Rating of
3.5/5
Budget Fantasy Borderlands
Chris Kavan - wrote on 07/17/24
Gearbox has found their bread-and-butter with the Borderlands series. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands started life as the DLC Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep before being fully fleshed out as its own stand-alone game. That being said, while Dragon's Keep was certainly entertaining, stretching that out as an entire game doesn't capture that same feel and while there are some things that Wonderlands does right, there is much more it fumbles and those in the tabletop gaming business knows what happens when you roll a few too many ones in a row.
Looks and Stuff: Wonderlands doesn't stray too far from the Borderlands formula - keeping the same cel-shaded animation as the previous games and still giving you plenty of quip-happy enemies to destroy along the way. Instead of raiders and skags and the like you get goblins and mushrooms and skelly-tons and land sharks and other assorted fantasy-adjacent enemies to deal with. You still have your "badass" versions to deal with as well as plenty of bosses too. Music is still pretty basic but they didn't skimp on talent, bringing in Andy Samberg, Wanda Sykes and Wanda Sykes - as well as the manic performance of Ashly Burch (returning as Tina) to give the game some punch. Too bad whoever was in charge of sound mixing really dropped the ball as the voice talent is often a bit too hard to make out, no matter how much you tweak the settings.
One big difference between this and a typical Borderlands game is that it ditches vehicular travel and instead gives you a tabletop overworld to traverse between locations. This overworld is dotted with fun little touches like dropped dice, junk food and the like - often meaning you have to figure out some shortcuts. It also has plenty of quest-givers along with random enemy encounter and hidden treasures scattered about. Each of the main levels, along with dungeons and the like, are much more like your typical game - you wander around shooting enemies, questing and hoping for better loot to drop. Main areas are still huge - and still require you to travel back and forth (and back again) on various missions.
Like so many Gearbox games, the experience wasn't perfect. Thanks to their proprietary SHiFT network, connections weren't always stable and often one (or more) people would be forced to restart in order to join the multiplayer game proper. And, as experienced in past titles as well, missions would sometimes glitch, forcing a restart to complete (but luckily not having to repeat it all over again). I guess it's what's expected by now but still no less annoying.
Story: Taking place sometime between the events of Borderlands 2 and 3, we find Tina trapped aboard a ship with the pilot, Captain Valentine (Samberg), navigator robot Frette (Sykes) and the Newbie (that would be you, player character - male or female). In order to pass the time, Tina decides to create a Bunkers & Badasses session where she will, of course, rule with a manic fist. The last main character is the big bad of the game, the Dragon Lord (Arnette) who constantly breaks the 4th wall as he somehow jumps from game to maybe the real world - or at least that's what seems to happen. Anyway, the main characters constantly bicker about the right or wrong way to play the game and come across a wide variety of missions involving gay pirates, a parody of The Witcher, cults, necromancers and so much more. Tina is constantly trying to one-up the characters, who often break her carefully-crafted story by doing crazy and/or stupid things. But we once again learn that Bunkers & Badasses is really just a big coping mechanism for Tina as she once again works some stuff out (but, for anyone who played Borderlands 3, knows that she's still not quite stable).
Gameplay: While Wonderlands shares the same DNA as Borderlands, it does do its own thing. There are still plenty of classes to choose from but skills are pared down and instead you get to dual-class once you hit a certain level - thereby opening up another skill tree. My opening class was Sporewarden - and I loved it as my companion was a farting mushroom - and later chose the Brr-Zerker - a melee specialist that specialized in freezing enemies. I felt I had the best of both worlds being able to shoot at range or pound enemies up close. While the game still focuses on guns for the most part, I also think it adds a lot of variety in the spells (which take the place of grenades). These never run out (although they have a cooldown) and their effects are pretty spectacular, especially some of the rare ones (at least some of them - others are pure trash). You also have a dedicated class skill that is also most useful. Wonderlands also has a dedicated melee weapon slot and, while I think it could have been utilized better, was still a nice change of pace. You also get a ward (shield), amulet (relic) and TWO ring slots. A lot of these unlike via story (not level) thus to get a fully locked and loaded character, you will have to play through a fair bit of the game.
Loot is once again a big factor in how you decide to play the game. You still have your various classes of snipers, shotguns, SMGs, rocket launchers and the like - just in a fantasy setting. For whatever reason, I found the game seemed to focus on giving you the same type of weapons over and over and over - I don't know why, but in my case I was getting sniper and shot-gun drops constantly but a cool-ass SMG? Almost never. And unlike other Borderlands games, legendaries seemed a bit of a letdown with many having too random of functions to be useful, though, don't get me wrong, I found others to be extremely badass. You also have a luck factor here - there are twenty-sided dice scattered everywhere you can find to increase your "loot luck" and you better, because early game you'll be lucky to find a blue weapon, let alone a legendary. Also, this game is absolutely LOUSY with customization drops - colors, patterns, faces, etc (I chose to make my character as lop-sided, ugly and garish as possible). The upside to this is that these customizations are worth a fair bit of gold (in-game currency) and if you're grinding to unlock all those additional ammo and storage slots (and you WILL have to grind or cheat to unlock everything) it's a good way to get money.
The game does encourage exploration - even just around the main town. There are plenty of collectibles (poetry pages, lore entries and those dice) to find. Likewise, it has a lot of side-quests, some of which are even amusing. That being said, the end-game content is just the worst. People have rightfully complained about the DLC - which is a series of mirrors with lame stories and are simply a version of the regular dungeons in which you fight a short wave of enemies and then face a boring boss. Technically you have to beat each mirror four times but given the yawn-inducing factor, who would want to? I feel bad for people who shelled out full price for the season pass along with the base game. It also gets much too easy by the end anyway. Early on you may be scrambling but soon enough you're taking down bosses like they were nothing.
Replay value: As with previous Borderlands games, there is a lot of incentive to try out different classes or to simply keep playing until you feel maxed out.
Final Verdict: It's basically Borderlands but fantasy and if you've enjoyed the series thus far, you may as well pick this up on sale and enjoy it some more.
Presentation: 3/5
Story: 3/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Replay: 4/5
Overall (not an average): 3.5/5
