When comparing The Banner Saga 2 vs Tokyo 42, the Slant community recommends Tokyo 42 for most people. In the question“What are the best Isometric games on Steam?” Tokyo 42 is ranked 3rd while The Banner Saga 2 is ranked 11th. The most important reason people chose Tokyo 42 is:
The game allows for stealth-oriented and action-oriented gameplay. Game mechanics for both are very easy to understand and, if you're not looking for a lot of depth, there's a fair amount of enjoyment to be had. Stealth gameplay is line-of-sight based. You have to avoid being seen by the enemy. You can do that by hiding behind objects, discovering different routes to your destination or by memorizing enemy patrol paterns and choreographing your movements accordingly. If you do get seen by the enemy, however, all nearby enemies will attack you. Action gameplay is about trying to shoot enemies while avoiding their projectiles. You'll have to kite enemies, make good use of cover and know how to navigate the environment quickly.
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 Great fun if you're looking for simple stealth or action
The game allows for stealth-oriented and action-oriented gameplay. Game mechanics for both are very easy to understand and, if you're not looking for a lot of depth, there's a fair amount of enjoyment to be had.
Stealth gameplay is line-of-sight based. You have to avoid being seen by the enemy. You can do that by hiding behind objects, discovering different routes to your destination or by memorizing enemy patrol paterns and choreographing your movements accordingly. If you do get seen by the enemy, however, all nearby enemies will attack you.
Action gameplay is about trying to shoot enemies while avoiding their projectiles. You'll have to kite enemies, make good use of cover and know how to navigate the environment quickly.
Pro Interesting, colorful art style
Tokyo 42 is set in a beautifully stylized future Tokyo. The city is very clean looking thanks to it's minimalistic design, it's very vivid thanks to it's use of bright colors and it's presented from an isometric perspective that's unusually distant from the player's character, creating a sense of scale that's different from most other isometric games.
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 Can get repetitive
At around 4 hours in you'll have seen and experienced most of what the game has to offer. Neither the gunplay, nor the stealth gameplay evolves past that point. And since both gameplay types are rather shallow, it's easy to find the game getting a bit monotonous after a while.