It’s Borderlands 2 with some tweaks.
Guns have no kick and feel underwhelming. The whole thing just feels half-baked, just like the Pre-Sequel. I honestly didn’t think they could get any worse. The writing is sloppy and their feeble attempts at humour doesn’t work more often than not.
Borderlands 2 with tweaks is exactly what I expected it to be so I’m very happy.
I disagree about the guns. They all feel great to me so far. Don’t have any issues with writing or humour, it’s what I expected as well.
I got the game on launch (vanilla PS4) and played the shit out of it over the weekend. Finished the main campaign, and started on the endgame mayhem mode. Here’s what I think:
Pros
Gunplay is awesome. I’m just coming off a year-long stint of playing nothing but Destiny 2, basically, so I’m used to solid console FPS gunplay - while BL3 can’t compete there, the sheer number of different gun combinations and their feel was great. Shotguns were a fave. They look good, sound good and shoot good. And that’s all I ask.
Progression is well-balanced. I didn’t ever feel massively under-powered or over-powered during a standard play through. Level ups/skills come regularly, loot is plentiful, and brings enough diversity for different play styles. I had to respec a few times to take a different approach to some battles.
Boss battles have been ramped up a notch. I think there was only one boss battle that I found pretty boring. The rest of them had me sitting up and concentrating, with some close calls.
MEH
Story and characters. I mean, it’s pretty much the same as BL2, which is to say that things are pretty one-dimensional, and the characters are obnoxious as fuck. BL2 had Handsome Jack who was a really strong villain, and a couple of fun characters (like Tiny Tina, and Scooter). BL3 for me lacks any standouts, and the villains are pretty weak. Story-wise, it was okay. Some great moments, some silly ones. Concluded on a bit of a weird note.
Familiar gameplay loop. There hasn’t been much evolution of the gameplay loop since BL2. You go to places, enemies show up, you shoot them to shit. There are some new enemies and new strategies involved, but not really anything beyond SHOOTY SHOOTY.
Humour. It is what it is. It wasn’t really all that funny in BL2, either. This is just more of the same.
Technicals. While I didn’t come across anything game breaking, I did experience controller lag (and it’s a wired controller) and other gameplay glitches. These will be patched out, I assume, but worth noting, because I see a lot of complaints about this one.
Cons
Overall I think BL3 is a great game, and a decent successor to BL2. Innovative, it is not, but the small quality of life improvements and other updates (traversal - being able to climb opens up vertical space) makes it a solid follow on. Where the pre-sequel was literally Borderlands 2–, this is more like Borderlands 2++. And that’s sort of exactly what I wanted.
Very well put. I agree with you completely. They’re not trying to re-invent the wheel here, this is more of the same Borderlands that we know. If you didn’t like Borderlands before, this game probably won’t do anything to change your mind. If you enjoyed it in the past you will love all the quality of life improvements they’ve made to the formula.
I see people complaining about the fact that it’s so similar to previous games and I don’t understand that. It’s the next game in the same franchise. Of course it’s going to be similar.
That is so sad.
I haven’t finished the game yet, but I kind of like Clay.
The characters just feel a bit flat, is all. That’s not to say they aren’t funny or charming - it’s just you meet them, they do their bit, and you move on. The guys that return are, well, they’re the same guys from before, so you’ve been on that ride already. And the new characters you meet are more of the same (one dimensional, single use) with one in particular being just plain annoying (you’ll know who she is).
I think Borderlands 2 had the benefit of having Handsome Jack always in your ear, mocking you and being his hilariously evil self. His “I’m the hero and you’re the assholes” thing was a fresh take on villainy. Tyreen and Troy are just obnoxious, and their motivations are…weak. Evil for evil’s sake, really, with no real personality attached.
Then again, I never really went into Borderlands 2 or 3 expecting compelling narratives and developed characters. The world itself is obnoxious and insane. So I try not to overthink it, and just shoot stuff up with glee.
Finished the game last night. Loved every second and the ending is actually pretty damn good. I even shed a tear or two when the credits where rolling.
This has definitely overtaken Metro Exodus as my GOTY for this year and I doubt anything else will be able to knock it off. Apart from slight technical issues this game is damn near perfect IMO. It’s a hell of a lot of fun to play and it never feels like a grind with the rate you keep getting new skills, new guns and new customisation options.
I actually really liked some of the new characters they introduced in this game and there was a cameo that I absolutely loved. The story wasn’t bad either and even though the humour can be a bit hit or miss it’s the same as it has always been in the series so I can’t complain.
Well worth a watch. The sound design in this game is really good.
Finished my second playthrough tonight. Going to try some endgame stuff now until I reach the level cap and then decide what to do after that.
Playing with the idea of going for the platinum trophy, it doesn’t look too hard to obtain.
I really have to hand it to Gearbox for how different each character’s skills and skill trees work. At first glance they look very similar but once you get into it you notice they work completely differently.
FL4K has 3 different action skills to choose from and you can equip any one of them and then on top of that you can apply one action skill augment (he has 12 in total across all three skill trees). Then he also has 3 pets to choose from and each pet also has three different forms in their respective trees. You can also mix and match skills and pets. For example, you can equip the pet from one tree but use the action skill from another tree.
Amara has 10 different action skills (although some are very similar) to choose from and you can apply any effectt on your equipped action skill as well as choose between different elemental damage types for your action skill. Again, you can mix and match between different trees and unlike the other character you can apply the action skill effect from one tree to the action skill from another tree.
Moze has 6 action skills, each of which is a different weapon for her mech, and she can have any two equipped at the same time, even two of the same. Each weapon can also have an augment applied to it.
Zane has 3 action skills and you can equip any two (if you sacrifice your grenade slot) and each skill can have two augments applied as well. He has 5 augments per skill to choose from.
I can’t wait to they see what they do with the skill trees in the DLC since they’ve said instead of adding new Vault Hunters they will expand the skill trees of the existing four Vault Hunters.
6 trophies left for platinum. Should have it by the end of this week hopefully.
I’m not trying to condone piracy (especially for this game) but Borderlands 3 just got cracked. Well done to Denuvo for lasting so long.
In other news, I still need one trophy for the platinum and I’m not managing to get it which sucks. It’s the one where you have to get a perfect score at the shooting range.
(Finally) Got my Platinum trophy last week.
The first story DLC will be revealed this Wednesday during the Borderlands Show and they’ve teased Handsome Jack!!!
The cynic in me is going, “Please no.”
This is like a TV show where they brilliantly killed off one of the characters, but then didn’t have the courage/chutzpah/content to go through with it. See: Sylar from Heroes, Everyone from Supernatural.
Maybe it doesn’t suck. Here’s hoping.
I get what you’re saying and part of me agrees with you, but this is Handsome Jack we’re talking about. From what I’ve seen in the teaser he’s probably not back for real (i.e alive), more like the AI version of him in Tales From the Borderlands.
Ah. (Major Tales From the Borderlands spoiler ahead)
I guess it is possible that they decide that the canonical ending is that you do not destroy the eyeball.
DLC is Moxxi’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot. Basically a raid of Handsome Jack casino.
The game is also free to play from 21-24 November on PS4 and Xbone.