Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands Assessment – Extra Borderlands, For Higher or For Worse – WGB, House of AWESOME Critiques

In all probability each assessment of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands goes to seek advice from this recreation as being Borderlands with a coat of Dungeons & Dragons paint. However as unoriginal as that may sound, it’s additionally an extremely correct assertion that explains all the things concerning the recreation that it is advisable to know. That is primarily a reskin of Borderlands 3, and with that comes plenty of good and a good bit of not so good. The capturing and looting loop is great and the humour is way stronger than it was within the earlier recreation. However then again, the construction of the sport has barely modified for the reason that unique Borderlands and there’s a powerful sense Gearbox wants to consider the way to evolve their missions designs. Briefly, in case you nonetheless love Borderlands and have a tender spot for fantasy then that is going to be for you. And if Borderlands is beginning to grind your gears, it’s greatest averted. Me? I fall firmly into the primary camp.

If the entire idea of, “What if Borderlands, however D&D Borderlands!” sounds eerily acquainted, that’s as a result of it’s. Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Preserve was a chunk of Borderlands 2 DLC constructed across the identical thought, and this can be a practically direct sequel, happening not lengthy after. In actual fact, Assault on Dragon Preserve was just lately re-released as a standalone recreation titled Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Preserve: A Wonderland’s One-Shot Journey. Not that it issues – you don’t have to play it to know what’s occurring.

Talking of which, let’s discuss concerning the primary setup; Tiny Tina, two of her associates named Valentine and Frett, and your individual custom-made character have crash-landed on a planet, and whereas awaiting rescue Tina decides to bust out Bunkers & Badasses, the roleplaying fantasy recreation that simply so occurs to function plenty of weapons. Because the anonymous rookie, Tina decides you get your individual kickass marketing campaign to go on the place you must battle evil Dragon Lord, as voiced by the wonderful Arnett, the voice of Batman from the Lego Batman film. How do we all know he’s evil? Nicely, he chops off the top of the majestic, most wonderful, mostest prettiest diamond pony in all of the universe, Queen Butt Stallion. Clearly, the fucker has to die.

It didn’t take lengthy for me to really feel that Wonderlands wasn’t as edgy and darkish in its humour, avoiding the form of topics that the Borderlands franchise often jumps into. There’s all the time been a darkish comedy to Borderlands, lurking behind the fart jokes and the zaniness. Tiny Tina herself is an ideal instance, a very damaged little one who skilled an enormous quantity of trauma and wound up coping with it by making a loopy persona for herself. Over time the extra tragic component of Tiny Tina has been pushed into the shadows, and in Wonderlands it’s barely even addressed in any respect, and regardless of the crude fashion of jokes, there’s not a fuck, a bitch nor a bastard to be discovered. That’s as a result of whereas all of the earlier Borderlands video games have been rated Mature, Wonderlands drops right down to a Teen ranking.

Now, let’s be honest right here: an age ranking doesn’t magically change a recreation’s writing and humour. Being rated Mature wouldn’t make Wonderlands funnier, but it surely does imply the jokes are extra…reigned in. The writers themselves poke enjoyable at it fairly a couple of instances, quipping that the a whole bunch of Pirates you struggle drink Soda, not rum. The softer jokes and barbs mixed with the brilliant, cheerful environments and the bombastic weirdness of Tiny Tina make this a way more interesting recreation for a youthful crowd. So in that regard, I perceive the change. Nonetheless, as a long-time Borderlands fan, I did discover myself lacking the black comedy and the grownup jokes. Borderlands is impolite and crude, and that’s the place plenty of my love for it comes from.

However the excellent news is that regardless of being handcuffed by the ranking the writing is way stronger than Borderlands 3’s cringe-inducing makes an attempt, though it’s nonetheless removed from the highs of Borderlands 2. The tone is light-hearted and enjoyable, and a lot of the jokes handle to stay the touchdown, though very similar to the third recreation there’s a way that the writers are simply flinging joke after joke at you with none respiratory room. It’s a reference heavy story, too, managing to slot in refined and not-so-subtle nods to only about all the things, from the Monkey Island video games to varied role-playing tropes. It depends on it somewhat an excessive amount of the truth is, forgetting that referencing one thing isn’t humorous by itself.

Tiny Tina is on the high of her recreation because the loopy, random, loud Bunker Grasp. As soon as once more, Ashley Birch supplies the voice of Tina and the distinction between her considerably flat position as Aloy in Horizon: Forbidden West and that is astronomical. She offers it all the things voicing Tina, and if I hadn’t recognized beforehand I might by no means have been in a position to guess that it was the identical actress doing each characters.

Tina’s prone to be as divisive as ever. Her zany antics, common loudness and behavior of ending each sentence by YELLING could be vastly endearing and enjoyable, or bloody annoying. Because the Bunker Grasp, her voice is a continuing companion, narrating quests and even often altering the entire world in entrance of your eyes. If you happen to discovered her grating previously video games you then may need to skip Wonderlands totally, or simply flip down the quantity. Nonetheless, in case you’re one of many many individuals who discovered her distinctive model of madness fascinating, this recreation is for you.

Valentine and Frett are affordable facet characters who pop out and in, every of them being a parody of D&D gamers. Valentine isn’t the sharpest instrument within the shed however he loves the thought of attending to be a hero, and he tends to be guided by his feelings, not like Frett the Robotic who loves to stay to the principles. There’s a enjoyable sub-narrative about these two reconciling their two very completely different kinds, offering a stable lesson all D&D gamers might do with remembering: there’s a time for guidelines and a time for winging it.

Total, then, I had fun with Wonderland’s story, and significantly loved the Dragon Lord who will get a good quantity of dialogue and a stable backstory. Will Arnett appears to be having a good time voicing the character, and that shines by means of in each line. What I’m driving at right here is the story does what it must do; present a primary narrative excuse for all the things and illicit a few laughs, like when Torgue actually blows up your complete ocean.

The D&D premise appears to be like prefer it was a blessing for the artists and animators who’ve stretched their muscular tissues and raided the colouring field. The environments are stuffed with robust, wealthy colors and have some significantly cool views of damaged up pirate ships or villages which were lifted excessive into the sky by a magic beanstalk. There are many good particulars to be discovered within the ranges, and a few enjoyable enemies. With that mentioned, enemy selection is somewhat low for the scale of recreation, with primary skeletons making up the meat of it.

Efficiency was largely stable all through, operating on my Ryzen 3600 and the ageing however nonetheless kick-ass GTX 1080ti. I had all the things ramped as much as the max and didn’t discover any main framerate drops. The one difficulty I had was stuttering in windowed mode which the sport would typically randomly swap to upon first loading it up.

Regardless of missing the Borderlands title within the title and the thick layer of D&D coating, this can be a Borderlands recreation by means of and thru, which finally ends up being simply as a lot of a weak point as it’s a energy. On the one hand, the capturing remains to be plenty of enjoyable and the weapons really feel nice to make use of. Legions and legions of skeletons, pirates and different cannon fodder will merrily cost at you with all of the intelligence of a goldfish attempting to resolve a math drawback, desperate to be gunned down amidst a barrage of colors, explosions and particular skills. There are nonetheless mountains of weapons to loot and obsess over. There are nonetheless heaps of pop-culture references, dumb jokes and randomness.

Given the abundance of fantasy tropes, I discovered it a tad disappointing that Gearbox caught to their weapons. Fairly actually, the truth is. You is perhaps battling goblins, climbing beanstalks and combating an evil Dragon Lord, however you’ll do it with an assault rifle or a shotgun, for essentially the most half. A number of weapons get barely dressed up, like how pistols may have crossbow components or a shotgun has a effervescent cauldron of crystals, however I feel there was much more room for Gearbox to get artistic and lean into the fantasy facet extra, as a substitute of sticking with the franchise’s normal fare. A hand-held trebuchet that hurls flails, perhaps?

Regardless, the weapons are nonetheless a pleasure to make use of and properly various. There nonetheless isn’t a strategy to improve a weapon, so in case you discover one thing you find it irresistible’ll inevitably find yourself within the rubbish after an hour or two, however with so many gun variations being hurled at your face you’ll simply as inevitably discover one thing else to fill the gaping void in your soul. After which taking that boom-stick and utilizing it to mow down dumb enemies is cathartic, quick enjoyable.

The brand new spell system manages to combine issues up somewhat bit by changing grenades. Being a D&D reskin you get to loot a good number of magic spells like meteoric fireballs or highly effective auras. It’s not like these add a lot mechanically – it’s simply one other means with a cooldown – but it surely nonetheless feels superior to throw out spells, and mixed together with your class means it offers you lots to do. If you happen to select the spell oriented class you’ll be able to actually toss out magic shortly, and might even equip two spells at a time.

Talking of the category system, that’s gotten a couple of good adjustments, too, largely since you’re not choosing a set character with a set class. There are six to select from while you create your {custom} character, however afterward, you get to undertake a second class as nicely. It’s not doable to get sufficient talent factors to max out each talent bushes, but it surely’s plenty of enjoyable to combine up your class and select which skills go greatest. After which close to the tip, you’ll be able to swap out the secondary talent tree everytime you like to be able to mess around somewhat. I actually like this alteration to the system as a result of it permits for lots extra experimentation and wider playstyles when it comes to whether or not you chase elemental injury or need to buff spells or need to focus in your companion dispensing extra injury.

There may be additionally some additional consideration paid to the melee. Now you’ll be able to loot new swords, hammers and axes with their very own stats and particular advantages, and the talent bushes boast loads of buffs for smacking enemies within the face. In actual fact, constructing towards a purely melee construct is definitely viable so far as I can inform. Nonetheless, that may be a boring strategy to play as a result of there’s only a single button for hitting issues, so doing that for 15+ hours might be going to grow to be duller than Kim Kardashian’s character. Plus, in a franchise constructed round hoarding weapons like some form of militaristic dragon, why would you need to?

In all probability the most important difficulty with adhering so intently to the established Borderlands template is barebones mission design, the exact same that we noticed within the unique recreation and that has barely modified within the intervening years. It’s somewhat irritating that Gearbox nonetheless hasn’t advanced how they create quests, and so quite a few video games later we’re nonetheless operating round, endlessly capturing enemies and choosing up gadgets whereas a personality narrates at you over the radio. The writing staff does quite a bit to disguise the quests with enjoyable themes or concepts, like one implausible sequence the place Tiny Tina is attempting to run by means of a quest whereas Valentine and Frett hold getting distracted by an unimportant NPC whereas Tina will get more and more pissed off. These moments are nice, and certainly, a lot of the facet quests are stable, however I did discover myself rising bored of the identical primary construction on a regular basis. A number of attention-grabbing set items or twists might have gone an extended strategy to holding issues feeling contemporary and attention-grabbing, however there aren’t any. I’m left with the sense that I had enjoyable taking part in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, but I can’t keep in mind any particular moments.

Consistent with the D&D theme, there’s a pleasant new overworld to navigate which connects all of the missions collectively. Your character turns into a bobble-headed model of themselves, there are shortcuts to unlock and even a couple of skills that assist you to return and entry new areas or get to the particular Loot Cube that improve your probabilities of discovering invaluable gear. Loads of the overworld side-quests contain tackling the brand new Fight Encounters, that are self-contained arenas stuffed with enemies to struggle, mainly distilling the entire Borderlands idea into a few rounds of motion. I really like a number of the small overworld particulars, too, just like the fallen Cheetos that act as partitions or the soda rivers, all neatly promoting the concept that the overworld is a real D&D map. It might probably’t be mentioned that the overworld provides a lot to the sport per say – it’s, in spite of everything, a hub-world with a unique digicam angle – however I nonetheless favored its inclusion for what it was.

Borderlands has been constructed on its capturing and its looting. Thousands and thousands and tens of millions of weapons had been promised within the first recreation and that quantity has solely grown due to the sport stitching numerous components collectively to type new bullet-spewing gear. More often than not which means small stat variations and elemental results, however typically it can lead to superior weirdness. And, after all, there are the distinctive Legendary gadgets, like a Banshee blade that screams as you swing it or the Queen’s Crey which might summon frost meteors. Searching down invaluable loot, discovering barely higher gear that matches your construct and the fun of a Legendary coming out of a chest – these are all as satisfying, rewarding and addictive as they’ve ever been.

As a lot as I like the rainbow showers of weapons, armour, spells and trinkets, nevertheless, I’ve to confess that Borderlands has in all probability taken it somewhat too far at this level. With the brand new lootable spells, armour and cosmetics there’s arguably extra gear than ever spewing from enemies and chests alike, all providing tiny proportion variations and essentially the most minute of adjustments. With a lot to dig by means of, I shortly discovered myself ignoring virtually all of it, stopping solely to research the purples and legendaries, and perhaps the occasional blue. The remainder stayed on the ground like a carelessly dropped handful of Skittles, doomed to be thrown within the rubbish heap. I’ve little doubt some die-hard followers will dig by means of each single drop, however I reckon the typical particular person will probably be like me and ignore nearly all of it, lest they lose dozens upon dozens of hours of their lives sifting by means of ineffective tosh. Perhaps I’ll be within the minority with this assertion, however I consider Gearbox have to tone the loot again down somewhat bit in order that it begins feeling essential once more.

I additionally don’t like how the sport handles cosmetics. It’s nice that enemies continually drop new patterns and colors to your {custom} character to make use of. However it’s annoying that they take up area in your stock in case you don’t keep in mind to go in and open them up. And you’ll’t even promote duplicate cosmetics, in order that they take up much more area till you toss them out. It’s a daft piece of recreation design that takes away invaluable stock area in a recreation that’s all about hoovering up gadgets like a rampaging vacuum hoover. The straightforward answer is that cosmetics needs to be added straight into your assortment. Easy.

The primary bulk of the sport will take you 10-15 hours to wrap up, and possibly double that if you wish to clear the varied side-quests and challenges scattered across the overworld and bigger areas. When you get that out of the best way there’s a good chunk of end-game content material to work by means of the place you soar onto the Chaos Chamber fights. These are a sequence of area battles towards a mixture of enemies, and between rounds, you’ll be able to choose up curses or blessings. Alongside the best way a forex is earned that you may spend to get loot, with new forms of gear not seen in the remainder of the sport popping up. It’s a good strategy to squeeze additional trip of the sport, and I can simply see some individuals spending numerous time chasing the rarest loot.

If you happen to like Borderlands then Tiny Tina’s wonderlands is the most effective one since Borderlands 2. And in case you don’t like Borderlands or have grown bored with its formulation then Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is greatest averted. I do know, I do know – saying you’ll like one thing in case you favored the earlier model is a cop-out. It’s low-cost. However it’s nonetheless true, and particularly so in a franchise that continues to stay very near its unique design philosophy. At this level, I do suppose Gearbox wants to begin significantly excited about the place they need to take the sequence, however I can’t lie: I’m in all probability nonetheless going to show up for an additional sequel even when it hasn’t modified a lot.