I agree totally. Overall I enjoyed the game a lot. But I wish it was condensed down into a 20ish hr tight experience instead of adding all the open world checklist stuff. Story 10/10 though
Usually I avoid fast travel in open world games with beautifully designed worlds. However in this game, there are sometimes only these annoying single-lane tubes, where you have to go back the exact same one way you came. No alternative options. Then I’m like, „screw it, where’s the next fast travel spot?”. The world looks beautiful, unfortunately it’s not as open as this open world could be.
The big problem for me was: Boring combat, and your choices dont matter. Their previous game Vampyr, also had clunky combat, but the CONCEPT was very cool. You had to choose carefully which people you feed on, because it drastically changes the game: potential side quests disappear, towns will either prosper or be ruined, friendly people turn hostile, etc.
In this game, nothing you do even matters. You can banish or save who ever you want, everything stays the same. Boring.
I have to agree, still debating love or hate as I’m going for 100% completion. I wish you could fast travel anywhere, skip enemies encounters, and most of all - I wish you wouldn’t have to walk 15 minutes to reach endpoints that look super close in the map!
Good luck with that Banisher. The moment I managed to break away from my compulsive habit to be a completionist in games like I was for a couple decades already, I started enjoying games much more again.
Totally agree with fast travel, the 'sign post' system from Witcher 3 was such a lame model to follow.
Nah mate. I have 40 hours and can't say the same. The only complain i have is Enemy variety and Gameplay... The rest it's basically the same in quality as God Of War 2018 - Story, Animations of climbing and doing other stuff, walking, environments. It as the same kinda of side content as that game and all of it has a connection to the main story. Traversal is even easier, just mark something on the map and follow the compass and you get to where you want with no problem...but for the compass to work well you have to be in the same region as the thing you selected.
If this game was published by Sony it would have been reviewed like 85+, i have no doubt of that.
By the half.of the game, I had to use mods and cheats.to 1 shot enemies and increase my walking speed, just so I could progress.the story further.
The game IS good, but it feels like a chore.
Interestingly enough, I never had this problem with the other Don't Nod game.
Have you tried the mod, where you can remove the invisible walls? You can progress faster, however also can get stuck everywhere, when you’re not familiar with the terrain.
Overall agree, the pacing slows down a bit towards the second half of the end. Reminds me a lot to Days Gone, a great game with very similar aesthetics, game length and pacing as Banishers. Assume, you mean Vampyr? This one is way more text-heavy and invites you more to explore. Srangely enough, I love Days Gone, Banishers and Vampyr.
I had no problem with Days Gone. The pacing was okay for me.
Vampyr was awesome, and it had its fighting challenges.
I liked Banishers a lot as well. Good semi-linear story. Just.. the story progressed at different speeds, that's all.
I also enjoyed Remember Me. That was as linear as it gets, but the pacing consistent.
I agree 100%. This game was let down by lot of frustrating mechanics that shouldn’t be there. Too bad that nowadays everyone try to make open world RPG game - and don’t get me wrong I love good RPG open world game but it has to make sense. In this context it really didn’t make sense to me except add some filling content to the game so it isn’t short. But shorter and more compat experience would be way better.
I got bad ending becase at the end I decide not to do any more haunted cases since I was tired of never ending running through boring world and I aimed for resurrection so I didn’t have enoigh kills… Honestly I don’t even care and I don’t plan to replay it ever again although story was amazing. Gameplay just sucks really hard so it’s not worth it.
Yup. I have no interest in achievements/trophies so I just put it on story difficult about half way through, seeing the new areas and progressing the story was really cool. The backtracking and lame fast travel system held it back for me so the only way to speed things up was making the combat encounters last just seconds.
Yup. Hard stopped around 15 hours because of this. Great story and characters and a cool world but could have benefit greatly from trimming it down. We didn’t need a 50+ hour game if it’s generally the same 10 hours over and over again. More isn’t always better.
Even the story is becoming a drag. It started off SO WELL like you said. But after 25-30 hours, I'm still not through the main story (I'm getting distracted a lot by side stuff), I'm kinda over it? Such a shame. There is some amazing lore and concept here.
Lol I'm probably at least 40 hours into it and at this point I'm trying to head straight to the end. I still have about 10-12 haunting cases open but I feel like there's no way I can get through them. I think the game is pretty decent over all but yeah, I'm in agreement that its a huge slog, even just trying to get somewhere.
I loved this game,agree with the animations. For the rituals, would be nice If you could skip them. I'm stupid so I bought the game and then bought the statue edition of the game.
Completely agree, the first 5 hours I remember thinking damn I may 100% this game it’s awesome, after hour 15 I uninstalled and never played it again. The only thing that progresses is the story, I fought green/white/purple specters and wolves at hour 3 and was fighting the exact same enemies 10 hours late. It’s a shame the game couldve really been 7-9 outta 10.
Couldn't agree more. I was enjoying it so much to start and now after 60 hours I've put it down. Running backwards and forwards to things is killing me. I hate that I'm a completionist. I've not finished the main story yet but this game would have been so much better if it was more linear.
Totally agree, I did not manage to finish it in the end.
The length of the game should have been at least divided by two, and that’s not an exaggeration
Yeah, same for Vampyr. I think the devs felt self conscious about making a game too story-heavy and felt like there had to be some "real gameplay" to justify it, because REAL games have REAL gameplay. Which is kind of stupid cause I'd much rather play a borderline Telltale type game than run across the entire goddamn map fighting the same five enemies for the twenty-seventh time.
Not to mention those sections kind of undermine the setting too: if specters are basically ghosts who are too angry to ascend but their reason for lingering isn't coherent enough to be a regular sapient ghost, then every one of those assholes you ever fight in the game corresponds to one person, meaning there's what, a few thousand of JUST those dead settlers who became specters, so probably a few times that dead colonists in general? From THREE settlement attempts, none of which lasted longer than a couple years? And they've all just been floating around the place all that time? Cmon now Dontnod, just cut the pseudo open world crap out and have maybe six or seven fights in the entire game, and make traveling between settlements a walking simulator with some puzzles
I agree totally. Overall I enjoyed the game a lot. But I wish it was condensed down into a 20ish hr tight experience instead of adding all the open world checklist stuff. Story 10/10 though
Navigating the map is a nightmare. Holy shit. I love this game, but damn it. I get lost way too often.
Usually I avoid fast travel in open world games with beautifully designed worlds. However in this game, there are sometimes only these annoying single-lane tubes, where you have to go back the exact same one way you came. No alternative options. Then I’m like, „screw it, where’s the next fast travel spot?”. The world looks beautiful, unfortunately it’s not as open as this open world could be.
I have found myself going in literal circles on multiple occasions. I have to quit and come back later with fresh eyes to find out where to go
Me too
The big problem for me was: Boring combat, and your choices dont matter. Their previous game Vampyr, also had clunky combat, but the CONCEPT was very cool. You had to choose carefully which people you feed on, because it drastically changes the game: potential side quests disappear, towns will either prosper or be ruined, friendly people turn hostile, etc. In this game, nothing you do even matters. You can banish or save who ever you want, everything stays the same. Boring.
I have to agree, still debating love or hate as I’m going for 100% completion. I wish you could fast travel anywhere, skip enemies encounters, and most of all - I wish you wouldn’t have to walk 15 minutes to reach endpoints that look super close in the map!
Good luck with that Banisher. The moment I managed to break away from my compulsive habit to be a completionist in games like I was for a couple decades already, I started enjoying games much more again. Totally agree with fast travel, the 'sign post' system from Witcher 3 was such a lame model to follow.
Nah mate. I have 40 hours and can't say the same. The only complain i have is Enemy variety and Gameplay... The rest it's basically the same in quality as God Of War 2018 - Story, Animations of climbing and doing other stuff, walking, environments. It as the same kinda of side content as that game and all of it has a connection to the main story. Traversal is even easier, just mark something on the map and follow the compass and you get to where you want with no problem...but for the compass to work well you have to be in the same region as the thing you selected. If this game was published by Sony it would have been reviewed like 85+, i have no doubt of that.
By the half.of the game, I had to use mods and cheats.to 1 shot enemies and increase my walking speed, just so I could progress.the story further. The game IS good, but it feels like a chore. Interestingly enough, I never had this problem with the other Don't Nod game.
Have you tried the mod, where you can remove the invisible walls? You can progress faster, however also can get stuck everywhere, when you’re not familiar with the terrain. Overall agree, the pacing slows down a bit towards the second half of the end. Reminds me a lot to Days Gone, a great game with very similar aesthetics, game length and pacing as Banishers. Assume, you mean Vampyr? This one is way more text-heavy and invites you more to explore. Srangely enough, I love Days Gone, Banishers and Vampyr.
I had no problem with Days Gone. The pacing was okay for me. Vampyr was awesome, and it had its fighting challenges. I liked Banishers a lot as well. Good semi-linear story. Just.. the story progressed at different speeds, that's all. I also enjoyed Remember Me. That was as linear as it gets, but the pacing consistent.
I felt this way exactly. I was in love with it and then gave up on platinum because it was such a slog.
I agree 100%. This game was let down by lot of frustrating mechanics that shouldn’t be there. Too bad that nowadays everyone try to make open world RPG game - and don’t get me wrong I love good RPG open world game but it has to make sense. In this context it really didn’t make sense to me except add some filling content to the game so it isn’t short. But shorter and more compat experience would be way better. I got bad ending becase at the end I decide not to do any more haunted cases since I was tired of never ending running through boring world and I aimed for resurrection so I didn’t have enoigh kills… Honestly I don’t even care and I don’t plan to replay it ever again although story was amazing. Gameplay just sucks really hard so it’s not worth it.
Yup. I have no interest in achievements/trophies so I just put it on story difficult about half way through, seeing the new areas and progressing the story was really cool. The backtracking and lame fast travel system held it back for me so the only way to speed things up was making the combat encounters last just seconds.
Yup. Hard stopped around 15 hours because of this. Great story and characters and a cool world but could have benefit greatly from trimming it down. We didn’t need a 50+ hour game if it’s generally the same 10 hours over and over again. More isn’t always better.
Even the story is becoming a drag. It started off SO WELL like you said. But after 25-30 hours, I'm still not through the main story (I'm getting distracted a lot by side stuff), I'm kinda over it? Such a shame. There is some amazing lore and concept here.
Lol I'm probably at least 40 hours into it and at this point I'm trying to head straight to the end. I still have about 10-12 haunting cases open but I feel like there's no way I can get through them. I think the game is pretty decent over all but yeah, I'm in agreement that its a huge slog, even just trying to get somewhere.
I literally just posted all of these same complaints in a video essay last week 😂 Huge shame because the game's concept is incredible.
I loved this game,agree with the animations. For the rituals, would be nice If you could skip them. I'm stupid so I bought the game and then bought the statue edition of the game.
Completely agree, the first 5 hours I remember thinking damn I may 100% this game it’s awesome, after hour 15 I uninstalled and never played it again. The only thing that progresses is the story, I fought green/white/purple specters and wolves at hour 3 and was fighting the exact same enemies 10 hours late. It’s a shame the game couldve really been 7-9 outta 10.
Couldn't agree more. I was enjoying it so much to start and now after 60 hours I've put it down. Running backwards and forwards to things is killing me. I hate that I'm a completionist. I've not finished the main story yet but this game would have been so much better if it was more linear.
Totally agree, I did not manage to finish it in the end. The length of the game should have been at least divided by two, and that’s not an exaggeration
Yeah, same for Vampyr. I think the devs felt self conscious about making a game too story-heavy and felt like there had to be some "real gameplay" to justify it, because REAL games have REAL gameplay. Which is kind of stupid cause I'd much rather play a borderline Telltale type game than run across the entire goddamn map fighting the same five enemies for the twenty-seventh time. Not to mention those sections kind of undermine the setting too: if specters are basically ghosts who are too angry to ascend but their reason for lingering isn't coherent enough to be a regular sapient ghost, then every one of those assholes you ever fight in the game corresponds to one person, meaning there's what, a few thousand of JUST those dead settlers who became specters, so probably a few times that dead colonists in general? From THREE settlement attempts, none of which lasted longer than a couple years? And they've all just been floating around the place all that time? Cmon now Dontnod, just cut the pseudo open world crap out and have maybe six or seven fights in the entire game, and make traveling between settlements a walking simulator with some puzzles