When comparing The Banner Saga 2 vs Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, the Slant community recommends Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End for most people. In the question“What are the best single player games on PS4?” Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is ranked 4th while The Banner Saga 2 is ranked 59th. The most important reason people chose Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is:
Uncharted 4 features some of the best character development in a game. The motivations, actions, and growth of your character is believable. This is achieved thanks to amazing voice acting and excellent writing. The conclusion to your character's story arc is especially satisfying.
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 Excellent character development
Uncharted 4 features some of the best character development in a game. The motivations, actions, and growth of your character is believable. This is achieved thanks to amazing voice acting and excellent writing. The conclusion to your character's story arc is especially satisfying.
Pro Exciting exploration
Uncharted 4 brings you to many locations and each one is very beautiful and filled with mystery. A calming beach, a vast Savannah, a snowy mountain, ancient ruins, and lost temples among many others. It's really exhilarating to see where you'll be going next in search of treasures.
Pro Decent stealth gameplay
Uncharted 4 stealth mechanics feel very good, even though you can't lure enemies or drag their bodies. If you're patient enough you can avoid an open confrontation in most levels. This is a really refreshing change of pace in the Uncharted series, which is known for its non-stop action.
Pro Great multiplayer
The shooting feels great, the movements feel really fluid, but most importantly – the multiplayer is well-balanced. When you win, you know it's because you/your team played well. When you lose you'll understand that the enemy was better. It doesn't devolve into players constantly spamming overpowered setups or abilities, making it a fair, action-packed, and fun experience.
Pro Multiplayer plays at 60fps
The multiplayer has had the resolution dropped to 900p in order to get a smooth 60fps for competitive play. While it would be nice to have a full HD resolution, smooth gameplay is important when playing competitively.
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 troublesome driving controls
The camera would spend in different directions. It would sometime go all the way around in a circle. I felt like I had to stop and go. So I could fix the camera to where I could see where I was going.
Con Troublesome controls at times
The cover system is a bit wonky at times, causing you to take cover at the wrong places. There are also some issue with platforming, causing your character to grab the wrong ledges occasionally. While both of these don't happen too often, it can cause some frustration during hectic moments.
Con Last act feels drawn out
The last third of the game can be quite repetitive, tasking the player with the same objectives over and over again. The feeling that this was done to extend the gameplay is difficult to ignore.