It's so interesting having played this game for the first time after having invested so much time into 2, checking out tales and very briefly for the pre-sequel, investing even more time into 3, liked the direction wonderlands forged for itself, and the other one with those tediore guards. It feels like getting into the backstory for the wacky side character and it's just something ordinary that made them eventually learn their own identity, becoming the loveable goofball who keeps getting those b-plots for some reason. My expectations for this game were far far off in the land of optimizing skill trees and farming weapon parts, and I instead get rake with a love letter slamming in my face.
The rpg elements of the borderlands games had also seemed so clearly influenced by diablo to me before playing this game, and afterwards it makes so much more sense. This game seems uninfluenced by any particular popular rpg but instead by the greater genre as a whole. They had useable med packs you kept in your inventory just to feel like each mission was an adventure as you used your 'supplies' out hunting, and unique artifacts for additional customization that allowed the skill trees to remain general with unfocused abilities for any situation. It was weirdly refreshing to experience, and crude in it's implementation.
Additionally, enemies hit hard in this game. We're far far before the time of Hellzerker Amara deleting entire areas of bandits simply with one hellwalker headshot, and way back in the times of multi-magazine tugs-of-war with action skills being used more to turn the tides rather than ctrl-alt-del. More often than not being under levelled meant losing health much too quickly and grinding became a must, but the missions you can grind are much more streamlined. Again it's refreshing, but I love me my shiny things and none of the cleanliness nor bells-and-whistles that makes the later games so replayable are here.
Plus I was expecting more from the story of this game, given how much the games between and including 2-3 reference it. Old haven in tales featuring a giant facility cutting into the town that simply isn't there in 1, referencing tannis and helena pierce in wildly different contexts in 2 despite them being equally as important in 1, Lucky being a larger part of the game in 1 only to end up as setup for a sidequest in 2, Marcus being the sleazy businessman he is slowly animorphing into a caricature and bed-time reader in later games, Atlas being set up to have this wacky technology for us to only learn about it in 3 after the company was hard reset, etc. It really feels like you're walking through npcs in the game, each leaning into unimportance as you leave each area, which is wild considering where the series immediately went with 2. It's much more focused on the vibe, being that of anarchic survival with overflowing mountains of discarded weaponry (despite the surprising lack of manufacturer identity).
It's difficult to treat this game in a vacuum given it's own story is basically setup for the next one (I didn't even know they foreshadowed 4N631's identity here), and everything that comes after is such a vast improvement in the aspects it decides to keep. I will probably miss the versions of artifacts as presented in this game the most, but oh boy am I glad 3 focused on movement and traversal so much cause this game only likes the w key and nothing else. Surprisingly, I can only recommend this game to people who have already played another borderlands game to completion, if only because I think my enjoyment worked because I had another game to marvel at the differences between. Or a friend, this game was clearly made with a multiplayer experience in mind
The rpg elements of the borderlands games had also seemed so clearly influenced by diablo to me before playing this game, and afterwards it makes so much more sense. This game seems uninfluenced by any particular popular rpg but instead by the greater genre as a whole. They had useable med packs you kept in your inventory just to feel like each mission was an adventure as you used your 'supplies' out hunting, and unique artifacts for additional customization that allowed the skill trees to remain general with unfocused abilities for any situation. It was weirdly refreshing to experience, and crude in it's implementation.
Additionally, enemies hit hard in this game. We're far far before the time of Hellzerker Amara deleting entire areas of bandits simply with one hellwalker headshot, and way back in the times of multi-magazine tugs-of-war with action skills being used more to turn the tides rather than ctrl-alt-del. More often than not being under levelled meant losing health much too quickly and grinding became a must, but the missions you can grind are much more streamlined. Again it's refreshing, but I love me my shiny things and none of the cleanliness nor bells-and-whistles that makes the later games so replayable are here.
Plus I was expecting more from the story of this game, given how much the games between and including 2-3 reference it. Old haven in tales featuring a giant facility cutting into the town that simply isn't there in 1, referencing tannis and helena pierce in wildly different contexts in 2 despite them being equally as important in 1, Lucky being a larger part of the game in 1 only to end up as setup for a sidequest in 2, Marcus being the sleazy businessman he is slowly animorphing into a caricature and bed-time reader in later games, Atlas being set up to have this wacky technology for us to only learn about it in 3 after the company was hard reset, etc. It really feels like you're walking through npcs in the game, each leaning into unimportance as you leave each area, which is wild considering where the series immediately went with 2. It's much more focused on the vibe, being that of anarchic survival with overflowing mountains of discarded weaponry (despite the surprising lack of manufacturer identity).
It's difficult to treat this game in a vacuum given it's own story is basically setup for the next one (I didn't even know they foreshadowed 4N631's identity here), and everything that comes after is such a vast improvement in the aspects it decides to keep. I will probably miss the versions of artifacts as presented in this game the most, but oh boy am I glad 3 focused on movement and traversal so much cause this game only likes the w key and nothing else. Surprisingly, I can only recommend this game to people who have already played another borderlands game to completion, if only because I think my enjoyment worked because I had another game to marvel at the differences between. Or a friend, this game was clearly made with a multiplayer experience in mind