The Loading Saga

Playing on iPod 5th gen.

This game delivers an engaging experience, deftly distilling the most enjoyable facets of a successful RPG. But my gob, there is a loading screen every. god. damn. time. you. change. screens. The load times are not particularly hasty, either. It takes me anywhere from 90-120 seconds to load a battle. Load screens between dialogue and town and menu elements are notably less, but should I have to wait 30 seconds to access my heroes menu, or look at the map? Fortunately, airplane mode helps shave down the waits, but it still feels like a quarter of my play time (if not more) is spent waiting.

There are also some nagging audio bugs. During the caravan scenes the narration has not triggered until very near the next stop, in which case it glitches out trying to catch up to its appropriate point. Music and sound effects do this intermittently as well.

The graphics are quite pretty, but they dont run smoothly on my device. There are quite a few frame rate hitches, especially during caravan and cinematic scenes. It would be nice to have graphics settings.

Though this is exactly the kind of game I was looking for, the poor load times and audio bugs are enough to keep me from fully enjoying it.

Businessbard about Banner Saga, v1.01