Finished Banishers Ghosts of New Eden, would give it a 3 1/2 out of 5.

The writing is top tier, to be expected from DONTNOD for me though.
The voice acting is best in class, the main characters Red and Antea are two of the best/most believable characters I've experienced in a game.
Music and world is fantastic, while dreadful at the same time (makes sense if you play it).
Game has a bit too much content and throws a lot at you as you progress... while the side quests are very good, it feels overwhelming at how much they put in. Though if you truly want to have stories pay off, you must do the more focused side quests (different indicators to let you know).
Combat could better, even with gaining new abilities over time, it always just felt average.
Some framerate drops in select areas, but it holds 50-60 99% of the time.

Highly recommend it if you want a narrative heavy game set in the late 1600's, ghost hunting, having to make difficult decisions on who to save/banish, top of the line storytelling and writing.

Me ha gustado , no es una obra maestra pero es bastante entretenido y tiene cosas muy bien trabajadas, si te gustan las historias bien trabajadas este es tu juego.

Lo bueno :
- La historia principal, las secundarias y todos los personajes están muy bien escritos y las historias son buenas.
- La ambientación te mete de lleno, edificios, vestimentas, comportamientos.
- Buenos gráficos.
- Jugabilidad , si bien no es una innovación cumple bastante y no es ni mucho menos dolorosa o mala, es un "esta bien"

Lo malo :
- Poca variedad de enemigos.
- Pocos bosses a mi parecer.
- Algunos traits y objetos poco útiles.
- Se hace un poco pesado la repetición de un puzzle en concreto.

From the company that made Life is Strange and Jusant, since the latter, thinking DontNOD had found a sweet spot, my eyes had locked on Banishers: Ghost of New Eden and was awaiting it with high expectations.
I hadn't purchased it at lunch because, after informing myself, I decided to shelf it for the time being. The game was gifted to me for my birthday, so the choice was made for me.

The story follows the adventures of Red and Anthea, two banishers romantically involved, who invited by their friend and mentor Charles, go to New Eden, a community of Puritans, to banish a ghost he alone could not. During this mission, the ghost turns out to be exponentially stronger than expected, a nightmare, and Anthea dies and becomes a ghost herself haunting Red, with the tie to this world being her body. The nightmare being so powerful can only mean it was wronged gravely, meaning the people of New Eden have lied to them, allowed the team to underestimate the threat, and contributed to Anthea's death, only so they could keep their secrets. They must get to the bottom of it to learn the truth, understand and weaken the nightmare, to then make their way back to New Eden to face it again.
A choice is given to Red:
Sacrifice the lives of these sinners to bring Anthea back to life.
Ascend or banish the ghosts he'll find, instead, contributing to Athea ascending this plane peacefully, unlike the ghosts you banish.
The story sounds interesting and captivating...the way I presented it.
Instead, the writing POV keeps blue-balling the player by keeping the objective of going back like a dangling carrot, and the power of the nightmare is only speculated at first to be connected to the sins of New Edeners. The various stories you'll learn of, act only as padding to the story instead of a component of it, often resulting as frustration as more unlock.

The intro to the game is one of the longest I've ever played with almost 5h of playtime before the initial structure of the gameplay and its various systems is unlocked.
The game is simply too long for what it offers, and it's so stretched that even the banter between the characters starts repeating quite early.
Funnily, concept arts are used for loading screens, but besides the low quality and detail, some don't even feature the final design of the characters with Anthea being a different race.

Ghost hunting often sums up to learning what happened, then coming up with a verdict, and being able to peacefully ascend all ghosts you meet, even if they were extremely wronged and angry, and want to kill the haunted. Letting the player choose which ritual to perform, while interesting at first, quickly becomes a nuisance since only one is the correct one. It's just another extra menu on the way. I would have preferred to have a more interesting cutscene instead, maybe with more than one alpha mask model for the knife incisions done when drawing a rune since it's the same regardless of sand, wood, or rock.

The writing of the side missions is sub-par, often being quite simple or nonsensical, like during a quest, when following the tracks of a stolen cart and they go up a wall and over a tree trunk. It did not keep in mind the pacing of the story, often breaking immersion and the moment by changing gear completely.
Representation matters and as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community I was happy to see some forward topics like interracial marriage, girl bossing, or a queer couple at the beginning of the game and in the main story, but by the time I got to the end, it became a bit redundant with most stories featuring topics such as. I am again thankful for the representation, I simply wished the game touched on a larger variety of topics.

Exploration is limited to running around and pressing the interaction button for all parkour in the game, sometimes requiring to press forward alongside it.
Walking around from A to B is quite tedious, and the map while big, is quite empty of anything interesting in it, besides materials. The loot is next to useless having even most chests, even ones behind long optional puzzles, reward materials.
Missions, often point only at an area, forcing the player to waste a lot of time looking around for what they are looking for. Exploration is further hindered by most shortcuts connecting two relatively close points, while sometimes having ledges that can't be climbed back, forcing you to repeat a long round trip.
Map progression is Metroid-like, with abilities gatekeeping points of interest, and the map showing the shortcut icon before unlocking it. Exploration becomes confusing, especially when deviating from the main story path, and often the time invested towards a ? on the map is wasted.
One of the gates is roots that need to be destroyed, similar to runic chests in the new God of Wars, but compared to them these give no good visual hint to the player of how many there are to destroy, be that 2 or 5, often blending in making it not just time-consuming, but trial and error.
The worst offender for exploration though is fast travel, limited only and exclusively at and in between bonfires, of which there are not many.

Combat, while it might look interesting at first and somewhat inspired by the recent GoWs, is naught but a foundation of it. It has the same structure and depth as a game like Hellblade, with 10 times its length and frequency. Constantly, a barrage of enemies attacks you every few steps in your direction, but the enemy types can be counted on a hand. Not even bosses are safe, with the ONE less gimmicky - yes one - being reused for in-map activity.
Little to nothing is added to the formula going forward, making combat formulaic and the same from start to end with the ability tree simply numerical increases of the already existing abilities.

Equipment is at best scarce and at worst not rewarded for anything worth doing in the game. Every equipment slot has options, from armor to weapons, rings, brooches, and...the healing potion?
Everything is upgradable, and each upgrade costs a lot of materials, resulting in changing it or choosing to upgrade a big commitment. All equipment, besides a different passive perk, doesn't offer a gameplay difference and is only aesthetic.
Not everything has to be upgradable, and a system akin to the new GoWs where, for example, you upgrade one weapon, and then switch charms for perks would have worked immensely better and avoided having the map showered in materials and forcing the player to spam-collect at all corners.

Technically, the game is made in Unreal Engine 5, but compared to many other releases lately, is merely an import of a UE4 project without taking advantage of any new technology like Lumen or Nanites.
Accessibility options are barely existent, with a forced narrow FOV that could cause motion sickness to some players, topped with an aggressive camera shake that can't be disabled: a killer combo, BEWARE!
Thankfully, the awful menu parallax effect can be turned off.
The auto-saving system of the game is lovely and can really save you at times, from the game-breaking bugs and unpatched bugged quests.
What wasn't well done, especially for users with mouse and keyboard was dialogue selection, not including the mouse pointer as an option at all.
In general quality control did not seem high, with typos making not just release, but many patches.

This game speaks about curses, and when it was gifted to me I felt like it came with one. I felt forced into playing it because it was a gift and because on paper: I should have liked it. With hindsight, the original hunch I had that the game might be too long for what it offered was correct.
This was one of those games that would have stayed on my wishlist until deleted years later, and I would not wish it to anyone gifted, let alone purchased.
I'm sure it's great for someone, just not me. There's a demo: TRY IT.

4/10

Una historia bastante buena con una pareja protagonista súper memorable y a la que es muy fácil cogerle cariño.

A nivel jugable es correcto. No inventa nada nuevo y bebe mucho de los God of War modernos en cuanto a su estructura, sistema de combate y demás. Le falta algo de variedad en cuanto a enemigos y coleccionables, pero no hace nada necesariamente mal.

El mundo es interesante y todas las historias opcionales merecen la pena, pero es cierto que la estructura de misiones es un tanto rara y a veces abusa muchísimo del backtracking en zonas algo tediosas de recorrer. Hay viaje rápido, afortunadamente, pero solo en puntos concretos del mapa, lo cual hace que haya que repetir zonas sí o sí en muchos casos.

No es nada rompedor, pero he disfrutado bastante las 50 horitas que le he echado y al final en eso consiste.

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A pretty great story with a super memorable protagonist duo that's very easy to get attached to.

Gameplay-wise, it's alright. It doesn't do anything new and it's heavily inspired by the newest God of War games in terms of structure, combat system and so on. It would benefit from having more variety when it comes to enemies and collectibles, but it's not like it does anything wrong.

The world itself is quite interesting and all the optional side stories are worth it, but it's true the mission structure is a bit weird and it sometimes relies too much on backtracking in areas that are a bit tedious to traverse. There's fast travel, fortunately, but only in specific parts of the map, which forces you to go through the same areas again in many cases.

It's nothing groundbreaking, but I had a pretty great time for the 50 hours I spent on it, and that's what it's all about, at the end of the day.

Gra Banishers stanowi drugą próbę studia Don't Nod aby wyjść trochę poza ramy symulatorów chodzenia i przygodówek, z którymi są kojarzeni od początku. Aczkolwiek jeszcze wcześniej stworzyli grę pod tytułem Remember Me, która miała więcej wspólnego z Banishers i Vampyrem niż serią Life is Strange, więc mógłbym też powiedzieć, że Banishers stanowi powrót do korzeni?

Od razu powiem, że gra mi się bardzo podobała, mimo szeregu zarzutów (o których za chwilę) i w moim osobistym rankingu stoi wyżej niż Vampyr, który był interesujący fabularnie, ale niedomagał technicznie. W przypadku Banishers również nie jest idealnie, ale widać znaczącą poprawę. Dużą zasługę w tym ma wykorzystanie silnika Unreal Engine 5 - gra jest piękna, podobały mi się modele postaci jak i krajobrazy. Szkoda, że praktycznie cała gra to jeden biom (w niektórych obszarach przyprószony śniegiem, ale to nadal to samo). Udźwiękowienie również stoi na wysokim poziomie, voice over jest idealny, a dialogi bardzo dobrze zagrane.

Nadal szlifów wymaga system walki. Na początku wydawał mi się strasznie toporny, ale jak doszły nowe umiejętności i nauczyłem się co i jak to stał się po prostu poprawny, chociaż nieporywający. Taki pro-tip: w walce ważna jest ciągłe zmienianie postaci między Redem i Anteą, kiedy pierścienie (runy) na dłoni Reda rozbłyskują na niebiesko, to znaczy, że możecie dokonać szybkiej zamiany na Anteę i wykonać potężne combo. Było znacznie ciekawiej, gdyby plejada przeciwników była bardziej rozbudowana. Przez całą grę walczy się dosłownie z zaledwie kilkoma rodzajami przeciwników, wszystko na jedno kopyto.

Gra od początku urzekła mnie settingiem -- siedemnastowieczna Ameryka, który jest dzikim krajem porośniętym gęstymi lasami i purytańscy koloniści walczący o przetrwanie w tym obiecującym, ale jednocześnie niebezpiecznym środowisku to coś, czego się często w grach nie spotyka. Troszkę mi się to kojarzyło z GreedFall, chociaż tam realia są bardziej fantastyczne, a w Banishers bardziej przyziemne. W Banishers akcja umiejscowiona jest w naszym świecie, jedynie New Eden to miejsce fikcyjne, ale niedaleko znajduje się Boston (do którego nie można się udać), a w listach pojawiają się wzmianki o Londynie i innych rzeczywistych miejscach w Europie i Ameryce.

W tej kolonialnej Ameryce twórcy postanowili opowiedzieć historię (a nawet wiele historii) o duchach i sile miłości. Tytułowi Pogromcy to ludzie, którzy badają sprawy nawiedzeń i wypędzają duchy. W toku rozgrywki trafimy na wiele takich wydarzeń i będziemy mogli pomóc lokalnym społecznościom w rozwiązaniu trapiących je problemów. W grze pojawił się system moralności, podobnie jak w Vampyrze -- tam dr Reid mógł jako wampir pożywiać się na ludziach, aby rozwijać swoje moce lub oszczędzać NPC, ale kosztem swojej siły. Stanowiło to ciężki dylemat moralny. W Banishers możemy pomagać duchom dostąpić Wstąpienia lub je Wygnać, ale możemy też wydać Wyrok na człowieka z krwi i kości, co kończy się jego śmiercią, natomiast nam ma pozwolić na końcu gry wskrzesić Anteę. W założeniach jest to super pomysł, w wykonaniu wypadł bardzo słabo (to kolejny z moich zarzutów), przynajmniej w moim odczuciu. Sęk w tym, że bohaterowie na początku gry składają sobie przysięgę polegającą na tym, że gracz wybiera ich ostateczny cel (pomóc Antei dokonać Wstąpienia czy ją wskrzesić kosztem innych żyjących?). Ja tego wyboru dokonałem i potem się go trzymałem już do końca gry, w praktyce po rozwiązaniu każdego Przypadku Nawiedzenia wybierając odpowiednią opcję. Tak, niestety jest to wybór z menu i jest tak emocjonujący jak zakończenie Mass Effect 3 w wersji premierowej. W ten sposób ani razu nie stałem przed dylematem moralnym.

Same Przypadki Nawiedzenia też mogłyby być jakoś lepiej skonstruowane, mniej liniowe, niejednoznaczne. W praktyce wszystkie są zrobione na jedną modłę i mimo że opowiadają jakieś ciekawe historie, to konstrukcja rozgrywki im nie służy. Ot, dowiadujemy się o nawiedzeniu, rozmawiamy z NPC, biegamy tu i tam, coś czytamy, coś zbieramy i na końcu dokonujemy wyboru czy wydać Wyrok na człowieka, pomóc Wstąpić duchowi czy Wygnać ducha. Następny proszę...

Ta gra zajęła mi prawie 80 godzin (znowu nie umiem grać, bo na HLTB nawet Competionist jest o połowę krótszy...). God of War 2018, do którego Banishers jest najbardziej podobne pod względem rozgrywki i konstrukcji, jest chyba o prawie połowę krótszy, jednocześnie oferując ZNACZNIE więcej zawartości i różnorodności. Banishers to gra po prostu zbyt długa, moim zdaniem kompletnie niepotrzebnie. Wolałbym, żeby było tu mniej backtrackingu i nawet żeby lokacje były korytarzowe, wszystko inne mogłoby zostać. Byłbym wtedy bardziej zadowolony.

Podsumowując - mimo pewnych zarzutów, grę bardzo polecam. Myślę, że Don't Nod może śmiało myśleć o pójściu w pełnoprawne RPG na tym etapie, nawet jeżeli będą to tytuły AA. I dla takich tytułów znajdzie się miejsce na rynku.

BTW gra działa bardzo dobrze na Steam Decku, warto!

Experiencia etérea

No, no es que Banishers: Ghost of New Eden sea una experiencia etérea porque su trama esté estrechamente vinculada con el mundo de los espíritus —que también—, sino porque, muy a mi pesar, el planteamiento general de la última obra de Don't Nod está falto de consistencia, de solidez. Pero vayamos por partes.

Resulta que, para sorpresa de nadie, el videojuego es especialmente bueno cuando se centra en lo que el estudio sabe hacer: crear buenas historias, construir tramas, escribir diálogos. Todo esto, en compañía de un estilo artístico refinado y un muy buen gusto cinematográfico, acaban de perfilar una obra que solo necesitaba de un buen entramado jugable. Y ahí llegan los problemas.

New Eden es grande; es terriblemente grande. Sustentar un mapa de estas dimensiones, dividido en secciones generalmente pasilleras cargadas de objetos, algún puzle, coleccionables y encuentros aleatorios con enemigos, no es moco de pavo. Y, por lástima, ni la variedad de enemigos está a la altura de la duración del juego, ni el sistema de combate termina de brillar en ningún momento.

Las bases jugables son decentes, pero acostumbran a ser solo bases frente a un sistema de mejora de habilidades muy anecdótico y la continua repetición de combates, enemigos y bosses.

Es, efectivamente, de esos juegos que, de durar quince o veinte horas, ganarían enteros.

No obstante, las horas se acumulan —hasta sesenta o más en caso de querer completar los logros—, el dinero deja de tener sentido, los materiales pierden su importancia, los objetos equipables desaprovechan su potencial y los mismos enemigos siguen apareciendo una, y otra, y otra, y otra vez, sin posibilidad, siquiera, de huir o abandonar un combate.

Es, lo dicho, una lastima, pues donde Banishers: Ghost of New Eden es bueno, lo es con ganas —con especial mención a la pareja protagonista, muy bien trabajada y muy bien doblada—, pero, donde se hace débil, el título parece rendirse a lo etéreo hasta desaparecer.

Back in the mid-2000s, there were many God of War clones, and that trend continues with the 2018 reboot. Banishers is essentially a God of War clone, almost to a T, barrowing many elements such as combat, exploration, storytelling, and the upgrade system. However, there's a hint of "Eurojank" present that I just can't shake. While the story, setting, and lore are interesting enough (the key word is "enough"), the game never excels to the heights of the game it's trying to become.

You play Red MacRaith, and Antea Duarte. Lovers who are now separated by the plane of the dead. Banishers are people who go around removing hauntings from people, places, and objects, but they can also pass judgment and execute the living for doing wrong to those who previously lived. It's an interesting concept, but sadly, the game never goes into more detail about it. How can these people just kill the living based on what the dead say? What are the laws and rules surrounding this? The game also doesn't go into the background or history of the Banishers. This is something that God of War did well. We need a lot of backstory if we're going to spend 25+ hours in a game like this. The entire game is just pretty "good,"  but never memorable or amazing. It always just falls below that mark. While I found the world and atmosphere of New Eden fascinating, the way the story and world are unfolded to the player are boring, mundane, or just not interesting. Reading material is pointless and doesn't add to anything. 

Let's just start with the combat. Heavy and light attacks make up the basis of combos, but you can switch to Antea in the ghost plane, who has more powerful attacks. Her bar isn't HP, but an energy meter. Hit decrease this as well as using your attack powers. You can refill this bar by fighting as Red in the real world, but he doesn't have any special attacks, and this really kept me from creating a strategy or learning how to beat enemies. Red just light and heavy attacks enemies (with a heavy charge attack), and the game tells you Red does more damage to ghosts and Antea does more damage to possessed bodies, but it never really seemed to be effective. You can parry attacks, which the game heavily relies on for more damage, and Red has a gun that you get about 1/4th through the game; it's a one-shot rifle that requires a reload. This can sometimes do a lot of damage, but the enemies are so boring and uninteresting that there's no distinguishable feature or stat to build strategies in your head. Ghosts are pretty easy, while anything else can damage sponges. I just couldn't combo or create a meaningful pattern for defeating enemies, and it made combat one of the least enjoyable parts of the game. It also just feels slightly clunky and sluggish.

The upgrade system feels almost as useless. You get experience for Red and Antea by completing side quests (called hauntings), which grant you additional damage for certain attacks, but I never really got to unlock any new combos or powers. Antea's three powers are found during the story, so the upgrade tree is just boring, and I never felt powerful enough and couldn't even use skills to become more powerful. This also bleeds over into the equipment system. Red can equip rifles, blades, outfits, and potion bottles, which increase attributes, but no matter how high they were, I always felt just too weak to really get an edge over the enemies. Antea can equip various accessories to help her attributes, but nothing felt powerful or meaningful.

This leads to the exploration and hunting gameplay loop that's identical to God of War, but without the enjoyment. Why do I want to hunt chests and haunted objects, fast travel back, and open new paths with new powers if all this equipment feels useless and haunting cases only give me a single esence for the skill tree when it also feels pointless? They are fun at first, and the haunting cases are like mini-murder mysteries you can solve, but they also play out the same way. Some lead to small boss fights, some are just item gathering quests, and they all add to the main story choice (I won't spoil it) for the ending, but they are all optional. There is a lot of side content here, but I gave up about halfway through because I just didn't feel any of the rewards were worth it. 

With that said, the game looks pretty good for an Unreal Engine 4 game. There is a lot of detail in the environments; they are varied, and the atmosphere is thick and heavy, but everything just teeters on not quite being enough on every front. The ability to even upgrade equipment doesn't help make you feel like you're growing as a player or character. I felt just as weak from the beginning of the game to the end and wound up dying quite a bit. Some side content, like the void walking dungeons, is tedious and boring, and the only redeeming value is exploring the world and picking up all these items and chests. I just wish the rewards were better.

Overall, Banishers has a lot of interesting concepts going for it, and the voice acting is good (the facial animations are very dated). I wanted to know more about this world, but the game just doesn't give it up. The side content is questionable, the combat is too clunky, and there's no strategy or really good combo system implemented to make it stand out from the crowd. There aren't really any puzzles, and the story is predictable towards the end, making you feel like your choices are almost meaningless. I feel like if DONTNOD had another go, they could get a lot more right. As it stands, this feels like a "Eurojank" God of War.

Esse jogo daria conteúdo para uma ótima série ou filme. Não me leve a mal, não quero que essa opinião soe como aqueles idiotas que chamam jogos focados em narrativa de "filminhos", de forma pejorativa. É que aqui eu realmente acho que o potencial que isso tinha como jogo foi totalmente desperdiçado e as ideias foram mal executadas.

Em termos de história, o jogo é ótimo, o que é muito característico da Don't Nod. A missão principal é muito interessante, a conexão entre os protagonistas é bem explícita e marcante. Além disso, o jogo também brilha nos "casos de assombração", que são mini histórias à parte, em geral autocontidas, que revelam mais das condições das pessoas que habitam esse mundo fictício, além de proporcionar momentos de tensão ao final de cada uma, onde uma decisão difícil tem que ser tomada pelo jogador.

Dito isso, quase nada relacionado a jogabilidade clicou comigo. Apesar da história das missões ser interessante, tudo se resume a "vá ali, faça isso, depois volte aqui". Tudo já tá mastigado pro jogador. Por isso que disse que daria melhor uma série/filme, se fosse pra ser feito dessa forma. O que diferencia jogos de outros tipos de mídia é justamente o fato de que quem está interagindo com ela está ativo, criando sua própria história ativamente.

Em Banishers, o jogador é extremamente passivo e guiado o tempo todo, com exceção dos momentos de combate, que é bem sólido mas nada inovador ou especial. Por exemplo, em uma determinada missão você tem que encontrar relatos de um ex-combatente de guerra dentro de um arsenal abandonado. O que poderia ser um momento de imersão e exploração, acaba sendo uma tarefa chata de ir no local que já está marcado na interface. E é assim o tempo todo em todas as missões. Cadê a "investigação"? Por que então isso é um jogo e não um filme, afinal de contas?

Até mesmo a progressão do personagem é básica e genérica, com mecânicas bem simplórias de RPG: uma árvore de habilidades bem limitada, uns mercadores que vendem itens majoritariamente inúteis, um sistema de craft e status de personagem que se resume a achar um item que melhore o atributo de força e pronto. É como se tudo tivesse sido colocado à força só pra dizer que é um jogo. E ainda tem o pior de tudo: É UM JOGO DESNECESSARIAMENTE LONGO! Pelo menos umas 25h se você tiver rushando toda a missão principal. Junta todas as tarefas chatas e tediosas com esse tamanho e pronto, tá a receita para o tédio.

Existem maneiras melhores de trazer o foco de um jogo para a narrativa, jogos como The Last of Us, Uncharted e até mesmo os da série Tomb Raider fazem isso de maneira melhor. Mas mesmo com todas essas críticas, acho que esse jogo tem um público alvo específico que pode gostar mais de jogá-lo. Pode ser realmente interessante para os que gostam de uma boa história e relativizam bastante a jogabilidade, ou até mesmo pra quem não tem um certo hábito de jogar videogames e procura uma "primeira vez", mas o encaixe disso como jogo definitivamente não foi um acerto.

The story is pretty good, with an amazing premise and world-building. I really loved what the game had to offer in these terms. Some of the sceneries are so beautiful that you could simply look at them and forget how cursed the world is here. The characters in the story are also very interesting, and I enjoyed getting to know them and how they fit into this world. Some of the cases were equally interesting, finding out what exactly went wrong. However, eventually, it gets boring. Also, I don't like to make the final judgement for each case thinking about the ending, I would have loved to treat each case separately and handled them differently without thinking about the bigger picture but that could just be me.
The combat is very basic; you barely need to do anything at all. It's a simple hack 'n' slash where you can keep spamming an attack you like and use abilities when the cooldown is done. There is very little strategy involved, and there are extremely few enemy varieties, making the combat super repetitive and eventually boring. The main bosses of each act are good, very well designed, and fit beautifully into the story, but they too suffer from lackluster combat.
Exploration also seemed useless. Yes, you get ingredients and gear, but since the combat is so mediocre, you can do well with just playing the main quests. There is no motivation to explore. One thing they got right is switching between both characters and the mechanic involved there, which made combat bearable. The skill point system is also great, forcing you to choose so you can't end up having all the skills by endgame. But again, it doesn't matter much.
Overall, for the above-average story, this can be a one-time experience.

Coming off of DontNods previous game Vampyr, Banishers takes a lot of the concepts and improves them into a new and unique story but also stumbles on some unnecessary fluff.

Story-wise, following the tale of the banishers Red and Antea is excellent, DontNod kill it with telling an emotional main story as always that lets you choose along the way how to get invested with the community of new Eden and the things that haunt them. Even the optional haunting cases are all great and I recommend doing them to get additional background flavor on supporting characters which make the ending much more impactful.

The missteps are mostly in the combat and the open world. Combat, while initially cool because of the skill tree that Red and Antea share, lacks some depth and towards the end of the game starts feeling button mashy due to a lack of combos. And the open world is beautiful to look at but a lot of double backing and not always the easiest to navigate, sometimes leaving me frustrated that I just wanted to get to the next fast travel point.

Vampyr had a controversial morality system making you choose between killing NPCs for growth but obviously locking yourself out of their quests and effecting which ending you got but not always being clear about the impact. Banishers has its own version of this with letting you act as judge, jury, and even executioner for haunting cases by sacrificing the victims if you so choose, which will impact the ending. I dug this system but can see some people being annoyed with some of the vagueness in consequences and how it might effect which ending you get.

I still appreciate the effort that DontNod took to do their unique form of emotional storytelling and enjoyed the hell out of this game.

Set in 1695, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden offered a blend of fantasy and historical realism. It followed two protagonists, one alive and one dead, each with their own abilities and perspectives in terms of the game world. It was possible to switch between both, which served combat as well as exploration.

While I enjoyed the storytelling and atmosphere, the combat was repetitive and didn't feel all that great. Additionally, the inability to skip fights in the world frustrated me to no end—while cleaning up and just wanting to get from point A to B (as backtracking was encouraged later on), it was impossible to bypass terrain once enemies were in chase. The game just wouldn't allow it.

But, regardless of my complaints, the story was interesting, especially the two paths that essentially boiled down to good and bad.

-Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden- eu sei que essa opinião é muito atrasada do jogo mas só que eu vou esclarecer ela o Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden é um jogo aceitável não é perfeito e tem os seus defeitos as mecânicas é ok combate aceitável me lembrou um pouco de God of War, as mecânicas de corrida na minha opinião é estranha parece que eu já tinha jogado esse jogo Esse jogo tem uma história genérica acho que se você quer jogar esse jogo por causa da história não é o Caso de Banishers história genérica de mais acho que esse jogo tem alguns defeitos de desempenho não parece que eu estou a 60 FPS parece que tô a 50 ou a 20 o que faz esse jogo ser diferente as mecânicas Gameplay muito bom No resto eu achei o jogo bem seco Essa é a minha opinião do Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, I know this opinion is very backwards from the game but I'm just going to clarify it Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is an acceptable game, it's not perfect and it has its flawsthe mechanics are ok, acceptable combat, it reminded me a little of God of War, the racing mechanics are strange in my opinion, it seems like I had already played that game This game has a generic storyI think if you want to play this game because of the story it's not the Case of Banishers too generic storyI think this game has some performance defects it doesn't look like I'm at 60 FPS it looks like I'm at 50 or 20what makes this game different the mechanics Very good gameplayOtherwise, I found the game to be quite dry.This is my opinion of Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Banishers look and plays like God of War Ragnarok. You’re exploring the wilds with your playable family member (in this case, a ghost spouse), you swap between the strengths of both characters, and everything you do works towards mending your grief using magical ghost-banishing means.

Maybe along the way you absorb the souls of some villagers to put the romance back in necromancy to resurrect your ghost spouse? It’s an option.

The combat lacks punch, but the acting makes up for it with likable protagonists. It’s a peak game from Don’t Nod Entertainment. I just didn’t expect the lore to take me out of it.

When I met the big bad enemy of the game, we hear her classification of ghost is just a “nightmare.” Then we’re told they’re the highest and most difficult kind of ghost to deal with. But I was thinking, “I’ve dealt with those before.” Fizzzzzz: there goes my wider curiosity of this world at large. Still, it kinda sucks to feel that way because this game clearly has tons going for it. Game retired for now. Probably ideal for gamer couples, though.

(Banishers Ghosts of New Eden)

Banishers feels like its constantly at odds with itself. It's trying really hard to be God of War 2018, but the combat is iffy and the world traversal is a bit boring. The story is phenomenal and the side missions all fit cohesively with the core themes, however all the great side-missions are followed up by these like side-epilogues that for the most part boil down to fetch quests or other menial tasks. What's weird is the major bits needed for the different endings are in the main side missions, so the after-missions really just feel like completionist filler.

In summary Banishers should've tried to trim off some of the fat, if not dropped the open world completely in favor of a more linear game.

Also throughout my game I kept running into a glitch where the music would just cut out or restart abruptly. Offputting but never game ruining, that is until halfway through the final cutscene the music stopped and I sat watching what probably would've been a lot more effective with some good score.

Gave it a good go but it bored me to death, more of a interactive story than a video game. Tries to be god of war (2018) with bits and pieces from the witcher but everything is watered down and clunky. The only thing i liked was the atmosphere and ambience.

Combat is an afterthought and exploration is walking around big empty corridors, and every 10 steps there is a gap you have to squeeze through, or a ledge, or a climbable wall that takes 5-10 seconds to get through, which serves no purpose I can see other than a loading time trick.

Banishers is so far one of my Games of Thr Year for 2024 along side Dragons Dogma II. The interactive story is one of the most intriguing things about the game with multiple endings making the replay value high.

The graphics are great, the combat is fun, the story is incredible, and I haven't had any bugs in my playthrough. The game isn't perfect, it can drag a bit and feel a little slow. It isn't the easiest game to get into but it is a fun game with God of War like combat and a branching narrative you won't want to miss.

I definitely recommend this game.