Is this Borderlands the boring sequels like everyone say it is?
No. It’s a great game with novel (for Borderlands) mechanics, great writing, and some really cool gear up for grabs. Levelling in UVHM is a bit too slow but, apart from that, it’s great. If you’re expecting just more of the same BL2, you might be a bit disappointed. Play the game for its own merits, and you’ll enjoy it.
10 Likes
No, it is a good game. Make no mistake it isn’t a masterpiece to rival BL2. TPS has probably the best set of skill trees in the franchise and the diversity of the different characters is great. The story has some pacing issues but is still interesting and worth seeing. The addition of Claptastic Voyage is fantastic and definitely deserves to be seen as one of, if not the best campaign dlc of the franchise.
UVHM has a lighter scaling(depends on who you are this is good or bad) and the playable characters raw strength make endgame less challenging although Claptastic Voyage has introduced more challenging content. Issues such as non farmable bosses that started a lot of the post launch hate have now been patched. If you’re on PC the community patch also opens up options that add to the experience.
If the game is on sale I’d definitely pick it up as it is a very solid game.
10 Likes
While it’s my least favorite of the three, I feel Borderlands: TPS is a very good game and worth trying out.
4 Likes
It’s a great game. It lacks the amount of dlc that bl2 has, but what content it does have is great.
7 Likes
As the other have said…go into it expecting more of BL2 and you’ll most likely be disappointed. Go into it with the understanding that it’s set in the familiar Borderlands universe and/but brings new gameplay, characters and NPCs, mechanics, etc and you could have a fun time with it. It’s definitely a worthy addition to the franchise.
7 Likes
it is underrated, its a great game.
6 Likes
I’d say out of the 3, TPS is my least favorite, but that does not mean it’s not a good game. I’ve spent countless hours on this game and plan to spend countless more. It is a wonderful game and it is a great one to have in your collection.
2 Likes
I’d rank TPS above BL2.
Pros:
- Better skill trees
- Cryo is a much better debuff element than slag
- low gravity is cool!
- slams are an interesting new mechanic
- CV is the best DLC in the franchise
- lasers are an interesting and diverse new weapon type
- grinder gives you some control over getting loot, and gives you a reason to pick up everything that drops
- vending machines have useful items of the day, with relatively frequent legendaries and purples, so there’s a reason to care about $ for once.
- luneshine grinds, moonstone chests, and moxxtails give you useful things to spend moonstone on after buying everything from Crazy Earl. And moonstone is significantly more common than eridium was in BL2.
Cons:
- very limited content (this is why I still play more BL2 than TPS)
- terrible voice acting (Aurelia) and dialog (
) in a few places. Anyone fluent in a foreign language should be able to bypass these issues though. 
- painfully slow xp gain in UVHM. Knowing that TPS is effectively four playthroughs to level cap instead of three like BL2 definitely saps my motivation.
8 Likes
To be fair, BL2 is a REALLY hard act to follow.
EDIT, the next day and just for clarity - Worblehat apparently posted just before I did and I didn’t see his until today. My comment here wasn’t at all intended to disagree with his preferring TPS to BL2, since I agree with many of his pros and cons. Just wanted to make that clear.
5 Likes
I love the pre-sequel. Character builds are amazing! And so many weapons.
I think of it as a really, really good DLC for Borderlands 2. If you’re looking for a game the size of Bl2, you’ll be disappointed, but as an expansaion it’s superb.
Pre sequel is such a great game. Has some of the best playable characters, loot, and mechanics out of the whole series. It’s also a nice breath of fresh air. If you are getting burnt out on bl2 or bl1.
1 Like
The skill trees are the best part in TPS, though I wouldn’t neccesarily say they are better than BL2’s, in many places showing a remarkable lack of restraint/forethought (coughNishacough), and displayed excessive reliance on stacks. Skills were less well-balanced than they were in
The map design, I find is markedly inferior to both BL1 and BL2. They also took the worst aspects of BL2 (excessive retreating enemy AI, barrels, a propensity to reward spray and pray over precision and skill) and made them outright infuriating. Barrels were a minor concern in BL2, but the placement of barrels in TPS and buttstomping makes them a far more frequent nuisance, especially in the few really enjoyable mobbing areas. Enemy AI was also exacerbated in TPS, with enemies outright jumping over buildings several times to escape you or engaging in excessive buttstomping and backtracking, which damages the balance of precision, skill-based playstyles like sniping vs spray and pray ones where you just run in with your shotgun/laser or be Nisha and don’t aim to begin with. The game isn’t actually harder than BL2, just more irritating- all in all the actual gameplay experience just feels less rewarding than BL2’s with poorly conceived player punishment.
The story had potential and Jack’s downfall is fascinating, but the campaign is borderline interminablr with a complete excess of fetch quests, backtracking and stalling, the set-up in Corcordia is a prime example of this with how absurdly overdrawn it is- compare it to BL2’s Sanctuary arrival which can be accomplished in 2 minutes top before you are on your way to Frostburn. It’s the small things, like in the Redbelly mission where after you clear the Darksiders, you have to drive all the way back to Claptrap, who then forces you to make another uneccessary detour across the map to another door for no reason at all.
They make no attempt to truncate this in latter playthroughs, while BL2’s devs had the sensibility to cut off the tutorial segment in UVHM understanding the playerbase, and cut the need for certain actions like buying eridium from Earl. This culminates in the Bosun mission which is interminably overdrawn and filled with artificial obstacles, and the Felicity mission where you spend 10 minutes waiting for the turrets to kill the bandits who will follow you across the entire map if you try to leave them alone, in what I’m guessing was a homage to the section in Wildlife where you have to wound 3 loaders, but in that case a disciplined player could accomplish it in 30 seconds even at OP8, and if you didn’t care for it you could just fo wild and kill everything till the door opened. The makers of TPS seemingly forgot that gaming was about having fun in that regard, designing the campaign to be as laborious as possible.
The rest of the game is fortunately abit more fun, barring the Veins of Helios (ugh), but the last section of the game is just so anticlimatic, flavourless and lame compared to BL2’s, where you had a truly epic final run at Hero’s Pass, go up against that bastard Handsome Jack and the Warrior which had been built up all game, and finally kill him any way you want. The Sentinel just sucks in comparison, and the Eleseer run is similarly lame. The Opha Superior was probably meant to ape the Badass Constructor, but it just lacks the momentum and tension of the final section of Hero’s Pass. The sterile and repititve soundtrack doesn’t help, obviously, compared to the charged, evocative OSTs of BL2 or the moody, atmospheric tones of BL1.
It’s a decent game but I would only really recommend playing it if you are a major fan of the series.
2 Likes