Return to Bannerlord

I picked up Bannerlord when it first released in Early Access back in April 2020. You can read my initial impressions of the game here. Spin on a couple of years and I decided to return to Bannerlord to see how the game has improved since. The first thing that struck me was how very little appeared, at least on the surface, to have changed.

Everything was pretty much exactly how I remembered it and there didn’t seem to be anything that stood out as significant new features, mechanics or content. This wasn’t a great surprise, however, because Bannerlord was already fairly feature complete at its initial release.

The issues Bannerlord had at release were primarily technical in nature – many people reporting crashes or save corruptions. I didn’t experience these issues myself, but I did encounter a lot of bugs, most notably during sieges – troops getting stuck on scenery and terrain. Siege equipment that wasn’t functional. Terrible path finding for troops on walls as dozens of your soldiers would walk to their deaths off a narrow ledge.

The performance during sieges was also pretty terrible, often descending into a choppy mess when large numbers of troops clashed in the narrow spaces of a city or castle. In addition to the crashes, bugs and performance issues, Bannerlord was also lacking in a lot of small, quality of life type features revolving around the game UI.

So I guess the question is, has Bannerlord – which is still in Early Access – fixed and improved upon all of these issues? After putting another 30 or so hours into the game, I’d say the answer is a pretty solid yes. I’ve had no crashes in my time with the game. The performance is excellent, even during larger battles.

Sieges, at least from what I’ve played, are now entirely fixed and functional. And, although it’s hard to recall exactly what was and wasn’t a part of the UI before, it does seem like a lot of little quality of life improvements have been made.

And honestly, it’s hard to see why the game remains in Early Access at this point. Bannerlord is, as far as all the core content and features go, pretty much done, and all the bugs and technical issues appear to have been ironed out. If you’ve been waiting for the right time to jump in and try Bannerlord, then I’d be pretty happy recommending it in its current state, even though it still hasn’t officially released.

There really is nothing else quite like it – the combination of third / first person combat, real time strategy, world map politics / war strategy and RPG character systems all set in a ‘realistic’ fantasy world. Realistic as in – no magic or monsters.

It’s a game that’s easy to sink a lot of time into, with multiple cultures and Kingdoms to support or destroy. I’ve had a lot of fun returning to the game and I’m sure I’ll put a lot more hours into it going forward.

Now Playing: Scarlet Nexus

Scarlet Nexus is a third person action-RPG set in a bleak (kind of?) future where monsters known as ‘Others’ roam the ruins between cities and teenagers with psionic abilities are recruited (or drafted?) into a military style organisation to fight them. And this is the first real problem I have with Scarlet Nexus – how muddled the setting is.

Because it is pretty bleak – everything outside of a couple of cities is in ruin and even the cities aren’t entirely safe as Others can materialise inside to snatch up poor civilians and eat their brains. Despite this, everyone in the cities seems remarkably cheery even though their world is on the brink of collapse and they’re fighting a war they can’t win. Oh, and everyone in the city is under constant surveillance for their ‘protection’.

The teenagers recruited (or rather, drafted – it’s not entirely clear if you can refuse your ‘recruitment’) into the OSF to fight the Others are force fed drugs to prevent them ageing because as they age, their psionic abilities decline. They’re also used to test experimental technology that can f**k with their brains and make them go mad.

This all sounds horribly dystopian and bleak, right? Not that there’s anything wrong with that – the idea of a society forced to take drastic measures and turn children into soldiers in order to survive is fine . . . if the game actually felt like it addressed or reflected that reality through its story or gameplay.

But Scarlet Nexus doesn’t really do that. It’s just so . . . anime. It’s so f**king casual about what should be some pretty dark and serious themes. All the characters are like walking anime stereotypes and whilst all this horrible and dark shit is going on they all still bounce around in a cheery manner, squealing with delight over a piece of f**king cake or something.

If the game was intended to be satirical – like these kids are conditioned to accept this horrible reality they live in, in which they exist only to be exploited until they die horribly in combat – then it might kind of work. But it doesn’t, because Scarlet Nexus doesn’t really bother exploring its own setting or the ethical implications of how the OSF operates.

The game does, at times, stumble towards a more introspective look at the society and the world these characters inhabit, but it’s like the game doesn’t want to commit to that and immediately jumps back to a silly cut scene of anime characters doing silly anime things.

And that lack of commitment also applies to the story which initially seems like it will be about the nefarious activities of the city government (good, and fitting with the dystopian nature of the setting) as one of our two playable characters works to save her sister. But then the game shifts gears and introduces a time travel element – which is fine, and I was still pretty happy with the narrative progression as this point.

But then it shifts again and is also about a weird cult and people living on the Moon and the game just can’t quite decide what it wants to be about and at some point the Others stop really being an important threat and instead become just a tedious obstacle between one cut-scene to the next.

Scarlet Nexus is way too long. It pads its content to an irritating degree. First of all – ignore the side missions. They’re completely worthless in terms of objectives and rewards. There’s plenty to unlock but they’re nearly all fetch quests or ‘kill 2 of this enemy using a specific attack or under these specific conditions’ which often involves playing in a way that’s not ideal and is usually a chore to complete.

And then we have the main missions which initially have a pretty good pace to them, but as you approach the end of the game, the levels just turn into these ridiculously long, linear corridors with clearly signposted battle arenas and you just have to slog your way through until the end. The game doesn’t try to do anything interesting in terms of the enemy encounters or mechanics. It just throws more and more of the same bloody enemies at you.

Seriously, it gets f**king annoying, especially the last mission that involves running through several linear levels (all reused assets from all the previous mission locations) and fighting everything you’ve already fought several hundred times all over again. It doesn’t make the game more challenging, when you force me to fight the same big enemy type four times in a f**king row in the same f**king arena, it just pisses me off.

And this is pretty frustrating because the combat of Scarlet Nexus is actually really fun, but the game drags on so much and fights get so long that you end up wanting to skip over them as quickly as you can.

You have basic combo attacks that you can combine with a telekinetic ability, but you can also activate different powers based upon the unique powers of those characters within your party – add a fire or electrical charge to your attacks, gain the ability to teleport, turn invisible or move at rapid speed, for example.

You can activate more than one ability at a time (with the right skill point upgrades on the ‘brain map’) and combine them to devastating effect. You also build a combo meter which, when full, unlocks a ‘brain field’ effect which lets you inflict massive damage on all enemies for a limited time.

There’s a dodge and counter system in the game, and individual characters can jump in to perform special attacks based upon their ‘bond level’ – which you can increase by using them more in combat or by giving them ‘gifts’ between missions. There’s also a stylish finishing move called a ‘brain crush’ you can activate by eliminating an enemy’s armour – and it’s often easier to drain the armour and crush them, than to drain their health.

There’s weapons you can upgrade – although this system is pretty basic. The cosmetic customisation is fun, however. Between missions you’ll return to a safe house in which you can embark on ‘bond missions’ to get to know the characters, but these don’t really add much because they’re designed to be played even once you’ve finished the main story, so they don’t really touch upon current events.

They’re fine, if you just want to sit back and watch a lengthy cutscene of two characters slowly talking about flowers, and a few of them do involve a little combat, but they don’t really factor into the story at all and honestly, on my second run with the other character, I just skipped them all because I really couldn’t care because the charterers are so stereotypical and so bloody anime it hurts.

There’s two characters to play as in Scarlet Nexus – Kasane and Yuito. The idea is that each has access to a different party (so, different powers) and a different perspective on the story with unique locations and enemies. It’s a clever idea, but it’s also kind of bullshit.

Kasane and Yuito play exactly the same. They visit exactly the same locations. They fight – with the exception of one or two bosses – the same enemies. And towards the end of the game, the characters join up anyway, so you get exactly the same story and access to all of the powers either way.

The story isn’t complex enough that you’ll need to play as both to fully understand it – which is good – but it also means the gameplay, enemies and locations of both characters had to be different enough to make playing through the game as both worth your time. But they’re not so it isn’t. I did, but on my second run as Yuito I just skipped everything I could – side content, bond episodes, cut scenes. I didn’t miss out on anything new because there’s really nothing new to see, learn or fight. It’s just more padding.

I feel like they should have condensed the campaign into a single story and have you switch between Kasane and Yuito as you progress – that way you could really separate the locations and enemies between them. You’d have a tighter, more engaging experience and story.

Now, you might think I kind of hated my time with Scarlet Nexus but that’s really not the case at all. When I write so much about a game it’s not because I hate it or I think it’s bad – if I felt like that I really wouldn’t waste my time writing all of this – no, I write so much not because I hate it but because I’m incredibly frustrated by it.

The combat is super fun and it lets you combine your powers and abilities in cool, stylish and clever ways. The Others are these weird, creepy creatures that all have unique and interesting designs. I did like a lot of the characters, despite them being so painfully anime. The world and story is pretty intriguing, even if the game is totally muddled when it comes to both.

Scarlet Nexus is a game that’s packed full of good ideas and it gets a lot right, but it also squanders a lot of the potential packed into its setting, story and mechanics. It’s the kind of game crying out for a more refined and focused sequel. I really did enjoy my time with the game and it’s a game I’d recommend picking up on sale if you enjoy action-RPGs.

7/10