Sights & Sounds
- I've always enjoyed the look of Borderlands franchise games. Something about the heavy outlines wrapped around the bright colors and little details just looks sharp to me
- This game, however, features a nice fantasy coat of paint courtesy of the game's central conceit of taking place within a TTRPG. Some of the environments (and especially the world map) look great
- It's a Borderlands title, so you're primarily just going to be hearing gunfire, explosions, and silly character/enemy lines most of the time. When you do hear the music, it'll be the same exciting electronic music you'd associate with any title in the series
- The voice work is pretty good, but if you find Tiny Tina (Ashley Burch) annoying, you're going to have a really bad time
Story & Vibes
- Ugh. It's a Borderlands title. Of course the writing is bad and the story is dumb
- There's a bad guy. You set off on a journey to fight the bad guy. Borderlands zaniness™ happens. The people playing the TTRPG have a fight and you need to fix it. You make everyone friends again and fight the bad guy. End
- At least Will Arnett shows up as the voice of the antagonist to soften the blow
Playability & Replayability
- Take the gameplay of any other borderlands game and swap out grenades for wands. Congrats, you've made Wonderlands!
- Glibness aside, there is one interesting mechanical addition for builds that bears mentioning: dual-classing. This opens up some interesting build possibilities in theory, but almost every build I made wound up playing about the same
- The cardinal sin this game commits is having horrible endgame content. The Chaos chamber got old after a dozen or so runs. Every other game in this franchise had fun stuff to do after finishing the game, but Wonderlands ends with a wet fart
Overall Impressions
- This game had so much potential. I liked the "What if Borderlands, but fantasy?" look and feel of the game, and the gunplay is the same as ever. But when balancing kills build variety, what was the point in the first place? It's a co-op game; some lack of balance isn't the worst thing. And why the lack of endgame? There's no reason to revisit the awful story
- It ran okay outside of a little choppiness when there were too many explosions happening at once
Final Verdict
- 2.5/10. This is a low point for the BL series and a roundly disappointing title for fans. It could have been a fun change of pace, but just go back to BL2 or BL3 instead
- I've always enjoyed the look of Borderlands franchise games. Something about the heavy outlines wrapped around the bright colors and little details just looks sharp to me
- This game, however, features a nice fantasy coat of paint courtesy of the game's central conceit of taking place within a TTRPG. Some of the environments (and especially the world map) look great
- It's a Borderlands title, so you're primarily just going to be hearing gunfire, explosions, and silly character/enemy lines most of the time. When you do hear the music, it'll be the same exciting electronic music you'd associate with any title in the series
- The voice work is pretty good, but if you find Tiny Tina (Ashley Burch) annoying, you're going to have a really bad time
Story & Vibes
- Ugh. It's a Borderlands title. Of course the writing is bad and the story is dumb
- There's a bad guy. You set off on a journey to fight the bad guy. Borderlands zaniness™ happens. The people playing the TTRPG have a fight and you need to fix it. You make everyone friends again and fight the bad guy. End
- At least Will Arnett shows up as the voice of the antagonist to soften the blow
Playability & Replayability
- Take the gameplay of any other borderlands game and swap out grenades for wands. Congrats, you've made Wonderlands!
- Glibness aside, there is one interesting mechanical addition for builds that bears mentioning: dual-classing. This opens up some interesting build possibilities in theory, but almost every build I made wound up playing about the same
- The cardinal sin this game commits is having horrible endgame content. The Chaos chamber got old after a dozen or so runs. Every other game in this franchise had fun stuff to do after finishing the game, but Wonderlands ends with a wet fart
Overall Impressions
- This game had so much potential. I liked the "What if Borderlands, but fantasy?" look and feel of the game, and the gunplay is the same as ever. But when balancing kills build variety, what was the point in the first place? It's a co-op game; some lack of balance isn't the worst thing. And why the lack of endgame? There's no reason to revisit the awful story
- It ran okay outside of a little choppiness when there were too many explosions happening at once
Final Verdict
- 2.5/10. This is a low point for the BL series and a roundly disappointing title for fans. It could have been a fun change of pace, but just go back to BL2 or BL3 instead
7 Comments
@RedBackLoggd Heh, yeah, I think it's important to be frank about the quality of the narrative even though I usually really enjoy Borderlands' brand of looting-shooting.
I feel like the contract players make with Borderlands games is that you endure all the crappy writing so you can later dunk on the damage formula with a seemingly broken endgame build for obliterating the post-plot content.
Wonderlands violates that contract by having nothing worth doing after finishing the story. No point in farming good gear (the central thesis of a looter-shooter) if there's nothing fun to use it on.
I feel like the contract players make with Borderlands games is that you endure all the crappy writing so you can later dunk on the damage formula with a seemingly broken endgame build for obliterating the post-plot content.
Wonderlands violates that contract by having nothing worth doing after finishing the story. No point in farming good gear (the central thesis of a looter-shooter) if there's nothing fun to use it on.
I hadn't even realized that Wonderlands threw a wrench in that formula, but in its defense, there is NG+ mode isn't there?
@RedBackLoggd There's the Chaos Chamber, which played like a pseudo-roguelike mode and was the only source of getting high-tier gear. It was fine, but it got old very quickly. The other games in the series had big content-filled DLCs (both free and paid) with interesting boss fights and challenge missions that were fun tests of skill and build.
The Chaos Chambers in Wonderlands felt a series of about a dozen rooms on shuffle with a difficulty slider
The Chaos Chambers in Wonderlands felt a series of about a dozen rooms on shuffle with a difficulty slider
No I'm saying the game as a whole as NG+, meaning you could replay Tiny Tina and get more of a challenge presumably?
@RedBackLoggd Ah, I see what you're saying now. When I booted it up last about a year ago, there wasn't. Decided to look at the subreddit as well to see if they implemented it past that point, and sadly, it appears they never did NG+ for Wonderlands. Not that I'd be too eager to re-experience the story anyway, lol
LOL
RedBackLoggd
5 months ago
Finally someone says it lmao. Great review, though I don't remember hating this one.