‘Tiny Tiny’s Wonderlands’ is a spin-off of Downloadable Content (DLC) for ‘Borderlands 2,’ a now ten-year-old first-person shoot-and-loot game that doesn’t quite hold up mechanically, but thanks to crisp writing and one of the best video game villains ever, Handsome Jack, it holds a special place in the hearts of a lot of gamers.
One of the staples of The ‘Borderlands’ series is great DLC. The game designers have always had a good handle on shaking up gameplay elements and that is extremely evident in ‘Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands’. ‘Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragonkeep’, the DLC for ‘Borderlands 2’ in which ‘Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands’ is a spinoff of, revolves around the main characters playing a game of ‘Bunkers and Badasses’- a riff on Dungeons and Dragons- with the titular fan favorite character Tiny Tina, the games prodigal demolitions expert, acting as dungeon master. That particular DLC, while great, was also limited to the ‘Borderlands 2’ mechanics and gameplay (no sliding or climb mechanics, large multi-tiered terrain with a lack of a 3-D map navigation to compensate, imbalanced enemies etc.).
‘Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands’ is more akin to something like ‘Dark Souls’, albeit nowhere near as difficult, or any number of Japanese role-playing games (JRPGS), albeit a satire of the genre. It skillfully marries mechanics of high fantasy games with that of ‘Borderlands 3's’ which level design and aforementioned game mechanics improved upon Borderlands 2’s in every way. ‘Wonderlands’ only refined Borderlands 3 mechanics- further balancing the weaponry, skillsets, and bosses. 'Wonderlands' is never frustrating because of mechanical or design flaws like in 'Borderlands 2' or because of technical, level scaling, or imbalanced ‘bullet sponge’ bosses like in 'Borderlands 3' (most of 3s issues have been fixed with patches since launch however). The game designers also included a rather elaborate customizability of the player’s character, which is also common practice now in the fantasy gaming genre.
‘Wonderlands’ still includes the behemoth amount randomly generated, zany gun options as well as character skill builds fans have come to expect from a 'Borderlands' game. Amongst some of the new features are gear that specifically allow players to use spellcasting abilities and players can now have multiple companions as part of their team. Both of these features are well incorporated, bolster the chaotic nature of the game, and further diversify the gameplay itself. The most notable new feature, however, is the Overworld- which is an explorable 3-D overhead map that acts as conduit between levels. This particular new feature RPG fans will be familiar with as it is seen in everything from ‘Final Fantasy’ to ‘Tales of Symphonia.’ Running into battle encounters while going through ‘tall grass’ areas of the Overworld reminded me of the Pokémon games. The Overworld is also is chock-full of fun smaller side quests and mini-levels of it's own.
'Borderlands: The Game of the Year Edition' still remains one of my favorite video games to date but none in the series have ever quite compared to my initial playthrough of it. That being said, ‘Tiny Tina’s: Wonderlands’ is a valiant effort at recreating the original's magic and it is objectively a great game.
Games from the 'Borderlands' series are available to checkout as a part of our video game collection at The Brown Deer Public Library.
MY RATING 4/5 STARS
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