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Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden | OT | North American Witcher

Flabagast

Member
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Awesome screens !

I hole the level of geometry on the houses. Each beams and roof tiles are nicely modeled
 

Chuck Berry

Gold Member
This game does temperate coniferous forests really fucking well. Like really fucking well.

I dont think Ive been this impressed with woods since Alan Wake 1.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
I’m shocked that ultra woke Dotnod made this. They must have cried when having to put that disclaimer at the beginning.
 

Flabagast

Member
This is the best game of 2024 no one will play.
Yeah, even if I have the impression there is more conversation about the game now that there was pre-release, so that’s a thing.

For everybody that’s craving for one of these Sony’like cinematic action adventures that are now few and far between, this is it !
 

Chuck Berry

Gold Member
Just finished the third side case. Game is so fucking good. Hopefully combat opens up a bit more once I get the rifle (Praying for a bullet time/Focus power for it 🙏🏻) but even if it doesn’t, the design, exploration satisfaction, writing and acting more than make up for it.

As long as nothing story wise really shits the bed, Red and Antea will probably end up being what I consider the best couple in gaming.

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Bonus your soul is mine shot

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kittoo

Cretinously credulous
Absolutely loving whatever little time I am getting to spend with this game.
Unfortunately I am very busy these days. :(
 

PanzerCute

Member
I am around 35 hours now, and I am still thoroughly enjoying it. I spent a big amount of time doing the side content, and I am now going to the fort.

Really a great game. We need more AA RPGs like this. Fortunately, Greedfall 2 releases in 2024: the first one might be my favorite of the recent years.
 
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It feels very very dated design wise, like a x360 game...but it has an amazing setting that isn't featured enough in gaming and a really intriguing story.

It's janky but I want to keep playing a lot more than the average AAA game.

Looks pretty on an OLED ultrawide too (with the ultrawide fix).
 

JusticeForAll

Gold Member
There definitely is a bug where the game runs progressively worse the longer you play on ps5. When you feel the FPS is too low, quitting and restarting the game solves it.
 
The combat gets pretty crazy trying to juggle enemies in the
roguelite shadow realm
.
Also that attention to detail where sidequests npcs actually remember what the player did and act accordingly.
 

Chuck Berry

Gold Member
its the same kind of level design as in the latest tomb raider

Yup. Big GOW2018 + Tomb Raider reboot trilogy vibes with the exploration pacing and Metroidy backtracking on top of fantastic writing and so far a great story

Upgrading, leveling and skills also similar and fortunately, is much easier to look at and to comprehend than say, Ragnarok
 
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Chuck Berry

Gold Member
The more this game opens up, the better it gets which I feel almost has been quite the opposite lately with these bigger games. I just want to keep going not only for the exploratory rewards and power ups, but also because the haunting side cases and subsequent sidequests are really well done. On top of the main story. Do you wanna bring your probable future wife back from the dead or not? Get ready to make some decisions…

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Also I get serious Order 1886 vibes sometimes. Character movement with Red can feel similar and the rifle usage definitely remind me of it.

Bonus short vid of combat once you get the hang of it

 

Flabagast

Member
I'm confused, the OT title says american witcher, but it looks more like GOW gameplay to me? Someone who can elaborate?
I did the OT quickly, and I was referring to the Witcher more in a narrative sense, as Banishers are more or less the exact same thing as Witchers imho:

- Ronin type characters who go from forbidden desolate place to forbidden desolate place to exorcise maledictions
- Even if they act alone, they belong to an occult ancient order full of rites and traditions (as in Witcher schools)
- Their goal is to get rid of monsters / ghosts that embody the consequences of guilt and wrondoings in rural communities
- Like Witchers, they only have a partial knowledge of the magic / inner arcanes of the world, and they must rely on witches and more sentient authorities to dig deep into the unkwown
- They attract disdain and fear from local villagers who do not understand what they do
- They experience a physical decaying process to be able to do their deed
- Mastery of martial arts and light magic
- etc etc...

And basically the game is a long series of Witcher contracts -> hear of a problem / investigate / find the curse / lift the curse either by killing the ghost-monster or killing the human whose misdeeds created the curse in the first place. It's really comparable imho.

Although of course in terms of game design the game is much closer to GoW or Tomb raider than CDPR witcher series
 
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Chuck Berry

Gold Member
I did the OT quickly, and I was referring to the Witcher more in a narrative sense, as Banishers are more or less the exact same thing as Witchers imho:

- Ronin type characters who go from forbidden desolate place to forbidden desolate place to exorcise maledictions
- Even if they act alone, they belong to an occult ancient order full of rites and traditions (as in Witcher schools)
- Their goal is to get rid of monsters / ghosts that embody the consequences of guilt and wrondoings in rural communities
- Like Witchers, they only have a partial knowledge of the magic / inner arcanes of the world, and they must rely on witches and more sentient authorities to dig deep into the unkwown
- They attract disdain and fear from local villagers who do not understand what they do
- They experience a physical decaying process to be able to do their deed
- Mastery of martial arts and light magic
- etc etc...

And basically the game is a long series of Witcher contracts -> hear of a problem / investigate / find the curse / lift the curse either by killing the ghost-monster or killing the human whose misdeeds created the curse in the first place. It's really comparable imho.

Although of course in terms of game design the game is much closer to GoW or Tomb raider than CDPR witcher series

Sorry man I didnt mean to call your OT dumb :messenger_pensive:
 
Played 10+ hours now and level design still feels dated (so many cracks to crawl through) but I'm loving the story, vibe and overall presentation.

Heard a lot of complaints about combat in the reviews and while it's not GOW 2018 level it's not bad and there's a fair bit of build variety.
 

kingsamj

Banned
I finished this game last night and really loved the ending. I rushed the main storyline after a while (I only get an hour or two to play games per night) so there are still a good amount of haunting cases that I didn't see. The main story was good enough that I don't mind missing some of the side content, though I was overall pretty pleased with the extra haunting cases that I did do.

I kind of want to do another playthrough and choose a different ending (I made the "ascend" promise first time through) just to see how things play out.
 

PanzerCute

Member
I finished the game two days ago. All in all, really solid effort from Dontnod with great writing, good characters, a very interesting world and a pretty decent gameplay.

My grips tho are sound design/OST and combat, that felt like a downgrade to me compared to Vampyr. Sound design is a bit buggy and the musics are decent but nothing stands out, while in Vampyr it was one of the strongest aspect (but hey, it w+s Deriviere, that guy is one of the best in the industry).
For combat, they went with something more "AAA" that felt way too permissive and telegraphed, when Vampyr was very accurate and challenging if you did not want to sacrifice any PNJ.

Oh and I think the game is too big and has too much side content for its own good: I felt a bit burnt out in the end and left a few haunting cases and quests for that reason.

Appart from that, I thoroughly enjoyed my 45 hours with this game and am very happy that such games exist.

Now lets just wait for Greedfall 2, this one will be special!
 
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