 Welcome back to another review everyone, I am going to be discussing Banshee at Kings Island, the 2014 Bolliger and Mabillard inverted coaster. Banshee opened in the year 2014 and is a massive BNM invert. It stands at 167 feet tall, features a 150 foot drop, a top speed of 68 miles per hour and seven inversions along its 4124 feet of track. I got the chance to visit Kings Island and ride this beautiful coaster in August of 2019 and it was definitely one of the most anticipated rides at Kings Island for myself. It is the third BNM invert I have been on and I am a big fan of the other inverts I had ridden previously to this. I was very curious about Banshee especially because of the newer BNM Vesta Straints featured, the same restraints you will find on BNM Wing Coasters which I have always liked for the most part. After going through the queue and coming up to the station, you will see that this station is nicely themed and made to look like an old cathedral. It looks really cool, but there is no story presented, it just adds a nice atmosphere to the ride. You will then load into the sleek trains, very similar to all other BNM inverts. They are pretty comfortable, admittedly I did feel like these vests were a bit tighter than the ones I have experienced on Thunderbird, Gatekeeper and Valraven though. During my day at Kings Island I got two rides on Banshee. I would have liked to have gotten another ride, but it was a busy day and lines for this get extremely long. I rode in the very front on my first ride and the back on my second ride. After departing the church and climbing to the 167 foot peak here, you will hear the infamous Banshee scream before you plummet down this really steep, twisting 150 foot drop which starts off the ride really well. You will then go into a huge dive loop, then followed by a vertical loop that circles around the lift hill. After the loop you will travel up into a 0G roll like you will find on most BNM inverts and it has decent whip. After the 0G roll you will hit the most unique element on this ride, the super forceful pretzel knot inversions. You are just pressed against your seat during this element as your legs start to go numb. It is basically a dive loop followed by an emelman and the forces are just ridiculous. Following this you have a second vertical loop followed by an upward banking turn to the right which leads you into a highlight of the ride, an inline twist where you slowly roll to the left. You will end the ride by twisting out of the roll then going through a tight downward helix to the left then twist up to the right and into the final breaks ending your 55 second 4124 foot long ride on the Banshee. I have a lot to talk about with this ride. Banshee is an amazing looking ride and it really has a nice unique color scheme that looks great as you are walking up to it in the plaza near drop tower and bat along with one of the coolest entrances for any coaster with a banshee sign and fog pouring out of it. And of course you have the great cathedral style station. Really nice looking overall. There is nothing really elaborate in terms of theming. Just the cathedral aesthetic, sign, banshee scream then of course you have the headstones throughout the entrance and queue one of them paying respects to son of beast which used to occupy some of the land banshee sits on. The next thing I want to talk about is how unique banshee is for a B&M invert. It has a fantastic layout which features some of the commonplace elements inverts are known for but it switches the typical ordering around a bit and also includes unique elements for one thing instead of the typical vertical loop right after the first drop you first go through the dive loop before the vertical loop and there are also two vertical loops featured on the ride as far as completely unique elements you have the pretzel knot element not to be confused with pretzel loops on B&M flyers this is the only currently operating roller coaster in the world to feature a pretzel knot the only other coaster that featured this element according to RCDB was the legendary shuttle coaster moonsault scramble that was at Fuji Q Highland in Japan from 1983 until 2000 banshee also features the slow inline twist at the end of the ride which provides some great hang time I have to note as well that like many coasters at Kings Island this one makes some pretty nice use of the terrain in that area talking about the actual ride experience I had on banshee I have to say that it was a much more intense ride than I thought it would be once you hit the zero G roll the ride really starts to whip you through the inversions and really press you to your seat with sheer positive g-force that was a very pleasant surprise to me not that I thought banshee would be a forceless ride by any means much on the contrary I just wasn't expecting that amount of sheer force as the layout is pretty large and drawn out with that being said I was very much let down by banshee in a certain regard and that was the smoothness this is the newest B&M invert as of 2019 and my rides I got on banshee were extremely rattly it was honestly too much and it really took away from the enjoyment quite a bit which is really unfortunate to me though there was no headbanging due to the Vestrestraints the roughness of the ride just basically took all of that added comfort and threw it out the window there really is no logical reason why this five-year-old inverted coaster should be so rough when raptor and afterburn which are both 20 years old or more are still providing very smooth rides safer maybe the slightest rattle at times and because this ride is so intense it just amplified the roughness of the ride for that reason I don't know if I could really ride this coaster more than twice in a row if the line weren't so long I don't know if this roughness is a new problem that just began this year but in any case it desperately needs to be resolved even though the headache inducing roughness was a very big issue to me I still did think this ride was very good nonetheless as it really has a lot going for it the speed intensity and uniqueness of this coaster I'll just make this a really good ride and I could only imagine this ride climbing up a couple spots in my overall rankings next year if the roughness has dealt with taking everything into account and looking at banshee not only from my personal experience but also from an objective standpoint I will give banshee a score of 8.5 out of 10 it is a standout coaster among the great lineup at kings island and I currently have it ranked just inside of my overall top 15 of 86 total coasters and right in the middle of the three bnm inverts I have currently ridden afterburn at carowinds still being my favorite what are your thoughts on banshee at kings island and have you experienced this roughness I thought it may have just been a bad day for the ride when I happened to visit in august but then not long after my visit another enthusiast released a video talking about similar ride experiences they had on it earlier in the season drop your thoughts on banshee in the comment section I would love to discuss thank you all so much for watching this review be sure to like this video if you found it helpful and subscribe for more awesome content on roller coasters and amusement parks coming your way like my page coaster daddy on facebook and follow me at coaster daddy official on instagram thanks again for watching this is coaster daddy bye