Anno 2205 vs Banished
Anno 2205
Anno 2205 is, in some way, a "grand simulation" game and a city-builder that is set in the far future where Earth has already been developed to its maximum capacity and it's time to take to the stars. However, this game is no space exploration sim. Instead, you'll still be focusing much of your development effort on Earth but this time around, you'll get to expand your influence to the moon; to mine the resources there and bring it back to Earth. The gameplay is also further enhanced with a unique Session mode where you can play on multiple locations and then connect all of these regions together. And of course, the map of the region you can play in is a lot larger (five times, to be exact) than the previous game.However, many fans of the game have pointed out that the combat system is rather boring in this game. Though admittedly, the combat in other Anno games isn't particularly exciting either. It's just something that's necessary.
That said, the gameplay might still be interesting enough for you to buy the game, maybe at a discounted price, but for some, the game might not be comparable to any of the other Anno titles. It's up to you to decide which camp you fall into.
Banished
Banished is a medieval-themed city-building simulation that can be pretty difficult to get into at first mainly due to its many nuances and lack of a comprehensive tutorial. But once you get the general idea of how things work (we'd recommend starting with easy mode), you'll start to truly appreciate the game as the challenge that it is. In some way, this game is quite similar to SimCity in many ways with the obvious difference being the themes and the lack of piping, waste management or electricity. Different maps will pose a different challenge and of course, the bigger your village is, the more stuff you'll need to manage. Although it does have some strategy elements to it - mainly in the form of village management, the game is not a war game. There is no fighting involved but your villagers will die from natural causes or disasters like illnesses or famine.However, once you've gotten the hang of the game, Banished becomes less of a punishing game and a bit more boring due to the same-y looking buildings and the soundtrack. When it comes to replayability, we'd say that the game has maybe tens of hours in it before you'll get bored and move on to the next game... and this play duration may be drastically reduced if you happen to be a pro SimCity player.
So, in short, Banished will appear to be a somewhat frustrating game at first, but once you've gotten the hang of it, the game might gradually becomes boring mainly because there is nothing else to do except to expand, expand and expand! However, we can't say that we didn't enjoy playing the game, and even for the shorter play duration it has to offer, as opposed to triple A city-building titles, the game is worth the money it costs.