus of the story. A group of people trying their best the make the most of a post-apocalyptic world. And as I said, I've become emotionally invested in the characters. With that being said, Banner Saga gets a "Oh, this? This is Beautiful!" rank from me.