Full video review: https://youtu.be/fZYGoqzz3lM
Banishers is basically what you would get if you took God of War and gave it a little bit of the Sherlock Holmes treatment. It’s an interesting combo that has both its pros and cons.
Combat
Overall, the combat is pretty good. Hits have weight behind them, there’s a few different weapon types to mix and match mid-fight, the movement feels fluid, dodging, parrying, and blocking are responsive, and there’s an entire skill tree with new moves and such to add even more flavor. For not being the focus of the experience, the studio did a pretty good job making the combat fun to play.
That said, it really suffers with its enemy variety. It gets kinda boring fighting the same type of ghosts over and over throughout the game, especially since the only visual difference between most of them is their color. The boss fights are cool, but there aren’t enough of them to break up the otherwise monotonous enemies.
Exploration & Level Design
Exploration is also a big part of the experience and something Banishers does well. The level design in particular is solid. You have this large map to explore complete with branching paths, plenty of side objectives, towns with people to get to know, beautiful scenery, and I am just kinda a sucker for medieval/fantasy infused aesthetics and the world here in Banishers absolutely nails that.
One thing I really was not a fan of was the whole crafting/upgrading element. It reminded me of games like A Plague Tale or even God of War, where it’s just kinda tacked on to the experience and there to give you an excuse to wander around more to find more grass, stone, and other random material to collect for future upgrades. That aspect was not really fleshed out and came across as tedious as a result.
Story
I liked the overarching plot. Two banishers - basically ghost hunters or paranormal investigators - traveling around solving cases and ultimately trying to decide the fate of Antea, your partner who herself is a ghost. It’s a great set up to tie together the rest of the game, which ultimately comes across as episodic.
That can be good or bad depending on the person. You have this goal of reaching New Eden - the town where your partner died - but must stop along the way to assist with cases that ultimately have no relation to the rest of the plot. Some of these cases are genuinely interesting, some are bad, but most are just okay. You’ll get one that dives into a couple characters and raises some great questions about topics like death, relationships, and what it takes to survive in the world, and then one that has a very predictable and boring twist with surface-level characters.
I would say for the most part, the cases are interesting, but there are quite a lot that just aren’t and you’re forced to go through them to progress anyways. Oftentimes the only relation they have to the main story is the decision you make at the very end when deciding who is to blame in a specific case. Your choices there ultimately decide the fate of your ghost partner, but I feel like the game could have done a bit more in making the rest of the story feel more than just episodic mini-stories.
Length & Replayability
The entire thing takes about 20-25 hours to clear, so it is rather lengthy, but I can’t say I see myself replaying this one to make different choices purely because the individual cases themselves - given I already know the outcome - would just be a slog.
Graphics, Music, & Performance
Character designs are solid, the environments are detailed, the lighting is well-done, and the soundtrack is alright too. Performance-wise, I was unable to run the game natively at 4k 144fps medium-high settings on my 3080 Ti and ended up having to enable DLSS to compensate. After that though, no issues aside from the occasional funky animation bug.
Overall
I would give Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden a light recommendation. It does many things well, such as the combat, the exploration, and the narrative too, but I can’t say that any single one of these is anything more than just “good”. The combat has issues with how repetitive it can be, the narrative is hit or miss due to the episodic nature of the game loop, and the whole crafting/upgrading system just felt shallow. That said, you do get some really interesting cases, characters, and the boss fights are really cool too. I’m glad I played it, but would only recommend it on sale or in a bundle.
Banishers is basically what you would get if you took God of War and gave it a little bit of the Sherlock Holmes treatment. It’s an interesting combo that has both its pros and cons.
Combat
Overall, the combat is pretty good. Hits have weight behind them, there’s a few different weapon types to mix and match mid-fight, the movement feels fluid, dodging, parrying, and blocking are responsive, and there’s an entire skill tree with new moves and such to add even more flavor. For not being the focus of the experience, the studio did a pretty good job making the combat fun to play.
That said, it really suffers with its enemy variety. It gets kinda boring fighting the same type of ghosts over and over throughout the game, especially since the only visual difference between most of them is their color. The boss fights are cool, but there aren’t enough of them to break up the otherwise monotonous enemies.
Exploration & Level Design
Exploration is also a big part of the experience and something Banishers does well. The level design in particular is solid. You have this large map to explore complete with branching paths, plenty of side objectives, towns with people to get to know, beautiful scenery, and I am just kinda a sucker for medieval/fantasy infused aesthetics and the world here in Banishers absolutely nails that.
One thing I really was not a fan of was the whole crafting/upgrading element. It reminded me of games like A Plague Tale or even God of War, where it’s just kinda tacked on to the experience and there to give you an excuse to wander around more to find more grass, stone, and other random material to collect for future upgrades. That aspect was not really fleshed out and came across as tedious as a result.
Story
I liked the overarching plot. Two banishers - basically ghost hunters or paranormal investigators - traveling around solving cases and ultimately trying to decide the fate of Antea, your partner who herself is a ghost. It’s a great set up to tie together the rest of the game, which ultimately comes across as episodic.
That can be good or bad depending on the person. You have this goal of reaching New Eden - the town where your partner died - but must stop along the way to assist with cases that ultimately have no relation to the rest of the plot. Some of these cases are genuinely interesting, some are bad, but most are just okay. You’ll get one that dives into a couple characters and raises some great questions about topics like death, relationships, and what it takes to survive in the world, and then one that has a very predictable and boring twist with surface-level characters.
I would say for the most part, the cases are interesting, but there are quite a lot that just aren’t and you’re forced to go through them to progress anyways. Oftentimes the only relation they have to the main story is the decision you make at the very end when deciding who is to blame in a specific case. Your choices there ultimately decide the fate of your ghost partner, but I feel like the game could have done a bit more in making the rest of the story feel more than just episodic mini-stories.
Length & Replayability
The entire thing takes about 20-25 hours to clear, so it is rather lengthy, but I can’t say I see myself replaying this one to make different choices purely because the individual cases themselves - given I already know the outcome - would just be a slog.
Graphics, Music, & Performance
Character designs are solid, the environments are detailed, the lighting is well-done, and the soundtrack is alright too. Performance-wise, I was unable to run the game natively at 4k 144fps medium-high settings on my 3080 Ti and ended up having to enable DLSS to compensate. After that though, no issues aside from the occasional funky animation bug.
Overall
I would give Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden a light recommendation. It does many things well, such as the combat, the exploration, and the narrative too, but I can’t say that any single one of these is anything more than just “good”. The combat has issues with how repetitive it can be, the narrative is hit or miss due to the episodic nature of the game loop, and the whole crafting/upgrading system just felt shallow. That said, you do get some really interesting cases, characters, and the boss fights are really cool too. I’m glad I played it, but would only recommend it on sale or in a bundle.