When comparing Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara vs The Banner Saga 2, the Slant community recommends Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara for most people. In the question“What are the best PC RPGs?” Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara is ranked 12th while The Banner Saga 2 is ranked 55th. The most important reason people chose Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara is:
Branching paths, item shops with usable inventory, and special player abilities make this game more like an action RPG than a side-scrolling beat 'em up.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Not just a normal beat 'em up
Branching paths, item shops with usable inventory, and special player abilities make this game more like an action RPG than a side-scrolling beat 'em up.
Pro Allows for 4-player co-op, just like in the arcades
Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara supports 4-player local and online co-op play, which reflects the old arcade setups that allowed four players to play together.
Pro Widescreen support
Original arcade games of this era were 4:3; it’s nice that the developers included a widescreen mode for modern monitor support.
Pro Challenges and trophies
Challenges and trophies are new additions to the game that extend gameplay by introducing more objectives. They are also a source of pride – and bragging rights – for players who have managed to complete them.
Pro Helps you to learn the gameplay thoroughly
Tactical RPGs can be really intimidating, especially if you're just starting out. The tutorials often blaze forward, causing you to miss important mechanics. Luckily, Banner Saga 2 tries to alleviate this by adding a trainer NPC who will give you challenges. These involve performing various combat exercises, helping you to solidify your understanding of the game and even learn something new.
Pro Solid tactical combat
Even though Banner Saga 2’s turn-based combat system is fairly straightforward. You and your opponent take turns in moving and attacking with units on a tactical grid. Each unit has its strengths, weaknesses, and set of unique abilities that you need to consider.
For example, archers can attack from far away but they have low armor, so you can’t leave them out in the open. Another example are the Varl, very durable and strong melee units that occupy 4 tiles as opposed to 1. This makes it trickier to position them since more enemies can stand next to them and attack them.
This creates combat that is not too simple but still has enough variety and strategy involved to feel rewarding.
Pro Great hand drawn graphics
Banner Saga 2 environments, characters, and animations are all hand-drawn. This includes your caravan as it marches over a snowy hill, passing trees and houses in the distance. The various viking-esque soldiers, centaurs and other mythological creatures, swinging axes and thrusting spears on a worn out bridge. Even the very detailed character sprites as they discuss matters with extremely serious expressions. Everything just feels like you’re watching an animated movie, which is something almost never encountered in a game.
Cons
Con Short gameplay
The games last about two hours – quite short by modern standards. However, this is to be expected because they are ports of classic arcade games that were intended to be beaten in a single sitting.
Con Co-op is spotty and limited
There is no way to mix local and online players, so it has to be one or the other. On top of that, the netcode seems poor and disconnects can happen.
Con HP damage based attacks cause one-dimensional tactics
A unit's current number of hit points equals the damage it will deal to an enemy. Because of this, the best strategy is always to hit all enemy units in a sequence, so they inflict as little damage as possible. Any other strategy is too risky and can backfire way too easily, limiting your creativity.
Con Incomplete story
To get a full and satisfying story, you’ll have to play the entire Banner Saga trilogy. Banner Saga 2 on its own feels like you’ve suddenly started reading a book from the middle. There are a lot of characters you know very little about, making it hard to understand their motivations. The on-going events are not explained fully. Even the ending is not a satisfying conclusion but just a setup for the next arc.