Okay, let’s do a short story version of what I thought of the game and then, if you feel like reading way too specific stuff about this game, you can keep reading for the long version, because there is a lot to say about this game, both good and bad.
Short version: the strongest point of this game are its story, characters (and voice acting), historical setting and visuals. The weakest point, for me, was combat. I found combat boring, repetitive and slow. If it weren’t for the characters, their dialogues and the overall story, I don’t know if I would have completed the game, because gameplay itself can get boring after a few hours.
Now for the long version, let’s go with specific stuff that I liked:
• The visuals were amazing. I don’t mean just realistic graphics (which it has), but also the designs of the enviroments, the houses, the landscapes, the characters themselves, their outfits and accessories; the objects you find lying around, everything. The interiors of houses and buildings in general were beautiful. Every time I entered a room I kinda lost myself for a bit just looking around.
• The dynamic between Red and Antea (both in gameplay and in the storyline) was great. It was fun to switch between characters, and it was fun to hear them talk to each other.
• The gun/rifle was fun to use in combat. I think it was one of the few things that I liked about the fighting in this game.
• I loved the story and themes of this game. The game deal with topics like love, death, loss, betrayal, violence, grief in a way that I really liked, because you feel all of that through the characters. As I said, for my experience, the story carried the game. If it wasn’t for the story, maybe I would have drop the game before finishing it. I played a few of the side quest that had very good stories as well. I because of the repetitive gameplay, I only played a few of all the side quest available.
Sadly, the game has a lot of things that I didn’t like. Some of this are small things that don’t represent a real problem for the game as a whole, and others are more important.
• I found the combat very boring. At first, I thought it was because I needed to upgrade my gear, learn new abilities, learn new mechanics later on in the game, etc. But at around 10 hours into the game, I was just tired of the fighting parts. The game doesn’t try to hide the influence of “God of War” (2018). But while in that game the combat feels very real and dynamic, and fast and actually rewarding, in Banishers it feels slow, repetitive and very inefficient. In every enemy encounter I found myself taking way too long to defeat them, but not because they were hard or challenging to fight (that would have actually been great), but because the damage was ridiculously low, even after upgrading the weapons and character. It took me forever to defeat the most simple foes, after hitting and hitting buttons. The boss fights were a bit better, maybe because they look different, or maybe because you had to focus in just one enemy. The only thing that made the combat good for moments were the interaction and witch between characters. I think they could have explore that mechanic a lot more. Add more combos, more weapons, etc.
• There is not “bestiary” where you can look the different types of enemies. Maybe because there is not a lot of enemy types. But I would have like to have a section where you could read about the enemies, maybe even combat tips for each of them, and stuff like that.
• Played it on XBOX Series X and I had about three or four crashes in the middle of the game or cinematics. One of the glitches came right after I defeated “The Beast”, so I had to play that boss fight again, because the game wasn’t saved before crashing. Not a big deal, but a bit annoying.
• The compass on top of the screen is just bad. I don’t know, maybe this point is my fault, but there were a lot of times when I was running around trying to guess where the compass was actually trying to make me go, because it kept moving a lot, even walking in straight line. So I had to open the map, see the destination and try to go that way.
• In the final part of the game, it feels like they were trying to stretch it maybe? In one of the last quests you have to go from point A to point B several times, just to start a dialogue that sends you to another point. This isn’t always a bad thing, but I found the map not very fun to explore after a few hours.
• The game probably has a few different endings (I didn’t google this, but I think it does, because you have important choices all throughout the game) and I’d like to see them all, but I don’t see myself playing this game again, so I will probably look them up on Youtube.
Short version: the strongest point of this game are its story, characters (and voice acting), historical setting and visuals. The weakest point, for me, was combat. I found combat boring, repetitive and slow. If it weren’t for the characters, their dialogues and the overall story, I don’t know if I would have completed the game, because gameplay itself can get boring after a few hours.
Now for the long version, let’s go with specific stuff that I liked:
• The visuals were amazing. I don’t mean just realistic graphics (which it has), but also the designs of the enviroments, the houses, the landscapes, the characters themselves, their outfits and accessories; the objects you find lying around, everything. The interiors of houses and buildings in general were beautiful. Every time I entered a room I kinda lost myself for a bit just looking around.
• The dynamic between Red and Antea (both in gameplay and in the storyline) was great. It was fun to switch between characters, and it was fun to hear them talk to each other.
• The gun/rifle was fun to use in combat. I think it was one of the few things that I liked about the fighting in this game.
• I loved the story and themes of this game. The game deal with topics like love, death, loss, betrayal, violence, grief in a way that I really liked, because you feel all of that through the characters. As I said, for my experience, the story carried the game. If it wasn’t for the story, maybe I would have drop the game before finishing it. I played a few of the side quest that had very good stories as well. I because of the repetitive gameplay, I only played a few of all the side quest available.
Sadly, the game has a lot of things that I didn’t like. Some of this are small things that don’t represent a real problem for the game as a whole, and others are more important.
• I found the combat very boring. At first, I thought it was because I needed to upgrade my gear, learn new abilities, learn new mechanics later on in the game, etc. But at around 10 hours into the game, I was just tired of the fighting parts. The game doesn’t try to hide the influence of “God of War” (2018). But while in that game the combat feels very real and dynamic, and fast and actually rewarding, in Banishers it feels slow, repetitive and very inefficient. In every enemy encounter I found myself taking way too long to defeat them, but not because they were hard or challenging to fight (that would have actually been great), but because the damage was ridiculously low, even after upgrading the weapons and character. It took me forever to defeat the most simple foes, after hitting and hitting buttons. The boss fights were a bit better, maybe because they look different, or maybe because you had to focus in just one enemy. The only thing that made the combat good for moments were the interaction and witch between characters. I think they could have explore that mechanic a lot more. Add more combos, more weapons, etc.
• There is not “bestiary” where you can look the different types of enemies. Maybe because there is not a lot of enemy types. But I would have like to have a section where you could read about the enemies, maybe even combat tips for each of them, and stuff like that.
• Played it on XBOX Series X and I had about three or four crashes in the middle of the game or cinematics. One of the glitches came right after I defeated “The Beast”, so I had to play that boss fight again, because the game wasn’t saved before crashing. Not a big deal, but a bit annoying.
• The compass on top of the screen is just bad. I don’t know, maybe this point is my fault, but there were a lot of times when I was running around trying to guess where the compass was actually trying to make me go, because it kept moving a lot, even walking in straight line. So I had to open the map, see the destination and try to go that way.
• In the final part of the game, it feels like they were trying to stretch it maybe? In one of the last quests you have to go from point A to point B several times, just to start a dialogue that sends you to another point. This isn’t always a bad thing, but I found the map not very fun to explore after a few hours.
• The game probably has a few different endings (I didn’t google this, but I think it does, because you have important choices all throughout the game) and I’d like to see them all, but I don’t see myself playing this game again, so I will probably look them up on Youtube.