Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Good writing bogged down by everything else Tedious is the name of the game Let's get the good out of the way first : The writing is quite a few steps beyond solid. The characters are believable, the choices coherent with who they are. In fact, it's what carried me to the end of every single sidequest in the game. The NPCs made me want to know who they were, what they did, and why they did it. I can't stress enough how every single sidequest is its own little story, some of them really nicely meshing with the main story. Overall, the story is great. It's what got me going. The acting is mostly great, and otherwise good. No voice actor pulled me out of the game. The two main characters have great chemistry. Some dialogues repeat, which is a bit annoying, but it seem the developer are allergic to leaving their characters silent. The graphics are solid and sometimes beautiful. They managed to create original environments, and have the player go through it for valid and logical reasons. I didn't encounter a single bug the whole playthrough. Now for the bad : I could get a whole essay on dev cowardice and their inability to let players have agency. Maybe this is it. Here is the thing : I almost put the level design in the good. It's intricate and would be looping on itself in all the right ways if it was in fact level design. But it's not. What at first looks like a sort of metroidvania-esque world is just a bunch of glorified locked doors with coloured keys. When the characters get a power, it doesn't let them go through new paths, it only unlocks the prompt to open the way. The characters doesn't jump, instead, they are placed at the edge ans react to the prompt to go forward. Most of the progression is slowed down by prompts that take away control. Jumping down ledges, jumping between them, bend down through a hole, climb a wall, make the invisible appear. It's all : push a button = get control taken away. The power unlocked have slightly (and for a couple of them, completely) different effect depending of if they're used for exploration or for combat, which once again illustrate how little the devs understand what the metroidvania dynamic is supposed to be like. In the end, it's nothing else than tedious. It slows down the player for the sake of making travel time longer. The investigation side is also completely absent. There's no deduction, there's no reflection. All the player has to do is to go through the investigation area, pickup all the clues (which they can't not do), the conclusions are spelled out to them, and then they get to make the "choice" at the end of the quest, said choice being between "Banish", which banishes the ghost and send it back to the shadow realm, "Ascend", which helps the ghost pass on, or "Blame" which blames the person they were haunting. Banish and Ascend are mechanically the exact same, and entirely interchangeable, I'll call them both "Banish" from then on. Depending on the ending you want to get, you should do a majority of "Banish" or "Blame". The consequences of these choices on the ending are spelled out from the get go, with no trap or twist. This lead to the other pitfall of Banishers : the choices. When I started playing, I saw a lot of the Witcher 2 DNA in this game, but halfway through, it was gone. Sure, it's about a supernatural investigator with a sword who protects people from monsters, and I'm fairly certain it was a huge inspiration for the game, but one fundamental aspect of Witcher is that the choices are mostly in the greys, and that you can't know the true ramifications of your actions until you see them unfold. Banishers does away with those principles. Take the side or the ghost, or of the living. Each choice banishes more nuance from the game. And at last, the combat. Its only merit is to exist. It has a gimmick, which is to swap between fighting as a living human, or as a ghost. In practice, it's the only original thing it does, and it isn't that interesting. The fights only feel like another tedious chore the player as to do between the great story beats. In the end, the game overstays its welcome by about half its play time, which is wasted time doing tedious travel, interspersed with annoying combat. If you're going to buy this game, get it at a discount, play on easy, and don't do any exploration. Spare yourself the tedium as much as you can. Also, for a game taking place during the colonisation of the US, the natives are surprisingly scarce (a single one appearing the whole playthrough). Kinda weird.

Очень любим с женой играть в подобные игры (глубокий сюжет, средняя динамичность), всегда один смотрит, второй играет. Таким образом прошли Экспедицию 33, Детроит, Ведьмака и еще пару игр. Искали очередную игрушку на пару совместных вечеров...попробовали скачать Фоллаут 4 - сблевнули и удалили. Наткнулись на Банишерс....в итоге оба в глубочайшем восторге от подачи сюжета, катсцена, моральных перепетий и филосовских подходов....всем рекомендую. Геймплей медитативный с в меру активной боевкой, потрясный левел дизайн, очень интересный временной период....со своими проблемами и взглядами.

I came to this game specifically because it doesn't let you off easy with moral choices. The prologue proves it: every early dialogue option is a trap that feels reasonable until you think about it. The game doesn't tell you which framing is "correct", it just presents a choice and lets you own it. The atmosphere is dark in a way that serves the story, not just grimdark for its own sake. The writing treats both the living and the dead with enough respect that you can't dismiss either side reflexively. That matters for what this game is asking of you. If you're looking for a game where your choices mean something and you're willing to sit with the weight of them, I can greatly recommend it.

Very good story, including the main story, most side quests and characters. The game offers quite a few grey morale choices, where there is no right or wrong way, which is what I liked very much. Beautiful music and decent visuals set the mood perfectly. There are a few more obvious, clear cut side quests, and there is a bit of feminism agenda, especially towards the end of the game, which was somewhat disappointing. Other weak points are the combat, which is rather repetitive, mob respawn and quite a bit of backtracking. The shadow world is too empty, there's nothing there except a few arenas with enemies and the final boss fight. Lots of missed opportunities there. Overall, I still liked the game very much, since I wasn't going into it for combat but for story and moral choices, and the game did deliver on this front.

Плюсы: 1) История за которой очень интересно налблюдать. 2) Химия между ГГ Минусы (собственно почему я и дропнул игру) 1) Псевдо открытый мир. Вас на протяжении всей игры будут ожидать коридорный кишки. 2) Дополнительный (а порой и сюжетные) квесты, в ходе повествования которых, вас буду по коридорным кишкам отправлять из одной части карты, в другую. 3) Любое действие (подняться/спуститься/пролесть/вскорапкаться) выполняется только через нажатие на определенную кнопку. Подобных действий (препятствий) в игре очень много, и спустя часов 15 игры от этого уже тошнит. 4) Безумно затянутый сюжет. Вроде бы все, пора завершать игры, но нет "я забыл там то там то свою книгу, принесите мне её" :)

Overall, this wasn't an AWFUL experience. The narrative has some great parts to it, and its always fun deciding peoples' fates. However, I found the battle system to be PRETTY annoying. The constant switching isn't as fun in execution as the idea, and the pestering Antea does reminded me of Navi from Zelda. This game is a very slow burn and it takes a while to get into it. I would give my overall experience around a 4/10. I'm not mad I played it all the way thru, but I don't see myself going back and exploring the other paths I didn't take.

Все бы ничего, но гейразработчик любит гринд и затяжные приколы типа сходит по 50-ти локациям и спроси какую-то хрень , которая типа нужна для сюжета, если отрбросить элементы растягивания сюжета. то в целом добротный рпг с уникальным сеттингом и хорошо прописанными персонажами и особенно призрачные обитатели сего мира, но разработчик гей, поэтому 6/10