Banquet for Fools Review – A Strange, Beautiful Party-Based CRPG
Banquet for Fools is an atmospheric party-based CRPG with handcrafted art, pausable brawl combat and deep worldbuilding. It’s clever, sometimes frustrating, and utterly memorable.
I jumped into Banquet for Fools expecting a quaint indie CRPG and left with something far stranger — and better — than I anticipated. The game wears its influences on its sleeve (think old-school CRPGs and pausable action like Vagrant Story), but quickly carves out a voice of its own with unusual fauna, pagan spells and a tiny, obsessed attention to detail. It’s a game that asks you to pay attention: take notes, read scrolls, and let the island slowly reveal its oddities. If you enjoy exploration and party-building with a pinch of weirdness, this might be your next favourite niche gem.
Hiking the Cursed Spice Hills
Play revolves around a small band of four guards exploring the island of Invimona. You create a party from several races, distribute stats and skills, and then set out across rivers, coasts and ruined holds in search of missing villagers and the island’s secrets. Movement and navigation are tactile: you hike, portage boats, and use a pack‑boro to carry gear. There is no handholding — quests arrive on scrolls, there are no auto‑compasses or markers by default, and the game rewards players who actually look at the map and leave themselves notes. Exploration feels deliberate and tactile, with secrets tucked behind terrain puzzles, patrol routes to observe and hidden forageables that matter in combat.
When a Brawl Becomes a Ballet
Combat is a brawl-style, beat‑em‑up system with a tactical twist: it’s real‑time but pausable via an action dome when your action bar fills. You control one leader at a time while the rest of the party auto‑acts — they attack, defend, pin and kick according to AI — and you can swap leaders or call in support for coordinated Rally attacks. Criticals and follow-ups matter, and timing an interrupt or a stun can flip a fight. There are also songs you configure to auto‑proc under conditions (on battle start, on enemy death, when allies are low), which adds a wonderfully chaotic layer of scripted RNG that you can tune. Add pagan spells (Fauna, Vines, Spores), unique weapons like whips and slings, and a modest crafting system for arrows and elyxir globes, and you’ve got combat that can be clumsy and cinematic in the same breath. It’s not easy at first — some fights feel unfair — but that hardness becomes a reward once you learn positioning and resource management.
The Little Systems That Make the World Breathe
Where Banquet for Fools shines is in its interlocking systems. Skills gain bonuses when used often, so your party evolves into specialties organically. Intercessions — petitioning small stone deities — grant custom holy items if you complete their quests and pay offerings, but these gifts are capricious and often ask for odd favors. Roguish play is supported: you can steal, lie, and accrue bounties that influence how towns react to you; Exile Island slowly fills with criminals you’ve sent away. Field kits let you craft arrows, rivi‑wraps and globes while on the road, which turns resource scarcity into a meaningful tension rather than a chore. Dialogue is party-focused: companions chip in based on race and stats, meaning conversations feel like a roundtable, not a monologue. The developers also added quality-of-life touches like a built-in note tool for those who embrace the lack of quest markers.
A Soundtrack and Look That Catches the Eye
Visually the game is a handcrafted isometric affair that flirts with claymation vibes: animations have a slight jank that somehow adds character rather than taking it away. The UI is stylized (candles, carved stone motifs) and fits the world, though I’ll come back to accessibility. The music uses authentic‑sounding ancient instruments and subtly haunted melodies that perfectly sell the melancholic, fae-adjacent tone of the island. Performance on my rig was stable on Windows and Mac builds, though load times and tiny text can be an annoyance on high resolutions. Altogether the presentation sells the setting in a way screenshots don’t fully communicate.
Banquet for Fools is a singular CRPG — imperfect, occasionally maddening, but filled with personality and smart systems. I recommend it to players who enjoy party-based exploration, moral ambiguity and handcrafted worlds, but warn those needing large UI scaling or a gentle intro to be cautious. For me, the highs — haunting music, memorable companions, and emergent systems — outweigh the rougher edges.
Pros
- Rich, handcrafted worldbuilding and evocative art & music.
- Party-driven dialogue and character interactions that feel alive.
- Deep, flexible systems: skills, pagan spells, songs and crafting.
- Meaningful emergent choices (stealing, bounties, Exile Island).
Cons
- Tiny UI text and limited accessibility options for low‑vision players.
- Combat can feel chaotic and punishing until you learn the systems.
- No handholding — can frustrate players who prefer clear quest markers.
Player Opinion
Players repeatedly praise the art, sound design and the world’s atmosphere; many call it a rare, handcrafted CRPG with soul. Fans love the party mechanics, the variety of builds and the freedom to approach quests however they like. At the same time reviews flag accessibility and UI scaling as a serious problem for low‑vision players, and some find the combat too unforgiving or confusing at first. Several users applauded the devs’ responsiveness during Early Access and the addition of QoL features like gamepad support. If you like immersive, slightly old‑school RPGs without handholding, community reaction suggests you'll find a lot to love here.