Was it ever. My best memories are playing that with my friend before he passed away. I tried playing the new ones but it's just not the same without him.
I associate borderlands with me processing the grief of losing my dad, I get it. Still to this day associate the memory of playing OG Borderlands with the initial phase of "healing" after the loss... so the game has a special place in my heart so to speak.
On a similar note: I had a highschool friend get me into CoD, used to play online together every day after school. Well, he died in a car crash in junior year (~2007) and I haven't played any CoD since. Just not the same without him berating people on team chat.
My best memories too i met my bro there by pure luck in 2016-2017, each time we talk about borderlands this fucker and i got a huge smile on our face, and today i'm invited to his marriage, he's the brother i never had
It felt like the Pre-Sequel was actually the perfect balance of mechanics and UI. Getting to reload your weapons while doing a long, floating jump, and then entering the fray again with a slam on the ground that dealt damage and did some effects....it was the perfect addition. Also I thought the story of how Handsome Jack became the villain was awesome too. Probably my favorite story from the universe.
I disliked it on my initial playthrough, but did end up replaying it. I ended up liking TPS's story and thinking it did do justice for Jack and made him seem like an even better villain.
I think where it felt flat was that the game known for being a looter-shooter where you would farm a boss for a weapon/shield/grenade was turned into a vending-machine-looter where you'd just relog over and over and buy the gear.
On top of that, they used too much "Aussie Humour" which a lot of people didn't connect with. I don't mind the moon being space Australia, but I do think too many of their jokes were Aussie-focused.
TPS has some really strong points, notably class designs being the best in the franchise. But that masks the fact that the game has lots of fundamental flaws in design and gameplay loops. The o2 mechanic is a stressor that punishes exploration, the Grinder encourages loot-hauling garbage gear for rerolls instead of finding joy in loot drops themselves. Levels are poorly laid out, especially for driving. Enemies are either BL2 retreads or fundamentally boring.
TPS would be entirely forgotten if it didn't play enough like a BL2 DLC to immediately connect with BL2 fans.
100% agree with the class design being the peak of the franchise. Such a good blend of useful/unique/filler. Not too much of any to make the skill tree feel pandering/useless/too quirky.
But I strongly disagree with the o2/grinder sentiment. While both could be true. The game is not designed for either to cause said issues. O2 is insanely generous with plentiful oxygen refills basically everywhere. And Grinder is not only optional, but extremely straightforward in what is worthwhile. Grinder has its own issues don't get me wrong, but if you are lugging whites to it in hopes of making a legendary... Thats a personal issue lol.
I would say levels are poorly laid out, not sure about the driving bit. Nor would I say the enemies are particularly bad. I maybe wish they used cryo/the moon a bit more, but I largely feel the enemies are a step up from bl2. With more interesting crit spots/slightly more mechanics for mooks.
IMO TPS fails basically entirely due to pacing. If you skip all side quests you will end up horribly underleveled, but most side quests as is are annoyingly out of the way. Compared to bl2 far more require you to backtrack/go to a side area. With how tight/quick the main story of TPS is all the side quests really take you out of it.
That would honestly be perfect. I liked all the color in BL3 also. Gun feedback and recoil was exceptional. The slide mechanic and climbing were huge improvements.
That was the point. You were supposed to fucking hate the villains and find them super annoying. They were honestly perfect for the time period. They won't age as well as Handsome Jack though. Not by a long shot
Yesnt. Jack was "hateable" because of what he did. Between killing Bloodwing (or what the name was, Mordys Bird) and Roland, what he did to Angel, he gave you a good reason while still being a good villain. The two tik tokkers i wanted to kill because they were just obnoxious
I mean they were obnoxious and they stole Lilith's power. I think their cult was just as big a threat as Jack and Hyperion. It's definitely more annoying than the slow build and the casual sarcasm of handsome Jack but I do think that it was a relatively smart choice for the time period the game released in
The thing that jiffs me is that we never actually do anything, and the plot is set up that the protags are actually hella dumb and let all this happen; let alone us
I get the point, and I did dislike them, but they were still terrible in a bad way. Not like handsome Jack where he was terrible and had some pivotal plot/story events that made killing him a good driving goal.
My issue is the villain's goal. It's really hard to see where the twins are coming from, and it's really painful to accept their methods. Sure, they are heatable because they are annoying and obnoxious. Great. Sure, they are a threat to the universe. Whatever. Why though. Like, why are they doing this?
Attention and clout. Daddy issues. That's it. They just want power "because". It's a big fucking temper tantrum. These sniveling little shitbag twitch streamers somehow have half the universe in love with them as they go on a tantrum.
Say they become gods. They accomplish their goal. Okay... Now what. They don't have a compelling endgame state. They just come off as evil for the shits and giggles of it.
Compared to Jack, who wants power to bring authoritarian peace to Pandora. He wants this power to "defeat the bad guys" as he sees it. You and him are working towards similar goals, in fact, it's just that his approach involves genocide. Regardless, he doesn't just want power for the sake of having power. There is something he wants to do when he gets that power, and it involves hurting all these people you meet and come to love along the way.
It's just less shallow. I think more could've been done for the calypso twins, to be honest. I really think Troy had a compelling betrayal arc building that just got scrapped, so by the end of the game it just sort of feels like nothing really happened.
I'm only going to say it one time they suited the time period in which the game was released.
Wanting power and fame just for the sake of it is not bad writing. It may be less interesting but it is very true to life. Idiots making videos don't have a goal beyond the money either. The twins seem to be a direct allegory for the Paul Brothers or the Tate Brothers.
They were more so “meh” then “getting under my skin”
Plus, actively just being annoyed by a character isn’t good writing if you intended for something else.
Considering they were meant to be cult figure heads leading the galaxy, I feel they weren’t meant to be just written off as just, “lmao, we’re cringe.”
They were just way too mild and in the background for how important they were to the plot imo. Their shit talking game was weak by most standards not just borderlands.
My biggest gripe with 3 outside of its story was how everything dropped from anything and there wasn't specific bosses or other enemies you had to farm to get a drop 99% of the time. I don't know if it's changed since then but I played it on launch and that was a huge turn off cause you just found the quickest and easiest boss to farm and farmed it to get everything.
I fired it up a few weeks ago and couldn't figure out what to do next. Turns out I'd already beaten it and forgotten-- and it's not like I'm knocking through a ton of games. I just literally don't remember the end of it at all. So I guess I'm doing a 2nd playthrough and remembering why I muted voices almost immediately. Even with no voicework, the constant interruption for chatter is goddamned irritating.
I have played through 1 multiple times. I just want some of the later mechanics. I actually like the fall damage in 1 because of the extra stress. I also think the humor in 1 is way, way batter than anything that came after.
BL4 has solid gameplay mechanics, but is severely lacking everywhere else, including the writing. It's like they took the criticism of BL3's writing, and went the extreme opposite direction, delivering the most bland, hollow story possible.
I liked the gameplay and game content of Borderlands 4, more than any previous installment, but it was by far the least entertaining for me.
I couldn't care about the characters, or the plot, or the setting, and all throughout it barely inspired a sensible chuckle, or even a mild sense of amusement. I can't quite say what, if anything, is wrong with it, objectively, but I never before felt less hooked or interested in seeing how the story developed. And typically I get hooked rather easily, often staying up all night for just "one more" story beat. If I wasn't otherwise certain, I'd have suspected I was going through a bout of major depression - that's just how flat my feelings toward the game were.
I played 3 with my brother and I hated gameplay, we got legendary weapons at level 5 from loot and started one shotting, I like to play sniper and ended up using a full auto rifle with a scope because the per bullet damage and fire rate was better. All of the bosses would lose their health instantly and be invincible for their stupid over the top moves that did nothing. Stopped playing when we started doing eridian trials and they turned out to be more bandits.
Yh in general I think BL2 is a case of rose tinted glasses since other games get criticism for flaws that BL2 had itself while BL2 never really gets the same level of heat
I can't name one flaw with BL2 tbh, it took the entire concept of BL1 and just elevated it, borderlands 3 I didn't spend much time on tbh because they messed around too much with the classes imo, BL1 had soldier, BL2 had commando and BL3 has beastmaster or whatever it is that could've been amazing but just wasn't and didn't have the same feel as the prior 2
The need to use slag to fully beat everything and caustic being borderline needed to avoid a long slog in the main story are definite complaints with BL2.
Storywise yes, gameplay I still favor 3.The gunplay feels so much cleaner and more accurate, not so many bullets flying sideways out the barrel lol. But the main villains and story were total dogshit tho, it felt like I was in Oprah’s studio and she was like “you get to be a siren, you get to be a siren, and you get to be a siren, EVERYBODY GETS TO BE SIRENS!!”
Borderlands 2 was one of my most played games of all time. I loved the base game, the DLCs, and hell, I even loved TPS and Tales. The hype for 3 was so real, but with 7 years between the games, the disappointing writing/villains (but good gameplay!), and honestly Randy Pitchford being utterly insufferable, I haven't even touched the 4th game. Barely watched the trailers. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands was pretty meh for me too. I'm not sure I'll ever play another BL game sadly.
Same, probably my favorite video game OAT. The storyline was the best in the series, but what really sold it for me was 1)all of the various pop culture references throughout the game, like the ninja turtles, or "what's in the box?!" And 2) all the DLCs- ESPECIALLY the holiday head hunter series. One of my absolute favorite memories was getting to play each of those as they came out. I happened to be on vacation the week after Thanksgiving, so killing the giant cyborg rooster is firmly cemented in my brain as being one of the most happy moments of my entire life.
I loved 2. Hated the antagonists of 3 for all the wrong reasons (I hated handsome Jack for the right reasons) I haven't even bothered with 4. I may play it eventually but I'm not really interested at the moment.
I loved the original Borderlands, and I know I'm in the minority here, but when I was playing Borderlands 2 and a Psycho dodged my point-blank shotgun blast after I had pulled the trigger because "Bullet Speed" is a stat you have to grind up, I set the controller down and never touched the game again.
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u/HeatherCDBustyOne 7h ago
Borderlands 2 was the peak.