Recent reviews by Ammanas

The hack and slash game play may start to feel repetitive after a few dozen runs (in spite of the seemingly endless combinations of powerups) but the characters just get more familiar and dear to you as you play. Absolutely phenomenal writing and acting.

The benchmark for remastered games is now higher than ever. Before this came out I didn't think it would be possible to meaningfully improve AoE2, and I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Surprisingly tricky survival / city builder game. Orphaned by its developer, so no new updates or expansions, but beloved by its community, so plenty of mods, some of them quite robust. What it lacks in size it makes up in aesthetic.
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The "challenge" of Banished is learning how to balance resource production with population growth. Figuring out how to stabilize a town isn't the end of your progression though. To the contrary, it's where the game really opens up. Once you are free from the anxiety of fighting for survival you can really let your creative city building urges flow, and also try out different map types and starting conditions that provide more of a challenge or just some scenic variety.

I still haven't found a game that does the same things Banished does as well as it does them, but for all that, Banished feels very small for a city builder. There aren't a huge number of buildings in the base game, and essentially no real production chains either. While mods alleviate the depth issues by adding far more assets and options, the mechanics of the game don't support complex economies or massive cities, so a player is soft-capped with modest-sized towns or a collection of small villages if he doesn't want to over reach and start a death spiral. As a result the game can feel short and lacking in depth.

All that said though, I still recommend the game very strongly to people who want something relaxing to play that still provides a small difficulty hurdle. Banished isn't the most challenging city builder, nor does it have the most interesting mechanics, but it may well be the comfiest game in the genre. The music, art, and even the small scale of the game give it a cozy, nostalgic feeling. I've got dozens of games languishing in my library that I've never or barely played, but this little game I keep coming back to, again and again.

I originally owned this game on the Nintendo Gamecube and played it for many years. Remains one of my favorite games of all time.

You will log 30 hours on this game minimum. You don't have a choice. You start playing it for the first time and that's 30 hours of your life gone. You've been warned.

BANNER LORD

WHEN

Great old game. Used to obsess over it as a kid. Fairly challenging and lots of replay potential. Chaos is the best Faith.

Still the best Total War game I've played. There's nothing I like more than swapping stories without players about how we overcame the Mongol horde.

A solid RPG for anyone who loves medieval warfare.