Banners of Ruin - Review

Table of Contents

What is Banners of Ruin about?

Banners of Ruin is a roguelike deck builder, and you must now infiltrate their defenses of House Ender and get rid of them. To do that, you will need to build a deck with a maximum of six cards, and you have the freedom to get creative with your build. You have to defeat every elite opponent that stands in your way so that you can reach the city’s guard captain and deal with the Enders. During your journey, you might come across different scenarios and encounters that can help you, but at a cost.

How to play Banners of Ruin?

Banners of Ruin will test your deck-building ability, so you will need to try and create the best deck. There are six different species that can aid you in battle, and you can have up to six warriors in your party. You can make your characters stronger by leveling them up, which will unlock talent cards and some pretty strong passives to help you. To be able to get access to new cards, you will need to do some looting, and you can buy them and even unlock them as you go. By looting, you will also receive new weapons that will give you different skills and make it easier to defeat your enemies. You will also be able to choose your destination and make your path, and at certain moments you will have to make some decisions that can be good or bad for you. And Banners of Ruin might be a challenging game but don’t get sad if you lose, as it will reward you with new passives and cards that will make your next run easier.

The Tutorial

Since this is my first time playing the game, I decided to hop on the tutorial first so that I could get to learn the basics about the game. At the start, we get introduced to the two types of characters that we can use in our party, a mouse and a bear. Each character has unique talents, and we learn that all the cards they are carrying will also be lost when they die.

To be able to proceed on the map, we will have to choose the path we want to take. Before being forced to engage in combat, there is more than one option for us to select. Each character has a vitality and armor bar, and you can replenish your health and find better armor as your make more progress. Enemies also have the same vitality, armor, and will, and under them, we can see what their next move will be and how much damage they are going to hit us. They also have stamina and will bar, and we consume them to be able to use our cards, and while stamina recovers in every turn, the will bar won’t. After finishing all of your stamina, it will be your opponent’s turn, and when it is your turn again, all of your cards will reshuffle, and your stamina is going will be recovered. Winning fights will reward you with florens XP, and you can also pick a card to add to your deck. When a character levels up, you will be able to give him either an extra point in stamina or will. And they will also unlock a new talent or passive skill.

In combat, we also learn about lanes and how you can use them to avoid taking damage. After dealing with the final enemies of the tutorial, we finish it and start playing the campaign. After facing off against a few enemies, we have our first encounter with the crazy weasel, who offers us the chance to transform a skill. Changing skills seems pretty useful, and we end up doing it. After that, we come across an opportunity to loot for some new weapons and armor, but we have to fight against an elite enemy to get both. And in all honesty, it was a pretty bad idea, as they defeated us pretty quickly. However, we leveled up and unlocked some new weapons that we could come across in our next run. We also got to see what other races we would be able to use in the future.

The first revolt against the authority

Now in our second run, I know that it is a bad idea to try and fight against elite enemies right at the start, as they are powerful and will kill us quickly. We once again have the option to fight them, but instead, we choose to go and loot some weapons, and we end up finding some pretty good armor and weapons. After a couple of fights, we can level up both our mouse and bear, we unlock a new skill for each of them and increase their stamina. Things were looking good until we came across one of the enemy’s soldiers, and we could’ve either executed him or let him live. We chose to spare his life, but it was a wrong choice, as he called for reinforcement, and we had to fight against a large group of enemies.

However, we were still able to win. Thankfully, a little bit later, we were able to find a tavern and hire another character to help us. And it was with great timing, as right after we end up going against an elite enemy. It wasn’t an easy fight, but in the end, we managed to come out as the winners. We were able to continue forward, and at a certain point, we lost two of our characters, but thankfully we came across another tavern and recruited another ally. Now, with more than one character in our party, we were able to continue moving forward, but sadly, it didn’t last long, as we were defeated a bit later. However, for my second run, I did pretty well and was able to go even farther than I did the first time. Our mouse was upgraded to tier two, our bear to tier three, and we are now very close to being able to recruit the weasel.

My Conclusion

Playing Banners of Ruin was a pretty fun experience, and I honestly had a lot of fun playing it. The graphics are really pretty, and the combat is interesting and engaging. I personally love deck building games, especially when they have roguelike elements. There are plenty of cards for you to unlock, and different races that you can have in your party. The game isn’t exactly easy, and at the start it will be really challenging. But over time, you will be able to go further and further. So if you like these types of game, be sure to give it a try, it is a pretty cheap game, and it is totally worth its price.

Where to buy?

HumbleBundle (Affiliate Link)

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If you liked Banners of Ruin then I think you are either into roguelike or turn-based games ;). So here is a small recommendation list from me: Also, if you have any other recommendations of a game you’d like me to play, feel free to leave a comment here, or on my YouTube channel:

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