The Banner Saga 3 is finally been released for the Switch, bringing the story to its conclusion. I will not spend too much time covering the basic mechanics of the game, as this has already been covered in the review for parts one and two. You can play part three as a standalone, but it’s such a great trilogy I’m not sure why you would choose this.

The third game opens slightly differently. You're back to the beginning but things have taken a turn for the worse with the growth of the darkness. The caravan, which you spent so much time with has also gone and you're left with only the heroes you were able to pick up along the way, including some of the surviving Ravens. If you played through the first two, then this will also determine who you end up with.

Throughout all the parts of the game, decisions have real consequences, which adds to the replayable value of the saga. The look of the hand drawn animation adds to the great overall look of the game and inspiration seems to have come from the Don Bluth school. Like the previous two games a lot of the choice screens are fairly static, but this is made up for by the animated sequences and the overall quality of the battle animations. Speech and music remain up to the same high level of quality.

Battles remain much the same, played out as turn based combat on an isometric grid. There is one new twist for the third installment. Previously you just got to fight the one battle, this time around you have the choice of taking on more than one wave of enemies. Do this and you can pick up some seriously good loot. There is also a counter added to the battle which encourages the player to become more aggressive in their tactics. Spend too much time and the counter reaches zero and more enemies will appear.

The game is built on a solid battle and upgrade system and the game provides a very satisfying conclusion to the overall saga.

8

Charles Packer