A new heir to the Lord of War? Our take on this new contender for game of the year

In this regard, Dontnod insists, the writing is really the strength of the experience. The game boasts of offering some very stylish and epic sequences, even if it struggles to step it up at times. And throughout the adventure, The duo of Anthea Duarte and Red Mac Wraith captures our exploration of cursed places very well, animating them with more or less philosophical discussions on death, life and their relationships that inevitably end. . One is as insistent as a dictatorial French teacher and the other allows himself a more familiar language, perfect for counterbalance. So the Exiles make an impressive pair and deserve a dubbing of considerable quality as well. Furthermore, all of the game’s characters benefit from great vocal performances in French. It’s also fun to note that every villager you meet has something more or less remarkable to tell you, providing some life in a very cold environment. Good dubbing is important to compensate for the stiff animation that inevitably makes cut scenes look a little dull.

Overall, the game is still pretty cool without making our jaws drop. Banishers like to picture the American 17th century with rural communities and the visible beginnings of colonization, and we’re usually dealing with very green areas in wilderness areas, So luxurious that it’s sometimes difficult to even find passable paths which, inevitably, gives rise to some frustrating mistakes. And we’re frankly not helped by the fast travel system located on the wood fire that sometimes takes whole minutes to find us on the map. In short, the whole still makes for coherent settings, albeit a bit too homogenous at times. We wouldn’t have said no to two or three extra poppies, just to mark the difference between the two villages. The explorable surface is huge though, and full of secrets and chests to uncover, maximizing an already very generous lifespan.

material

In terms of lifetime, The journey can be completed in around twenty hours if you choose to skip most of the side quests but it can easily keep you around thirty hours. If only in the end, we would have cut out some very unnecessary narrative arcs. The first part of each plot usually consists of a clue-checking session and some unexpected encounters with wandering spirits. There is also a lot of searching for hidden elements or locations in the program, and this probably makes the main business of the adventure, even if it can get frustrating at times with all these labyrinthine spaces. We’re still treated to some very clever environmental puzzles where everyone’s abilities are used: Red, for example, can free passages and break walls down delicate ropes. Antia can use her spectral powers to reveal signals invisible to the naked eye and teleport us short distances. There is also a small mention of the occasional rituals initiated by Lal that allow the summoning of ghosts and curses, and which create a slightly immersive touch to the Banisher’s practices.

The second part of the plot usually confronts you with a moral choice that often makes us hesitate: should we fire or save the NPC you’re observing? Lots of dilemmas that change the main narrative thread of the adventure and bring each mini-story to a pleasant close. This is where your decisions will have a real impact, unlike normal dialogue choices that really only serve to deepen the narrative. And throughout your story, it’s an entirely different dilemma, a much more overwhelming one that will never stop weighing on your shoulders, that of Antia’s fate that hinges entirely on a terribly difficult choice. By blaming as many people as possible, you will help bring her back to life. But at what cost? Furthermore, Anthea will ask you several times what you plan to do with her soul at the end of the adventure, while asking you to promise to hold on to her, which is enough to put pressure on you.

Gameplay

In terms of combat feel, Banishers is experiencing a very, very slow build-up. This is to say, we were content with fairly sterile encounters for the first four hours, before we were able to unlock some really pleasant perks. Sensations then often become very fun, especially as our two heroes benefit from complementary skills. Red is initially equipped with only a handful of melee attacks and later equips himself with a rifle with infinite ammo that can only pull one bullet with each reload. This offers a completely new approach to the field and a truly interesting dynamic.. His other assets are his powerful charged sword strike and his ability to instantly eliminate an enemy once the special movement bar is sufficiently charged. Antia for its part is entitled to more agile movements and swings that have potatoes. Since the protagonist is technically dead, she can be summoned as a temporary ally at any point in the game and ghost strike until her energy bar runs out. During the game, she will develop new assets which we are careful not to reveal to you but which show good progress. Each person’s intervention can create beautiful combat choreography during demanding encounters, but with widely adjustable difficulty. There are no less than 5 balanced difficulties available to you, but note that everything on easy or normal can quickly become boring.

The bestiary changes very little during the adventure and is limited to ghosts of varying strengths. Some sometimes arm themselves with firearms, others have corpses to prove themselves tougher, and even a few dire wolves to defeat, but overall, the trick is done quickly. Fortunately, a handful of cool bosses fuel the enemy variety. The biggest problem to highlight, indeed, That’s above all these excruciating and completely incoherent lines of dialogue spouted out on a loop during every encounter., when Anthea for example suggests “I can help you”, even though the fight is over and she has fought to the limit. So she never stops saying the same rubbish sentences and indeed, I still have nightmares about them at night. Finally note the presence of many collectables and chests that can be opened everywhere that allow you to unlock skill tree skills with different branches, which really knows how to be concise and adequate for what the adventure has to offer. .

conclusion

Banishers is an action-adventure game that knows how to be generous in its narrative and gameplay. We still regret some of the length due to the unnecessary sequences, the slow build-up of the gameplay and the slightly disappointing exploration part. But we also maintain a very solid level of writing that easily maintains Don’tnod’s good reputation in the field. We are treated to a multitude of intrigues with utterly compelling choices that unify the entire coherence of the Banishers universe. Skirmishes are a bit flat at first but benefit from a gentle, enjoyable increase in power, enabled by a full skill tree and the natural progression of characters’ abilities, which really complements the ground. And for all these reasons we give it a score of 15/20