When comparing The Banner Saga 2 vs Bloodborne, the Slant community recommends Bloodborne for most people. In the question“What are the best RPGs (role playing games) for PS4?” Bloodborne is ranked 41st while The Banner Saga 2 is ranked 43rd. The most important reason people chose Bloodborne is:
In the world of Bloodborne you're never safe. Each location is filled with fast and ruthless enemies that will constantly try to kill you. It can be infected humans, werewolves, and even demonic beasts. You'll have to constantly attack and dodge at a very fast pace, and losing focus for even a second means you'll die. It's the type of combat where you'll steadily improve with practice, making it feel rewarding when you get the hang of it.
Specs
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Pros
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.
Pro Frantic combat
In the world of Bloodborne you're never safe. Each location is filled with fast and ruthless enemies that will constantly try to kill you. It can be infected humans, werewolves, and even demonic beasts. You'll have to constantly attack and dodge at a very fast pace, and losing focus for even a second means you'll die. It's the type of combat where you'll steadily improve with practice, making it feel rewarding when you get the hang of it.
Pro Excellent world design
This game takes place in a Gothic, Victorian era (1800s Europe) inspired city. The buildings are dark and tall, instilling in you a sense of awe and fear.
The environments are very detailed, reminding you it was a thriving city before all went wrong.
All of these elements fit the Lovecraftian horror theme really well.
Pro Great bosses
Bosses in most games nowadays hardly ever give the player any challenge. Bloodborne is an exception, with bosses being a test of focus and skill.
You'll have to constantly move around, attack openings, read tells to dodge attacks, and choose proper positioning. Beating one of these beasts after a long and exhausting struggle is extremely satisfying.
Cons
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.
Con Incredibly frustrating at times
You'll most likely die a lot, especially while you're still getting used to the game. It can happen on both regular enemies and bosses, with the latter being a lot more frustrating. Dying at a boss means you have to fight your way back to the boss room. If you're too agitated you might even die without reaching that boss again, which adds even more to the frustration. This pattern will repeat many times over the course of the game.
Con Framerate pacing issues
The game engine often produces two unique frames followed by two duplicates instead of one after another. This makes it seem like there are frame-rate drops even though the game runs at a stable 30 fps. The gameplay doesn't feel smooth because of it, which can be quite distracting.