Borderlands 3
The Good Changes
Moving around is much more smoother than usual. The first thing you might notice is that they borrowed a lot of elements from Mirror's Edge, so much so that I had to make sure it wasn't made by the same developer. They incorporated the use of sliding with your foot out (which can be upgraded with the use of "Artifacts" to shoot out various elemental objects). You can now climb up and over nearly anything that has a flat surface (including building support beams). You will momentarily move your arm forward whenever this is possible. Certain areas that generally lead up to hidden passageways or side objectives are marked with a big splash of yellow paint. Ladders are automatically grabbed onto without initiating any sort of button press.
The overall map has been drastically improved. You can zoom in and out, rotate it, tilt it, set a purple waypoint that appears on your minimap, and see multiple levels in a 3D interface. Since you visit so many exotic locations you have the option to see regions from an orbital viewpoint. Locations for challenges will pop up once in view on the map. You can view a quest objective's location and, like the previous game, also see which travel transition you must reach if the mission is outside your region. Your game will also automatically save wherever you are. Just directly quit the game and you will continue where you left off. You can highlight things in the distance by pressing the top button on your gamepad. A red target reticle will follow any enemy highlighted while a treasure chest will appear for loot.
You can instantly travel from anywhere (when you aren't driving) to any New-U Station or to your vehicle. If you do travel to your vehicle, it is instantaneous without any fancy tech wormhole effect and puts you into the driver's seat. There are now 3 different "layouts" to custom-build your vehicles. Each vehicle and modification is pretty unique. For example, you can sacrifice speed for more armor. These features can be seen and changed individually from the layout menu. As an added bonus, you can steal enemy vehicles with a press of a button when they come close to you. "Borrowing" both moving or parked vehicles and uploading their features into the database is another neat thing to occupy your time. Even activating the vehicle's horn, yes you can still do that, can bring some interesting sound effects like a siren from the "Police" variant or a scream from the "Firehawk" variant. Deploying a vehicle will instantly put you in the driver's seat. Speaking of sound effects, it "sounds" like the developers really did their research on various mechanical devices. Backburner pops from a buggy, continuous air pressure from a weapon launcher, and bullet impacts on the landscape are just a few things I noticed off-hand. There is a wide-range of destructible objects, most notably are the cacti that you can now run over or push enemies through if that's your thing. You can switch your current quest with a simple press of a button without referring to your menu (though you can see more details from the Quest Sub-Menu).
Weapons have yet again been improved upon. There has been added emphasis on the differences between each weapon manufacturer, including the new Children of the Vault weapons. They added the ability to switch the barrel of a weapon for an alternating effect. This includes changing elemental type, firing type, firing speed, and the use of "tracking" bullets. Nearly all stats are shown (both good and bad) on the weapon and can be pointed out in specific parts when inspected. More rarer items can even contain class modifications. Specific weapons can still be obtained from boss fights or particular quests. These weapons generally carry some "unique" property from shooting sound waves to hamburgers. Some bosses will have either transformation phases or various states that are marked across their health bar when you cannot attack them while they initiate some combat maneuver. Money no longer has to be manually picked up. It will be automatically looted alongside any ammunition or health lacking from your pool. Vending machines have been more balanced than previous games. The cost of weapons and items are more affordable than ever. Rarer items are probably only about 10% more expensive. The "Item of the Day" (even though it isn't exactly 24 hours) shows in front of the vending machine before even accessing it. You can even resupply at an Ammunitions Depot with just a press of a button without being locked into a Vending Machine menu.
There are a lot of optional cosmetics to spend your precious eridium on. Wikia sites are still working out the details but the list can be quite extensive. On top of the change in attire and heads in Borderlands 2, they allowed people to change ECHO skins, weapon skins accessible from the weapon inspection menu, small weapon trinkets that dangle from the side of your weapon, and a maximum of 3 decorations that you can hang in your room. The other side will allow you to put up various weapons and items for display that I did not know about until writing this review like in Fallout 4. The majority of these things can be bought from Crazy Earl. Though, you can always buy specialized equipment that effect your class from the Eridium Vending Machine next to him. There are a few emotes that you can activate to have you dancing or communicate with your friends like some sort of Fortnite fanatic. Or you can also use the infamous "Photo Mode" like some sort of challenge to Final Fantasy XV Camera Mode that generates a 3D setup of what is currently being processed around your character. Weapons achieved through online promotions or in-game achievements are now delivered through the Social menu.
Then there are a lot of little details that they added that made the game more interesting. Your character converses in nearly every conversation. The graphics are turned-up a notch adding High-Definition to nearly everything, CLAP-TRAP included. You can censor blood. The junk/favorite system is back from its departure from the Borderlands Pre-Sequel and can be added by pressing the analog stick on the gamepad. Afterwards, you can automatically sell all junk items with a press of a button at the vending machine. Items will even gray out when marked as junk. Escorts really move! They run as fast as you do! You are given more bank slots and they are automatically shared with all your characters. Borderlands 3 music is way better than ever before. Sure the music in Tales From Borderlands fit in "moments" but Borderlands 3 definitely included an awesome soundtrack (even though the final song was terrible). A lot better than the "grunge music" from Borderlands 2. You can melee barrels Donkey Kong style towards enemies. There are some very interesting voice acting choices. Skag pups will chase after grenades and retrieve them for you like a dog playing fetch. They added a "Lost Loot" machine that will automatically retrieve items rare (blue) and up that never were picked up from the ground.
The Bad Changes
Borderlands Interface hasn't improved much. Weapon selection can still be a pain to try and filter through. At least they now filter out items in your inventory that cannot go in that given slot. Comparing items can get clunky at times but at least they still have pros and cons color-coded. You can still only select one quest at a time. The good news that you can change those quests with your directional pad without accessing your menu. I did not see any sort of "radio" I could turn on like in Fallout: New Vegas in the car or on the ECHO. There is a side-quest to change the channel on various satellite dishes but for some reason change back when you move out of the area. Gaining weapons through the "mail" system from achievements and promotions is locked in the Social menu which is accessed from pressing start in the game and tabbing over. Adding subtitles is now moved at the bottom of the Accessibility Menu and does not include all conversations. Unique Weapons aren't very clear with their red text. In fact, I had to look up my first weapon from online sources just to realize what it did. Then again, a lot of these weapons simply have some versatile firing pattern that becomes apparent when used. Not to say it isn't nice to have some weird guns. They still can't seem to figure out which conversation is more important. Time and again people would stop mid-sentence when another event occurs.
Rewards and Upgrades have always been a bit weird. The first Borderlands barely had anything to use money on. The second game made sure you received Eridium from various checkpoints in the game to upgrade your Storage Deck Upgrades (SDU) while cash helped buy cosmetics from the Vending Machine, Moxxi's Tip Jar, or Slot Machines. Borderlands 3 goes a different route where cash is spent on SDUs while Eridium is used on cosmetics. Since this is the case, there just didn't seem to be a point to be doing any of the various side-missions in the game (though that didn't stop me from trying). In fact, the game became way too easy when I ended up being 6 levels over anything appearing on the screen. The slot machines have become much worse as the rewards are divided up between 4 machines and the chances of me winning anything worthwhile is very low from the number of times I tried them. This is compounded by the rumor that more difficult enemies and rarer items do not appear while offline. Eridium didn't seem worthwhile either as it either buys you trivial cosmetics or an anointed weapon that's class ability is outmatched by your current weapon level's damage output.
Things get Unlocked way too late. Being able to use items slowly over time seems to be critical to any sort of video game. Just take a look at Metroidvania type games and see how many times you have to backtrack to find that one secret area you couldn't access beforehand. Many people have begged the developers of Borderlands to have all 4 weapon slots available from the start. Instead, you still have to reach specific points in the story to use those "additional" slots. This makes it pretty difficult to manage your inventory early in the game. There used to be a ranking system that you could use to slowly upgrade all your characters. Borderlands 3 makes this problem even worse that achievements no longer increase your stats. You have to finish all story missions until the credits roll before obtaining Guardian Rank. What makes this so depressing is (1) Completing the "Trials" does not give you the rank, (2) Completing side-missions after finishing the game will contribute to tokens not before, and (3) Certain tree buffs only unlock if you dedicate a certain number of points in specific categories. Personally I think you should have been able to read those little runes scattered all over the universe as you came to them. Maybe you could contribute points into the ranking system, reward eridium, and tell a bit of the story all in one blow. It is too bad that you can't until way late in the game. Sure they reward you with lots of eridium but no one wants to run through an entire map all over again for that "one thing you missed". I managed to get some class mods at level 12 but couldn't use them after I finished the quest at level 15. Same thing with artifacts. I started getting artifacts at level 27 but couldn't use them until I finished the quest at level 30. It was demoralizing.
Miscellaneous Issues: The main missions are generally story-driven and "push" you to the end of the map. This makes you miss out on a lot of side-objectives. This wouldn't be much of a problem if the hidden Typhon caches weren't level-locked to the area. I do not fault the developers for how long it took to download 55 GB or how many times my computer had issues processing everything on the screen at once. The icons on the Slot Machines were much smaller than the previous games. I am not sure if it was intentional but some of the sub-levels especially in Lectra City are entirely too dark to see a single thing. Vehicles do not seem to pick up items after running them over. You also cannot use your vehicles as a platform to jump up on and over. It is abundantly clear that certain areas are locked off until a certain point in a mission while others can be explored beforehand which can be confusing when you can only have one quest shown on the map at a time. I still couldn't believe how much Tina changed in just a course of 5 years after the events in Borderlands 2.
Gameplay
Class: There were 4 different classes to choose from - Amara the Siren, FL4K the Beastmaster, Moze the Gunner, Zane the Operator. Or I like to call them: Sensitive Brick, Pokemon Master, Titanfall Pilot, and Jack Grenade Omega. I did not enjoy playing the melee class Salvador so Amara was out. Axton wasn't that great and the cloning of Jack didn't appeal to me either. So my choices were between Moze and FL4K. In the end, I ended up trying Fl4K the Beastmaster and managed to get him to level 46. After 46 hours, I finally was able to complete about 80% content since many side areas seemed frivolous after completing the game. The "Spiderant" was very cool to play around with and launching Rakks at the enemy was fun... at first. Switching to the green tree for invisibility and the ability to be revived was cool but Jabber as a pet was a nuisance. Gamma Burst with the Skag was interesting for awhile but the ability "Dominance" was a problem when wanting to finish off stragglers. Though at times I feel like the Skag's radiactive aura killed me a few times when interacting with barrels or certain elements when coming back to me. I don't think it really mattered which tree I chose when the final area was laying down level 24-30s when I was level 40-46. One thing I did enjoy is the fact that your pet will wander around and gather loot for you on occasion. You can "pet" him if you like and their color scheme will match your outfit. You can even change the name of your pet (as well as yourself) in the profile menu. I really, really wish there was a way to get your pet to stand still when it comes to navigating hallways, listening to conversations, or giving objects to people. At the very least they were able to allow you to use "Attack Command" for targeting enemies.
Story: I honestly did not enjoy the story. I think it would have been much better to explore the vaults on different worlds while people are being attacked. Chasing the enemy was pretty exhausting and I did not like the Calypso Twins very much. The idea of an all-powerful villain that really doesn't care if you live or die reminded me too much of Halo 4. The fact that their core ability is to absorb any power they liked and distribute it freely didn't really click well with me either. Nearly every other boss was both interesting and engaging. I think I would have had a better time with the final boss if I wasn't so overleveled and if my pet wasn't so useless. The "Siren" backstory was pretty decent and I did enjoy exploring all the worlds that the Vault Hunters came from. I just wish Athenas had more areas to explore other than the Temple. The side-missions were actually pretty decent. There were times where the area would change as you progressed like in Homestead. Much of the sub-text had references to outside material: Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Pokemon, Overwatch, and Guardians of the Galaxy (just to name a few). A lot of characters return (and sometimes to their death). Both Tannis and Tina look really good after 5 years from Borderlands 2.
Strategy: Getting cash to spend for inventory slots (oh, and other things) was pretty rough at first. There are certain grenades that allow enemies to drop more cash when they detonate. I managed to find one pretty early that would launch 3 MIRV, home onto any target, and detonate 3 times each. After using up all 9 grenades, I managed to get around 200,000 in under a minute. This was nice at first but I quickly switched over to a grenade that did the same thing with three times the damage. Mendel's Multivitamin helped a lot when my shield was pretty tiny. I didn't receive any legendary mods. There were plenty of interesting weapons from start to finish, mostly all pistols - Level 23 Linc (shooting tons of tracking bullets), Level 27 Chadd (no bullets, no break), Level 33 517 damage Amazing Grace, The Killing Word Both level 9 and 30. From level 32 to 46 I used a "Cost-Effective Q-System" that I kept upgrading over-and-over from 168x2 to 458x2 damage that use "tracking" bullets and a steady fire. On occasion I used a level 38 shotgun with 1410 explosive damage. No, I didn't go into Mayham Modes 2,3,4. No I didn't get a chance to try out the Free Content of Maliwan Blacksite, Blood Harvest, or the December 19th DLC Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot.
Patches
Now they fix it. I'm including a separate category because the developers are trying to solve a lot of the issues that have come up in the first few months. As much as I hate Patch 4 for focusing on Maliwan Blacksite and Mayham Mode 4 for those who like endgame, they have increased bank storage and added vending machines at various locations that desperately needed it. This patch also included "sort by rarity" and fixed the issue with enemies not scaling with your level. Hotfix 4.5 decreased the screaming of Fl4K's Jabber. Patch 5 buffed the drop rates of rare loot. Otherwise much of the patches and hotfixes have to do with fixing various map glitches, word spellings, percentages in class abilities, overpowered items, technical issues, and content advancements.
They fix it yet? There are still some wacky bugs that I ran into that may or may have not been fixed. My gamepad kept vibrating if I ever crashed into a transition wall to another area. Some npcs didn't move up the stairs to continue the quest while carrying a conversation with me. There was a time where a monster quest spawned but they refused to move away from the spawn point. I think this also carried over a few times when I summoned my portal for my skag to appear. "Item of the Day" still shows on the vending machine even after you buy it. "Irregular Customers" Quest had a switch broken that I used before initiating it. Transitioning out of the map reset the switch. There are some chests facing the wrong way or burrowed too deep near Jakob's Estate. "Just Desserts" didn't reward anything from smashing the pinata. There was a weapon that had "Enahances" in the description. I once had a grenade that said "Firewalker" for a brief moment in my inventory.
Summary
Borderlands 3 improves combat by adding movement, weapon types, class options, music, and exploration. The story is a bit too over-the-top but definitely keeps you entertained through the use of various side-missions. Many cosmetic additions are frivelous but a welcoming waste of time in between missions. The characters aren't as memorable or impactful as in previous renditions of the series but are still as engaging especially when working with you against a current objective. The game definitely makes getting around less tedious and feels bigger than ever before. I definitely would recommend this game for a fan of the series.
12-14-2019