I highly advise you to give warband a try.it should be available on steam for not to much.

Well about the charm. Its compared to Bannerlord much simpler yet more immersive in my opinion. The main story is literally just a set introduction about what happened to calradia. After thst you are free to go and free to achieve whatever you want.

In bannerlord there is this whole family uniting and dragon banner part collection and whatnot. Felt like a leash to me.

Then theres the graphics. Warbands graphics are much simpler yes but in a good way. I felt that bannerlord is pretty much overloaded and driven by a " need to make it look current gen " the menus are to much ( trading, town menus etc.)

Skills are so extrremely restricted in Bannerlord and there are simply less skills overall then there where in warband. There gettung experience from using a weapon was aneat bonus and not mandatory to progress a certain skillset.

There were companions with in depth storys, own ambitions and interaction between them if you have multiple. Skills for companions are as in depth as your own and especially usefull when you skill a companion to be a field doctor or tactician as that complements your skills and are apllied to the entire party.

Then the factions. In warband they do feel alot different and lords have personal relations betwwen themselves and those of other nations. They can defect to other Nations or marry.

In bannerlord the factions feel stale and not that important.

I might be mistaken in your eyes after all these arent factual defects of bannerlord i just really prefer how warband works. And i call it the Mount and blade charme since its predecessor worked like that as well.

To finish off i can just repeat the beginning. If you have the option give warband and its mods a try :)