Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, better than the Ghost Busters you used to know.
I knew nothing about this game before it came out, and the ghost-hunting aspect really drew me in, especially since I liked Ghostwire: Tokyo so much…even though this isn’t based in Japan. It’s still got some folklore aspect to it with the different kinds of ghosts and such.
Who is this game for?
- Achievement hunters
- Choice-effecters
- Cutscene fanatics
- No-lifers
- Roamers of the world
- Story-driven gamers
- Supernaturalists
Game length
20+ hours
Where can you buy?
- Available on Amazon
- Available on Green Man Gaming
Pros:
- Fun combat
- Thought-provoking choices
- Skill tree isn’t overwhelming
Cons:
- Back-tracking
- No beastiary
Explanation to Negative Feedback
Back-tracking
If it’s one thing I hate doing in a video game it’s going back to the places we’ve already been to in order to get to things that we couldn’t have gotten to earlier. This is one of the things that bugged me with some of the Tomb Raider games, and now I gotta do it with this game.
It’s just the whole remembering to go back somewhere that annoys me, when I really just want to keep progressing forward.
No beastiary
The first thing I wish they did for this game was add some kind of beastiary to look into regarding the different types of ghosts, since there are quite a few that come up within the first few hours. Bonewalkers, specters, ghosts, Wanderers; like, what’s the difference between all of them, what makes them all unique despite their looks?
We don’t get too much info on them aside from the notes we read about as well as what the characters say.
I would’ve loved to have some kind of beastiary book that I could open on learning or seeing a specific type of enemy, and have the image of them as well as lore.
Lore is always a treat in games.
Explanation to Positive Feedback
Fun combat
I’ll be honest and say I wasn’t all in on the combat at first.
I like the fact that you can switch between the two characters, but it didn’t always seem smooth to me, and I don’t think I ever quite understood why I should switch from one to the other.
Possessed creatures take higher damage from Antea, but if they aren’t possessed, what’s the point in really switching to her?
And the point is that sometimes Red becomes a bit stunned.
It’s also something to note that consistently attacking with Antea does reduce her health.
Other than those things, the combat is pretty fun.
It’s not the same old thing in every combat situation. You have to sometimes think about which enemy to go after first and use Red’s gun when the situation allows for it. But then there’s also the dodging other attacks from enemies, and stopping the whole possessing of other bodies…so there’s a bit to do when combat is going on.
And that’s basically just the overall open world combat. There are some instances where you’ll go into the Void or bring forth spectres and scourges. These kind of fights have specific bonuses to what works better in a fight, and so it’s best to read what the text tells you to do when in these situations.
Skill tree isn’t overwhelming
I’ve played a lot of games where you have a lot of skills to choose from and it’s a hassle to really think on which wants you want, versus which ones would be better, versus which ones compliment your actual playstyle.
Banishers has multiple skill trees that unlock as you progress through the game.
The skill trees allow you to choose one of two choices of a section, by using a point from either Antea or Red, which are colored as blue or red. And at any point during the game, if you want to switch to another skill, you can choose to take a point out of one area, and place it into another.
Super easy. You don’t have to pay anything to reset skills.
Thought-provoking choices
I was kind of wondering if I should go with humane/inhumane choices for the title of this one…but we’ll go with thought-provoking.
Sure, there are a lot of games with choices that make you think whether you want to go with one reason or another over obvious reasons, but Banishers is literally making you choose whose life is worth more than the others, even if some of them are dead already.
You’ve got obvious buttheads that you won’t like at all, but then there’s the fact the living person might be a murderer or someone who has sabotaged the well-being of a whole town.
Which evil is the most evil. What choice is the maybe not so much as “right” choice, but appropriate choice.
Even though we have to factor in whether we want Antea to come back to life or to send her off into the great beyond, let’s put all of that aside and really look at the choices given to us as far as the information we obtain on the characters.
This has to be one of my favorite choices matter games.
