Life to the Living, Death to the Dead, Whichever you Choose there is Sadness Ahead
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a third person action RPG, where you play as two banishers, Red and Antea, as they try to solve the mystery of why New Eden town is haunted. Along the way you must solve the hauntings of the townsfolk of New Eden who have all scattered once the big bad ghost took over and killed Antea. Banishers are ghost hunters tasked with getting rid of ghosts haunting people, in this world when a ghost haunts a person it slowly drains their life energy and eventually kills them. This leads to the games main selling point, its choices and consequence system.
Since banishers banish ghosts it’s only natural for Red to have to banish Antea once she turns into a ghost, however it’s more complicated than that. Red and Antea love each other very much therefore you as the player are going to have to make an important choice. You can bring Antea back to life, but that would require forbidden magic and killing 13 of the townsfolk, or you can ascend her spirit like a true banisher should. Throughout the game you can choose the fate of the townsfolk and the ghost haunting them. You can either blame the living or ascend or banish the dead. This is tricky because in all honesty these people suck, but do they suck enough to murder in cold blood to resurrect your dead girlfriend? You will have to be the judge, jury and executioner of that.
The combat is pretty straightforward, as red you have two swords you can use to slash at ghosts and eventually you will acquire a rife to mainly use to solve puzzles. Antea’s ghost powers come in handy, being able to blast through rocks and throw ectoplasm around. She is also an extremely strong melee fighter, in fact she is so useful I wonder how any banishers got anything done without a ghost companion before. You can switch between them with just a button press, and Antea can even see hidden objects that Red cannot. There are nests spread around the world which are just enemy waves with rules, like your rifle does double damage.
You can only upgrade your equipment and unlock skills at fires spread throughout the world, this can also be used as fast travel points. You will be using these a ton especially to complete side haunting so make sure you unlock everyone you see. Resting by the fire resets enemies and makes time pass, although time passing doesn’t seem to matter too much for quests so I wouldn’t worry.
The side quests is really where this game shines, every villager it seems is either haunted or related to a haunting. After solving their ghost issue they also have follow up quests to see the impact of your choice which is a nice touch. If only all these quests weren’t not super depressing and made me hate everyone in New Eden town. If that was the point they really hit the nail on the head. I feel like they wanted to do the lesser evil stick so if you choose to murder the villagers to save your wife you will still feel justified but it’s hard to justify not ascending these ghosts to be honest. Banishing the ghost is harsh too, it’s a painful process and it looks like it on the ghost’s face. It’s a brutal game. Make sure you are in the right headspace for it.
Overall Banishers: Ghost of New Eden is an interesting game. The story is harsh but intriguing, and it has a lot of content. It took us about 40 hours to finish this game. Near the end it became a slog mainly because we were so bummed out from all the haunting side quests, and tired of the repetitive combat and puzzles. It’s not a fun game but it is an interesting one.
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