When comparing The Banner Saga 2 vs The Last of Us Remastered, the Slant community recommends The Last of Us Remastered for most people. In the question“What are the best single player games on PS4?” The Last of Us Remastered is ranked 8th while The Banner Saga 2 is ranked 59th. The most important reason people chose The Last of Us Remastered is:
The Last of Us is story about loss, family, and protecting your loved ones. From beginning to the end it's filled with sad scenes and touching moments, so you're in for a ride. It also deals with the harsh reality of surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. Kindness gets you nowhere and only the cold-hearted can truly survive. Even if you make the right choice, you'll still have regrets, which sticks with you and changes you. In the end everyone's just trying make the best out of a bad situation. That makes you think how far you'd go to survive and how long you'd still be your old self. Having characters you can relate to makes the story a lot more enjoyable.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
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 Emotional story with characters you can relate to
The Last of Us is story about loss, family, and protecting your loved ones. From beginning to the end it's filled with sad scenes and touching moments, so you're in for a ride.
It also deals with the harsh reality of surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. Kindness gets you nowhere and only the cold-hearted can truly survive. Even if you make the right choice, you'll still have regrets, which sticks with you and changes you. In the end everyone's just trying make the best out of a bad situation. That makes you think how far you'd go to survive and how long you'd still be your old self. Having characters you can relate to makes the story a lot more enjoyable.
Pro Simple but useful crafting system
This game has a very simple crafting system where you collect scraps and combine them to make items. You can also craft weapons such as the Molotov cocktail and the nail bomb. Both weapons can take out most enemies instantly. It's quite refreshing to see such an accessible and useful crafting system.
Pro Comes with all of the DLC
The Last of Us was first released on PS3, and a lot of extra content was released later. The Last of Us Remastered comes with all of that content included. This will help you save some money on DLC purchases.
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 Minor graphical issues
You'll occasionally notice texture pop-ins and characters briefly disappearing. It's not really game-breaking, but could potentially ruin your immersion.