Banner of the Maid

Take one French Revolution, subtract Napoleon, add a couple relatives you never heard about, and toss in a few giant mechs…

Those crazy kids and their ruling! Story driven tactical RPG that punches well above its weight, you wouldn’t know this was the work of a single developer.

Anyone who has read this blog more than a day knows that I am always looking out for new strategy tactics games to play. I’ve been following the development of Those Who Rule on Twitter for awhile, and finally had a chance to play through its first chapter. “Those Who Rule” follows four (so far) recruits to their kingdom’s army as they form bonds and train with each other to take on the political forces facing them – those who think immediately of Fire Emblem: Three Houses or Dark Deity wouldn’t be far off, as the visual novel-like interludes tell the story that plays out after on the battlefield. ...

Rise Eterna claims to be a modern successor to the legendary tactical rpgs of the past. Can Rise Eterna really wear Final Fantasy Tactics’ crown?

I looked at all the RPGs I’ve played this year, trying to pick the one of them all that would be the best of the year. Several stood out, but I couldn’t pick just one. I guess if there were a game that I felt worth spending hours of my life playing, that proved its quality, maybe? Outer Wilds (PS4; finished January 26) This indie game about a hapless astronaut who is trying to stop their sun from exploding in (looks at watch) 24 minutes made a huge splash when it came out last year for all the right reasons. The clockwork solar system our astronaut lives in is full of puzzles everywhere you look. The lore is amazing. The physics are on point. And every 24 minutes, the sun explodes and you start from the beginning again, but you still have retained all you learned. ...

Banner of the Maid has been my constant gaming companion over the past several weeks. In short, Banner of the Maid takes place in an alternate fantasy version of the French Revolution. Napoleon has fended off a British incursion and is now in Italy fighting against an Austrian invasion. Almost all the important NPCs existed in our reality, but in the game reality, there are the Maids – heroes imbued with divine powers whose powers arise when France needs them. The first, most famous Maid was Jean D’Arc. With France consumed by revolution, new maids have arisen. ...

Queen Antoinette, one of the famed Maids of France, was no longer able to hold back the tides of populism in Revolutionary France. While Pauline Bonaparte, with the help of her brother Napoleon, struggled to free Italy from the horrors of an Austrian invasion, things were falling apart back home. Welcome to the post-Revolutionary world. The Monarchist faction, led by the remaining nobles in exile and General Rose, have taken to the hills and have formed an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” relationship with the Austrian invaders. Pauline’s war has expanded now to two fronts. ...

My opinion of this French Revolution-themed visual novel/tactical strategy game keeps rising as I work my way through the campaign. Once you get past the fact that the main army commanders are all teenage girls, there’s a decent story there, and the battles are just over the top. The current campaign has us coming to the rescue of one of our artillery generals who found herself surrounded behind enemy lines. The smart thing to do would have been to withdraw and cut our losses; instead, our protagonist, headstrong Pauline Bonaparte, chose to perform a daring rescue. ...

The more I play Banner of the Maid, the more I’m enjoying it. The plot is picking up, with plenty of side quests that lean more into the Visual Novel side of the game. As an example: One side quest involved raising money by going to an auction house, buying items cheap, then selling them for a huge profit. Problem with that strategy is arranging with other bidders for them to bid low or abstain entirely to get the best price. Taking what you’ve learned about the various factions in the journey so far, you have to find allies who will help you – and avoid those who see through your scheme and plan to only give you the worst deals imaginable. ...

I was initially a little unsure about playing Banner of the Maid. It has a lot of things in it that I like – deeply tactical gameplay a la Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem Houses. It’s set in a sort of alternate French Revolution era which isn’t all that familiar to me, though I’m pretty sure Napoleon didn’t have a little sister as one of his generals. But why wouldn’t he? She is, after all, a Maid, a hero that, like* *Jeanne d’Arc, the Maid of Orléans, would rise to save France from her martial ambitions. She and her fellow Maids will command the revolutionary forces throughout their European conquest. ...