When comparing The Banner Saga 2 vs Paladins, the Slant community recommends Paladins for most people. In the question“What are the best PS4 (PlayStation 4) games?” Paladins is ranked 115th while The Banner Saga 2 is ranked 121st. The most important reason people chose Paladins is:
Paladins currently has 22 characters available to play, and those span 4 different roles. It should also be noted that brand new players will start off with 7 characters and need to play to acquire gold in order to unlock new ones.
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 An expansive roster of characters
Paladins currently has 22 characters available to play, and those span 4 different roles. It should also be noted that brand new players will start off with 7 characters and need to play to acquire gold in order to unlock new ones.
Pro Free to play
Everything that affects gameplay in Paladins can be unlocked simply by playing.However, there are cosmetic items available for purchase if you'd like to support the developers.
Pro Runs well on nearly any system
Paladins isn't a very resource-heavy game, which means it can be enjoyed by pretty much everyone.
Pro Great community
Every online game has some amount of toxicity, but Paladins has a relatively supportive community of players.
Pro Fast-paced and full of action
Paladins is a fast-paced first person shooter. Games are over pretty quickly, and queue times are short, so you can make the most out of your play time.
Pro Well balanced strength of characters
All champions in paladins are powerful and well balanced up to a point. Each character has their role in the games, and therefore, relies on tactics and champion picks in the game to win. If a champion, however, feels quite overpowered or weak, new patches will adjust him/her to a better choice for players.
Pro You can customize characters to fit your particular play style
Paladins has a system in place called "Card Mastery." Essentially, a player can spend their gold (or gems, if you choose to put money into it) on cards which will buff your character in specific ways in-game. These cards can radically change how characters are played, even allowing them to fit other roles in some situations.
There are also "Burn Cards," which allow the player to make themselves stronger or even counteract opponents' strategies. These are limited in used, but very powerful.
Pro Team based gameplay
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 most recent patch makes it feel a little bit pay-to-win
With the recent patch, gold prices shot up on characters and cards, but the rewards you get for playing did not. Because of that, the gems you can buy with real money are simply the easiest option, even for people with a lot of play time.
Con Characters are not well balanced
Characters range from being highly underpowered to wildly overpowered.
Con Overwatch clone
Basically a free-to-play, less skillful Overwatch clone.
Con Still in Beta
Paladins is not a perfect game due to its constant lags and bugs and has to heavily rely on new patches to fix them.
Con In-game cards nullify characters
Cards like Cauterize and Wrecker completely nullify all tanks and healers halfway through the game, and it consistutes a battle of who gets the max first.