New Tales from the Borderlands - Review
The Borderlands series has never taken its characters all that seriously, some they do, but most are pretty basic by comparison, which is why the original Tales from the Borderlands surprised many, due to its character focus. The game was a hit and many people wanted to know the fate of Rhys and Fiona and while we got some details in Borderlands 3, that wasn’t what people wanted, they wanted a new game in the series and earlier this year, we got that announcement. Except it features a new cast of characters and some overhauled aspects, is this new tale worthy to be told or does it read more like fan-fiction?
This time around the game stars Anu, Octavio and Fran, with each of them having their own reasons for going on the adventure that they do. The story starts about a year after the events of Borderlands 3 and begins in Anu and her releasing a bunch of space monkeys into the ship she works on. She is a scientist and someone who abhors violence and even though she is making a gun, or gun shaped device, its purpose is not to kill but to translocate anything the beam touches. Sadly her demonstration goes array and results in her getting fired, just moments before Tediore starts to invade the Atlas headquarters ship she is on. Fran on the other hand is a simple person, she works in her frozen yogurt shop, something that was inherited from her folks and while she loves it, she has some clear anger management issues. After finally getting the money from her insurance to repair the shop from the last planetary invasion, Octavio bursts in and the result is that her shop is destroyed once again.
Octavio is the weak link for me, he is an opportunist, each action he does is all to further his cause of being a big shot somebody, except they are always shortcuts and get rich quick type schemes. When he finally starts to make some progress, by helping out his assassination bot friend, the planet is invaded and he decides to fight back, which goes as poorly as you might expect. Once he meets up with Fran and sees her shop destroyed, Anu arrives, having escaped the space station and the three of them come up with a plan, for some its to help the galaxy and for others its to help their bank balance. As the story progresses and you start making choices, there is a lot that takes place, some of the characters you meet throughout it are quite unique and while most repeat throughout the story, they really don’t have an impact on it.
The problem again though is Octavio and his ‘put me first’ desire, even in moments where Anu, his sister is in danger, he usually tries to think of the angle that will help him out first. It is the sort of personality that drives me batty, so each time the focus was on him, it became a struggle to push through. The other issue is of course that while your choices matter, they never seem to diverge the path in any great way, usually just lines of dialogue and sometimes the choices offered are no choices at all. This highlights the issue with ‘choose your own adventure’ games, because they are not really giving you choice, but rather letting you select one of a few set paths, much like following a cupcake recipe to the letter or just adding in some chocolate chips. Both options still provide the same basic result, one just has a little extra and sometimes it’s not worth the effort.
Something that the game exceeded at though, is the gameplay, both in its execution and the variety of options, especially when compared to the first game in the series. Most of the actions will feel familiar to returning players, pressing buttons in a sequence, moving a stick in a direction and so on, the biggest change now is that the game can give you a heads up, so you are not going to be caught out. The game will let you know what type of action it will be, so you wont press a button if the stick was required in its place, though depending on your choices in the settings, you can have the game accept any input you want. Beyond the prompts, most of the action is done via dialogue choices, usually three, but sometimes four and while the game will go out of its way to ensure you have ample time, there are a few instances where time is very limited, making you choose quickly. In the event that you actually don’t make a decision, the game just picks an option for you and moves ahead, however there are a few times when you have to make a choice and the game will not progress until you do.
When you get given full control, you are allowed to roam around some selected areas, these are not massive and they don’t occur all that often, but when they do you can scan or interact with the world to learn more about it. This is where things don’t work, moving around as anyone is slow and cumbersome and the only real reason to do so, is to find the one specific thing to interact with. The other aspect that breaks things here is that nothing is ever connected to the ground, when you walk up to characters, they are floating just above the ground, interactive items are highlighted but again don’t feel connected to the world. The end result is a series of wandering spaces that feel less about the wandering and more about just touching everything, and the latter is not as fun as one might hope. Something that the game offers is a mini-game of sorts called Vaultlanders, which feature collectable figures of random characters from past games and they are used in a Street Fighter style fighting game. The first time you encounter this, the game makes you play, but then post that you can skip them if you come across them again, except skipping them means you lose by default, there is no option not to play. The game itself is fine, but it really doesn’t add anything to the experience of playing a narrative game, it would be like playing Mario Kart and having to spend time between races by playing Tetris, it would work but also doesn’t really fit.
On the presentation side of things, the game looks pretty spectacular at times, I played the game on Switch and there were a number of slow loads of textures, which is pretty common on the platform, but also something the series has been doing for years. The three main characters all look good, from a design point, and the designers have used some nice facial capture to create more intricate facial movements. The result is that the characters look more like they are from LA Noire than Borderlands and it helps sell their actions and thoughts, which is perfect for when you have made a decision and are not sure about if it’s a good one or not. The sad thing is that some of the other characters that you meet don’t have the same level of attention delivered and I can understand why, focus on the main characters is the priority, but when you are interacting with someone who looks as if they are not in the same space, it is a harder sell.
The games audio mix is solid, the game offers a really wonderful score, which uses some familiar elements of past Borderlands melodies, but mixes in a host of new and fun tracks. Sometimes the music will lower itself down, so the dialogue can be the star and for a great reason, the voice acting is wonderful. There are a good handful of ancillary characters that you interact with multiple times and they are all brought to life with a great touch of fun, it is however the three mains that carry things. While I don’t like Octavio as a character, there is no denying that the actor who voiced the role, has done something remarkable, because as much as I hated the character, the voice work made him tolerable. Both Anu and Fran also feel alive, thanks to their incredible vocal performances and given some of the lines that they can deliver, that is saying something.
New Tales from the Borderlands is an interesting experience, it has a story that is full of twists and turns that makes it hard to put down, but it has characters that while unique, can be a bit much at times. The gameplay is very similar to that of the first game and while there are some additions to it, they won’t feel out of place and with the game letting you customise how hard those quick time events can be, it will welcome in anyone who wants to play. The games fails to make exploring the world fun and with a mini-game that is more mini than game, those distractions are harder to understand. The game offers a good length and if you invest in the characters you will be rewarded for your time, but if the characters don’t gel with you, there is little else here to make you commit to playing through.
The Score
8.0
Review code provided by 2K
The Pros
+Improvements to the facial system make each decision and thought appear on the faces of the characters, bringing you into the game
+The games ability to let you scale back the response time needed for the QTE, mean that this is a game that anyone can enjoy
The Cons
-Octavio is not a good person and trying to find a reason to care when I was in control of him, was quite a challenge and not in a good way
-There were a lot of issues with the game not connecting elements to the world, leaving a lot of things floating
