I've really enjoyed my time with Tiny Tina's Wonderlands and my biggest problem exist outside of the game itself. Shift servers were constantly down over the first two days of release, which I'm not taking off any points for but is worth noting.

The game itself is a lot of fun. It's this sort of experimentation on the Borderlands formula and I think is a much more successful spin-off type game than, say, the Pre-Sequel. The increase in stat/ability affecting items is really nice, weapons are a little less robust but the inclusion of dedicated melee weapons makes my preferred method of melee play much more flexible, and while I think it isn't as fleshed out as the classes in Borderlands 3 I do really like the multiclass system.

I've spent my time in the game playing a Brr-Zerker/Stabbomancer and quickly found a build that suited me. Using the Brr-Zerker's spin move along with increased movement speed, damage scaling associated with that speed, and high crit damage I've really had a lot of fun becoming a death tornado. On the other hand my friend that I have been doing co-op with had been playing a spell-focused Spellslinger/Graveborn and he loves the spell system so much that he is instant it should stay over the normal Borderlands grenades.

So yeah as I wrap up the game that's sort of my experience with it. I don't think it's anything super special like Borderlands 2 or anything but the changes here work and if you like the series it's worth picking up.

It goes without saying that Gearbox will likely never top Borderlands 2, and that is unfortunately still true with the release of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, but it’s worth saying that the fantasy spin-off holds its own as a strong title worthy of franchise, armed to the teeth with:

-huge amounts of character customization, both aesthetically and mechanically
-a grandiose degree of exploration, looting, and questing both off and on the path of the main story
-countless guns and fantastical spells to choose from and experiment with
-new and memorable characters to populate a fantasy realm instead of a sci-fi one
-entertaining voice performances from Andy Samberg, Wanda Sykes, Will Arnett, and of course, Ashly Burch

As someone who played it on the PS4, my biggest gripes with this game came from the performance; the occasional stuttering and frame drops came to be a nuisance and would turn the whimsical madness of combat into an indiscernible mess. It wasn’t gamebreaking, but it was, at least, noticeably inadequate. If your game isn’t optimized for PS4, don’t put it on the PS4.

The scope of the game is still leagues away from what Borderlands 2 accomplished for the series, but with all of the forthcoming DLC and post-game content that is offered, I’m eager to continue shooting and looting in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, and it was, overall, a fun little adventure.

It's a step up from bl3 in terms of story and characters. Humor is bad as always though, game kept me entertained, but never really made me laugh with an exception. Skill trees are more toned down so it's not as easy to break, but still possible with stabbomancer or a few weapons. Legendaries got a decent droprate now which I like. Tina is a good character again and the story has some interesting dynamics relating with Tiny tina. Most sidequests were written pretty well and relate with the main themes except for the comedy ones like GTFO and The CLTP one. Overall a fun experience and I could get down with some characters, and it had a fun world to explore. Pick it up if it's on sale, if you can tolerate the bad jokes you can have a good time. Unfortunately, it seems they're going the bl3 route with the panic nerfs as of April 15 2022. Some of the nerfs don't even make sense like the clawbringer and hand bows lmao.

As a borderlands fan, BL3 was a rough time for me. The gameplay was fun, but in no way revolutionary, and the writing was terrible at best.

But Wonderlands feels like the breath of fresh air that the franchise needed. The tighter focus on a more streamlined campaign, mixed with how well fantasy meshes with borderland's theme-park style storytelling delivers the best campaign the series has seen since BL2.

At the end of the day, it does feel like a bit of a light reskin, like blood dragon is for FC3. But I'd much rather see more of this world than more apocalyptic wastelands filled with bandits screaming about meat. There's a lot of great changes here, and I keep wishing they pushed it further, but all things considered Tiny Tina's Wonderland is a fun romp through high fantasy with a group of friends.

Got convinced to buy this from a friend mainly off the back of peripheral interest as what looked like "DnD borderlands". Effectively that's what it is, borderlands with just a bit more RPG focus and a change of atmosphere to a quirky DnD session. Lot of interesting variety but still the same arena shooter skinnerbox. Which is fine, its a serviceable modus for this sort of experience and a winning formula they should keep sticking to and refining, which you see a fair bit of here. Definitely a game I feel a lot will be able to get into for the gameplay depending on their tolerance for that gearbox flavor of writing... Groan time, yes its got THAT writing. People familiar with this series and gearbox in general beyond the very first borderlands probably already know what I'm talking about... I said "quirky" earlier because its a perfectly poisoned word to describe the usual gearbox writers room output, and the word "Cringeworthy" has turned into its own poisoned meme that can't be taken as seriously. Damn near every word of voice acting is dripping with irony, flowery purple prose made vulgar, or LOL RANDUMB STUFF YIPEE! That kind of narrative atmosphere has largely turned me away from gearbox as a company, but you know what? Outside of Tina's voice actress herself (Still annoying as all hell), it wasn't nearly as egregious this time around. While there were some grating moments, strangely enough it kinda fits here. I think its because the setting forces the context of the writing outside of any meaningful realm of seriousness, and such they made a wise decision to have very minimal "serious" moments to avoid overdoing it, ultimately resulting in just some background fluff for "outside the board". The two companions voice actors kept things oddly leveled out were ironically, levity from an excess of levity, was needed. Most of it wound up being background rattling, but I don't remember any of it rubbing me the wrong way or taking me out of the fun. Its got a postgame that only really shines depending on how much you enjoy roguelikes. That said, more gameplay over more storyboarding is definitely a positive choice here. I'd like to see more of this from gearbox in the future; a focus on strong gameplay elements and less god awful writing, just enough to keep a narrative going.

Tiny Tina's Wonderland is a delightful game. I'd say that the most astonishing thing about this is that they made a full length AAA game with high-budget voice casting that's a send-up of D&D. What was once a niche hobby is now squarely in mainstream spaces, and that makes me very happy.

Aside from that, it is truly just standard borderlands fare. Get guns, watch numbers go up, and bad jokes that go on way too long. It helps that the bad jokes are some pithy observations about D&D now. It's a way fresher subject matter than the 3 games of bad jokes about aliens and rednecks.

The gun variety is decent, and the game puts an emphasis on elemental damage now. The elemental damage offers a tiny bit of strategy to the gunplay, but not enough for it to matter.

The magic system sucks. Not sure why they put ranged magic attacks w/ cooldowns in a game centered on firing guns. Melee kind of sucks too. They no real reason to use it, because it's not strong enough to be worth using. This game would have benefited from a melee finisher system like Doom 2016, I think.

The character customization is really nice. The way that they handle characterization is great. Essentially, your character will have canned voice lines for a ton of interactions, but it seems like the script for those canned voice lines change depending on which character voice you pick during creation. And there are a ton of voices, each with distinct personalities.

It's worth playing, especially on PS5 with its adaptive triggers. It's worth picking up when it inevitably goes on sale.

First off let me say I've played all the main Borderland games and I liked them as a co-op experience, but I'd never call myself really a fan of them, they were just considered fun at best, but nothing amazing.

But this one, I love this game, I had so much fun making my character and choosing a class and building it, I know you could do this in the other games, but I think what made it better is the character is yours instead of a Vault Hunter with abilities.

I ran the game as a Brr-zerker and only used melee weapons, and I'll say the game is completely viable to do with melee only, which I have to say was SUPER fun! I can't honestly speak on how good the guns or gun play really is, but the overall gameplay is very solid and fluent. It's still the looter shooter it was before, still ability upgrades, still the same stuff of the past games.

The world is actually pretty big, while it isn't the usually open world like the past games, it is something like free roaming instances, which at first I thought would be a downgrade, but honestly it was good, it fit the rest of the game.

I've never been a fan of the artstyle, but it does look good for what it is, the story is entertaining at times, I'm a fan of JRPGs but I know little about table top RPGs so some of the references likely flew over my head, but was never a distraction.

The music, I'll admit I barely heard it, likely because I played co-op with a friend and we had a great time, the co-op is solid, no lag, no server issues, just solid play.

I wish I could add to it more, but if you like the borderland series, I can't see why you wouldn't like this, unless you really don't like the TTRPG setting. I'm not a huge fan of the series, but this is my favorite of them all.

Als großer Fan der Borderlands Serie habe ich mich sehr auf Wonderlands gefreut. Der DLC für Borderlands 2 auf dem dieser gesamte Titel basiert ist meiner Meinung nach der beste DLC, den es jemals für irgendein Spiel gab. Wonderlands hat also große Erwartungen zu erfüllen.

Der erste große Unterschied zu Borderlands ist das Klassensystem. Man kann nun eine von 6 Klassen wählen (und später noch eine Zweitklasse) anstatt einen vorgefertigten Charakter zu spielen. Der Charaktereditor ist super, erstaunlich umfangreich und lässt eigentlich keine Wünsche offen. Die Klassen haben mich allerdings nicht ganz überzeugen können. Zwar hat man theoretisch mit 6 kombinierbaren Klassen mehr Auswahl als jemals zuvor, aber keine der Klassen hat für mich eine so ausgeprägte Identität, dass ich wirklich Spaß am skillen und leveln hätte. Die Intention der Skilltrees ist in Borderlands irgendwie klarer und 2 Skilltrees des selben Borderlandscharakters harmonieren besser als die möglichen Multiclass-Kombinationen hier.

Eine weitere Neuerung bietet Wonderlands in der Overworld des Spiels. Das Durchqueren von weiten und größtenteils leeren Arealen per Fahrzeug wurde durch eine thematisch passende Tabletop-Worldmap ausgetauscht, durch die man seinen Charakter steuern und kleine Geheimnisse entecken kann. Besonders witzig sind die verhassten "Random Encounter", die man hier einfach mit einer Ohrfeige von der Karte schallern kann. Diese Overworld ist viel angenehmer und ein deutlicher Fortschritt im Vergleich zu Borderlands.

Die Areale, die man aus der Overworld heraus betritt sind die eigentlichen Level in denen man spielt. Diese sind auf gewohnt gutem Borderlands-Niveau. Thematisch abwechslungsreich und gefüllt mit zahlreichen witzigen Sidequests.

Die Dialoge und der Humor generell haben sich merkbar gebessert im Vergleich zu Borderlands 3. Fast alle Sidequests bedienen sich auf unterhaltsame Art und Weise irgendwelcher Referenzen, wobei natürlich diesmal der Fokus noch mehr auf Themen aus dem Nerdkosmos liegt, da sich das gesamte Spiel in einem Pen & Paper Kostüm verhüllt.

Beim Gameplay hingegen hat Wonderlands für mich leicht abgebaut. Es wurden einige neue Elemente eingeführt, die die bekannte Formel ganz sachte aufrütteln, wie den Gegnertyp Skelett, ausrüstbare Meleewaffen oder Zauber statt Granaten. Der letzte Punkt ist die gelungenste Verbesserungen. Die Zauber bieten viel mehr Abwechslung als die Granaten aus Borderlands und auch viele Skilltrees interagieren gut mit den Zaubern. Die Meleewaffen hingegen sind zwar nett, aber nach wie vor hat man nur eine einzige Taste zum Zuhauen und insgesamt hat Melee als Krieg in Borderlands 2 schon besser funktioniert. Was das Gameplay-Loop in Wonderlands allerdings deutlich weniger spaßig macht als in Borderlands ist die unglaubliche Menge an Fallen, Fässern und generellem AoE Schaden, durch den man sich durchwurschteln muss. Die meiste Zeit steht man in irgendeiner Schadensquelle und generell machen die Fallen mehr Schaden als die Gegner direkt. Somit spielt man eigentlich nie so, dass man probiert vor Gegnern in Deckung zu gehen, sondern achtet die ganze Zeit nur auf den Boden und versucht vor der nächsten Elementarpfütze wegzurennen. Das sind nicht die Elemente die meiner Meinung nach in einem Shooter entscheidend sein sollten, nehmen hier allerdings die Hauptrolle in Sachen Gefahr ein. Dazu kommt noch, dass die Gegnerdichte in den meisten Leveln zu gering ist. Heißt, man kriegt selten dieses befriedigende Gefühl eine große Gegnergruppe mit einer gelungenen Kombo zu pulverisieren und die Zahlen hochfliegen zu sehen.

Zuletzt wäre da dann noch das Lategame. Anstelle des Raids, der die ultimative Fähigkeitsprüfung in Borderlands 3 darstellte, bietet Wonderlands fürs Lategame zufällig generierte Dungeons. Das ist auf lange Sicht zwar abwechslungsreicher, allerdings sind diese Dungeons lange nicht so spannend und gut konstruiert wie der Maliwan Takedown in Borderlands 3.

Abschließend muss ich sagen, dass mich Wonderlands trotz guter Dialoge und spaßiger Sidequests nicht so gefesselt hat wie Borderlands 2 oder 3, da das Gameplay von Moment zu Moment weniger Spaß macht und mich die zufällig generierten Dungeons im Lategame überhaupt nicht reizen.

[Turkish Review] Wonderlands bazılarını mutlu edecek, bazılarını üzecek bir yapım. Puanımı gördüyseniz mutlu olan tarafta olduğumu tahmin ediyorsunuzdur. Ancak her şey güllük gülistanlık değil.

Artılar
+ Üstüne çok fazla koyulmamış olsa bile gameplay taşşşşşşş gibi ve yeni gelen büyü ve melee tamamen oyunu değiştirmese bile oyun deneyimini olumlu şekilde etkilemişler. İki konsepti de farklı şekillerde Borderlands 4'de görmek isterim (tabi bu kadar yüzeysel olmayacak şekilde)

+ Yazım kalitesi tüm Gearbox Borderlands'leri arasında açık ara en iyisi. Kuru BL1, overrated BL2, benim sevdiğim ancak çok küçük boyutlu TPS, yazım kalitesi yerlerde olan BL3ün yanında parlıyor resmen. Gerabox'ın bu kadar iyi bir hikaye ve karakterler yazdığına inanamıyorum, bu günleri de görecektik...

+ Üsttekine ek olarak, normalde hiçbir BL oyununda sevemediğin Tiny Tina'ya bu oyunda oldukça ısındım. Kesinlikle daha eğlenceli bir karakter olmuş.

+ Ses sanatçıları, özellikle Andy Samberg ile Will Arnett çok iyi performans sergilemişler

+ Bölüm tasarımları araç konseptinin oyundan atılması ile (yerine at gibi bir şey eklenebilirdi ama tercih etmemişler) haritalar boyut olarak biraz daha küçülmüş ama keşfetmesi çok daha keyifli, tasarım olarak daha iyi, daha dengeli haritalar yapmışlar. BL3'ü ne kadar sevsem bile bazı haritalar gereğinden fazla büyük ve keşfetmesi zahmetti, burada iyi iş çıkarmışlar.

+ Overworld konseptini çok beğendim, hem temaya uygun hem de yüksek tempoyu biraz yavaşlatması ile bölümler arasında birazcık keşif yapma imkanı sunuyor.

+ Görsel olarak BL3'ün üzerine çok fazla ekleme yapmamışlar ama renk paleti ve sanat tasarımı oyunun çok çok daha iyi görünmesine yol açmış. Bazı bölümlerde cidden çok etkilendim.

+ İçerik olarak oldukça dolu, ana hikaye kısa sürse bile yan görevler oldukça bol, keşif eğlenceli, end game içeriği şuan için oldukça tatmin etti ve BL3 aksine devam etme isteği uyandırdı.


Eksiler:
- Teknik anlamda çok sıkıntılı. Sıkıntılar oyunun kendi içinde değil aslında, oyun hatasız oynanıyor ama optimizasyon iyi değil (bi optimizasyon yapamadınız amk), doku ve envanterdeki fotoğraflar geç yükleniyor ya da yüklenmiyor, ve en kritiği arayüz TAMAMEN bozuk. HUD elementlerinin takılması/yanlış görünmesi, envanterdeki eşyaların görsellerinin kaybolması, play time hesaplamasının bozuk olması (18h 18m, 1d 1h 1m şeklimde görünüyor, tam saat asla görünmüyor.) vb.

- Bazı yan görevler ve chaos chamberler, farklı temalar için yapılmış 2-3 haritanın tekrarlanmasıyla yapılıyor. Bazılarının tasarımı çok kez oynamaya dayanacak şekilde ama bazıları çok ağır sırıtıyor.

- Loot sistemi BL3'deki çok legendary düşen sistemden ayda yılda bir (en azından oyunun başında) legendary düşen BL2'ye dönmüş. Kesinlikle oynanışı yavaşlatıyor. Legendaryler dışında da loot sistemi sıçık. Çoğu zaman aldığınız loot kötü oluyor ve iyi olsa bile bazen kullanmıyorsunuz çünkü iyi lootlar 10 seviyeden fazla kullanılabiliyor. 17. seviyede aldığım sadık assault rifleımı 27. seviyeye kadar kullandım ve sonra daha beğendiğimi bulduğum için bıraktım. Yoksa 17 seviye silah ile daha devam edecekti... Dengeli.

- Loot sistemindeki en önemli problem silah çeşitliliğin çökmesi. BL3'de 200+ saatlik süremde aldığım hiçbir loot birbirine benzemezken, Wonderlands'de her silah birbirini andırıyor ve silah çeşitliliği cidden az. Desen her silah fantezi temalı o yüzden az yapabilmişler, yok hani bazı silahlar BL3'den çıkma direkt o zaman niye bu kadar kıstınız silah çeşitliliğini?

- Yükseltmeler saçma olmuş. Oyunda hiçbir şekilde cephaneniz bitmiyor o yüzden onları yükseltmek saçma. Ama ihtiyacınız olan envanter yükseltmelerine abanınca gereken miktarın ne kadar yüksek olduğunu fark ediyorsunuz ama... BL3'de para zıçarken bu oyunda para end game'de bile kolay kazanılmıyor. Ve oyunda henüz tonla para kazandıracak etkinlikler yok.

Nötr Olduğum Konular:

0 Karakter kişiselleştirme fikri çok hoşuma gitti, sunduğu seçenek yeterli ancak karakterlerin çirkin görünme sorunu var. Wonderlands için ayrıyeten bir şey olması güzel. Ancak Borderlands oyunlarına kesinlikle böyle bir şey gelmemesi lazım. Özel yazılmış, kişiliğine özel yetenekleri olan default karakterler kesinlikle çok daha etkileyici ve BL3'de yaptıklarından sonra Wonderlands'de tatminsiz kaldım.

ÖZET - Wonderlands genel olarak oldukça memnun olduğum bir oyun, verdiğim paranın hakkını aldım ve genel olarak mutlu olan taraftayım. Ama teknik sıkıntılar, oyunun başlarındaki loot sıkıntıları ve para ile ilgili sıkıntılar biraz canımı sıkıyor.

Eğer BL3 sevdiyseniz ve aynı gunplay ile daha farklı bir içerik deneyim etmek istiyorsanız, Borderlands serisine girmediyseniz ve çok spoiler yemeden ısınmak için girecek oyun arıyorsanız, FPS ve Looter Shooter hastasıysanız alın oynayın.

I feel like Wonderlands does enough to justify its existence, but it is basically Borderlands with a DnD aesthetic and, having gone through BL3 not too long ago, it did feel like more of the same.

That said, I actually enjoyed the campaign, which has the sorta-improvisational feel of a DnD campaign and a lot of the humour lands a lot better than it did in BL3. The meta-commentary and seeing your 'advisors' bicker at the table as you play was actually kinda neat, and the villain, while intentionally generic, was far less obnoxious than the streamer twins from BL3.

I also really appreciated the character creation system, and how you can choose pronouns (and voices are not tied to gender identities/expressions). BL has been fairly inclusive writing-wise for a while but this was still really nice.

At this point I've beaten the campaign and have done a few runs of the Chaos Chamber (and gotten up to Chaos Level 4). I'm not sure if I'll stick with it, but this system does at least seem better than Mayhem mode in BL3.

Swapping out grenades for magic works well, I think, and I've enjoyed playing a Spellshot/Graveborn with two Arc Torrent spells calling down lightning constantly, because my build practically eliminates cooldowns. The downside is that many of the guns don't feel as good as BL3.

So, overall, Wonderlands is good. If you don't like Borderlands, this isn't really going to change your mind. If you do, and especially if you appreciate DnD, I think this is a worthy side-entry to the series.

Once again, a couple hefty steps forward for the Borderlands franchise, another couple of steps back.

The gameplay is by far the best thing they've done with it, porting over the wonderful Borderlands 3 gunplay, working especially well with the PlayStation haptic triggers (if you use/like those which I so happen to like), as you wield hefty guns that have taken on new medival arrows that are launched at enemies...exactly like guns.

I think the gameplay deviates in a fun way from previous games, allowing you to multiclass, wield huge weapons, and equip all sorts of artifacts that can increase build cohesion much more than it did in Borderlands 2. You really have the opportunity to become a God with the right grinding, and I think it will make a lot of the fans of the franchise happy.

But there are plenty of gripes I have with gameplay. Borderlands 3 spammed legendaries at you nonstop, which I am happy to report, this game does not. Instead, this game sparsely rewards you with any, and the only way to increase the likelihood of getting one, is finding ultra hard collectibles hidden deep in the massive asscrack of these maps. Who thought this was a good idea? Just return it to Borderlands 1/2 drops, damn. On top of that, it seems this drop system also heavily favored artifacts and not-needed class mods instead of weapons, yknow, the thing Borderlands is known for. So get ready to collect all 240 hidden dice in super oversized maps if you want a decent shot at playing with the fun stuff!

Going now to the story, wow, we've really fallen from grace in this regard now, haven't we. We've gone from Borderlands 2 and Pre-Sequel, games with flawed but overall coherent stories, to Borderlands 3, which made Twitch streamers take Handsome Jack's place, and now...

Now, we're left with some stupid campaign that made me want to tear my ears off. Now almost 90% of the game is reference humor! So many epic jokes that have aged very well, like "sea shanties" (real funny guys) and "Left Shark" (oh my God guys that's like a decade old).

For the actual story, it's uh...it exists? It's really boring and serves no purpose until in the last 30 minutes, you basically have the whole thing laid out in a single meager cutscene. It's a clever twist/idea, but sadly, the past 15-20 hours of game has done nothing but kinda do "go from A-B, now B-C, now C-D" with no meanful moments or fun inbetween. They try, of course, but they fail every time.

Along with this, the "side quests" range from meaningless to overly flushed-out. There are some quests that take almost an hour of gameplay, usually hinged on a joke that just isn't funny (see: Reference Humor). Probably the worst offender is "The Ditcher", a quest nearly an hour in length while you get talked down to by a Geralt clone about what an asshole you are for causing some monster to escape, then setting up the boss fight for a whole hour, just for him to die and the boss to get killed in about 30-60 seconds if you actually care about your build.

The music is meh, jokes are lame, areas are great but again fall into that Borderlands 3 trap of making these huge open world maps that have so much wasted space (besides hiding 12490245102 collectibles in it because that's good game design :tm:)

Two steps forward, two steps back. About as painful as Borderlands 3, but just enough to make it "okay/good" in my eyes. Don't rush to grab this one.