New Tales from the Borderlands Assessment (PS5)

There’s an argument to be made that 2014’s Tales from the Borderlands is definitely the perfect recreation within the Borderlands sequence. Now, maintain on. Don’t go typing up your offended feedback simply but. Hear us out.

Generally you simply need a capital V capital G Video Recreation that’s about operating and leaping and taking pictures and looting and the correct Borderlands video games are a protected choice to select up and play on that entrance. But it surely’s onerous to disregard that the franchise has a considerably inversely proportional relationship between the tightness of the gameplay and high quality of the writing: because the taking pictures acquired higher, the dialogue acquired worse and the jokes grew extra irritating.

Inside their respective genres, making an allowance for what they got down to do, Tales might be essentially the most profitable recreation within the sequence: it’s humorous, with an fascinating story, likeable characters, and at occasions it’s genuinely transferring. No one was as shocked as us about that. A Telltale Borderlands recreation? Insanity! But it surely labored.

Quick-forward eight years and right here we’re with New Tales From The Borderlands, much less a sequel to the Telltale authentic and extra of an alternate actuality model of the identical concept. What would have occurred in 2014 if as an alternative of partnering with Telltale of their prime to make a extra story-focused recreation within the Borderlands franchise, Gearbox simply made it themselves? Nicely, that is the outcome. And it’s garbage.

Happening after Borderlands 3 however with out actually requiring any data of any earlier Borderlands video games to grasp the story, New Tales has three playable characters that you simply’ll management at numerous factors all through the ten hour journey.

There’s Anu, a sensible however anxious scientist who’s a pacifist inexplicably working for a weapons producer. There’s Fran, a frozen yogurt vendor in a hoverchair who has anger administration points. And there’s Octavio, a hipster moron who’s launched to us in a cutscene wherein he rebukes a pizza vendor for his or her “problematic” exaggerated-a Italian-a accent-a. It’s as cringe inducing because it sounds.

The three heroes aren’t a lot characters as they’re merely vessels for the subsequent insipid gag. Anu, for instance, is the intelligent one within the gang proper up till she must be an fool for a joke to land. One minute she’s fixing sophisticated physics issues, and the subsequent she doesn’t understand how a door deal with works. And that’s the punchline. LOL.

Fran and Octavio are equally troubled. Fran’s complete persona relies round her speaking about frozen yogurt, creepily providing to offer folks mouth-to-mouth once they clearly don’t want it, and punching folks actual onerous. That’s it. Octavio simply does the stupidest factor possible in each scenario to pull the story out a bit of longer. At one level he forgets what the place he works at — the place he is spent half the sport, by the best way — appears like. They get about ten minutes out of that zinger.

The facet characters are a combined bag. There’s a robotic murderer going by way of an ethical quandary about how they make their dwelling they usually’re most likely essentially the most well-rounded and fascinating character within the recreation. There’s a girl who shouts so much. There’s a speaking gun that claims “Bang!” each time it shoots. A lot of the facet characters both disappear for half the sport after which flip up for the final chapter or just go nowhere.

Rhys from the unique Tales from the Borderlands has a small position within the first chapter and if you happen to suppose what they did with him in Borderlands 3 was a slap within the face to followers of the Telltale recreation then this isn’t going to make you’re feeling any higher. Not content material with ruining their very own characters, New Tales from the Borderlands retroactively ruins the unique Tales from the Borderlands by turning its protagonist into simply one other Borderlands gag™. So thanks for that.

Each from time to time between inane comedy routines there’s a narrative to be informed. It includes a magic rock that has the ability to assist humanity however there’s baddies who need to use it for their very own nefarious ends. It’s a slight, low stakes narrative and even at solely ten hours it feels drawn out, with lengthy, boring sections the place nothing remotely fascinating occurs to push the story ahead.

By the ultimate chapter we simply didn’t care any extra. Not one of the development feels earned or deserved. After which as a remaining insult, after we acquired to the ending we had been informed that one of many fundamental characters had died, off display screen, with no clarification in anyway for the way or why. It was like Poochie flying off to his house planet and dying in a crash in that episode of The Simpsons. Utter nonsense.

All the things about New Tales appears like a poor model of the unique, even right down to the music. The primary recreation featured a licensed soundtrack that was at occasions expertly employed. Right here, there’s licensed music nevertheless it’s thrown collectively seemingly at random. There’s a tacky montage scene of the gang attending to know one another backed by a low key, nearly dream-pop monitor, and later a quiet, extra reflective scene backed by a jaunty, extra upbeat piece.

Gameplay-wise, you’ll primarily be strolling about and fixing quite simple puzzles, speaking to folks, and making decisions. There’s minigames, too, for issues like hacking and fixing issues, however these are borderline not possible to fail so we’re unsure why they exist. There’s quick-time occasions to maintain the motion scenes however these are equally forgiving, and even help you hit the flawed button after which simply strive once more till you get it proper.

One such fast time occasion — which now we have to say as a result of it’s so absurd — includes a personality combating sharks. However as an alternative of seeing them struggle the sharks, we see Octavio commentating on how the struggle goes whereas button prompts pop up on display screen. It goes on for approach too lengthy and it’s so wildly unfunny that we do not know if it’s even meant to be a joke.

We’re unsure if the developer simply couldn’t be bothered to animate the struggle with the sharks or if this entire bit is a few kind of subversive commentary on the futility of fast time occasions that simply doesn’t land, however regardless of the cause for it, let your ol’ buddies at Push Sq. offer you a fiver’s price of free recommendation: when you have a shark struggle, you present the shark struggle. Everybody needs to see the shark struggle. It is a f****** shark struggle!

Conclusion

We will scarcely recall an event the place we had been extra dissatisfied by a sequel than New Tales from the Borderlands. We needed to like this. We might have accepted liking it. However we hate this recreation. This can be a ten-hour narrative journey that feels 4 occasions so long as it must be, with dreadful characters, and appalling, relentlessly unfunny jokes. It is a spectacular misfire, its solely success to talk of being the uncommon instance of a sequel so unhealthy that it ruins the unique, too.