When comparing The Banner Saga 2 vs Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, the Slant community recommends Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons for most people. In the question“What are the best games on Steam with a rich story?” Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is ranked 20th while The Banner Saga 2 is ranked 53rd. The most important reason people chose Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is:
This game takes you through an amazing world and tells a unique story, without any dialogue or text.
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 It's a short game worth your time
This game takes you through an amazing world and tells a unique story, without any dialogue or text.
Pro Meloncholy/beautiful artwork and atmosphere
Pro Uniquely tells much of the story through gameplay mechanics
The story is told silently without text and it is through the games puzzles/gameplay that one learns the story of the game. This is quite a departure from many games where the story is told to the player, here is is learned through playing.
Pro Innovative control scheme
The controls for the game work through the player controlling two different characters simultaneously with the two analog thumb sticks on ones controller. A unique feature that creates a fun way to interact with the game that makes for a memorable experience.
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 The controls takes some time getting used to
It might take some minutes of struggling before getting the hang of it.
Con Slow for the sake of being slow
That pulley lever at the start took almost 3 minutes to raise,.. definitely does not need to take so long,.
Con Puzzles are on the easy side
While the story and environment of the game are a pleasure the puzzles themselves are pretty easy and casual offering little challenge. While it can be a good game for those that like casual puzzles, those that enjoy a more difficult gameplay will be at a loss.