10.1 hours played
Written 20 days ago
"Everyone loves smoothies! Yum! People flavor!"
[i]Tales from the Borderlands[/i] is an episodic narrative sci-fi video game developed and published by Telltale Games.
[b]Story[/b]
While games opening does clarify events from previous entries and sets up the stage nicely, it's best to play Borderlands titles that were released before this one.
Tales from the Borderlands is set "some time" after events that took place during Borderlands 2.
Hyperion while still being powerhouse of a company, suffers from every worker attempting to reach the top of the food chain- CEO position left by Handsome Jack. One of our protagonists, Rhys, is a Hyperion employee who like everyone else dreams of achieving that title. His promotion that could get him closer to said goal turns into a degradation by his rival, making Rhys plot revenge that leads him to Pandora. Here the deal that was part of his plan turns into a scheme where we meet our second protagonist, Pandoran con-artist Fiona. As everything falls apart for both sides, our protagonists with their friends have to work together to make it out alive and find a way out of this mess. Mess which soon, unsurprisingly, turns into most Pandoran activity out there- Vault hunting!
[b]Gameplay[/b]
If you played Telltale Games released in roughly same period as this one (Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us) then you can skip this section as gameplay is pretty much same ol' as some might say.
If you haven't played them, then I will quickly explain. Tales from the Borderlands follows episodic format in which you will tackle on dialogue choices varying from minor to major, mixed with very simple exploration and Quick Time Events you have to complete in order to progress further in the storyline.
Elaboration if you need, though it should be self explanatory.
Dialogue choices- easy to guess you have to select an option in given time or you shall remain silent, unless it's a major choice which will influence narrative in some way where you are forced to make a decision.
When not doing that you will mash those buttons in Quick Time Events, QTE's in short. Complete those, or suffer a game over screen and need to reload a checkpoint/save.
To interact with everything in few sections where you can explore and investigate, you have to point and click on a symbol, so game has that point-and-click genre element focused on...well, pointing and clicking.
And as for something to spice it up, our protagonists have their own unique gameplay aspect. Rhys can use his cybernetic eye to scan environment for story or humour related reasons, while Fiona wields most powerful weapon of all: Cash! While playing as her you collect money which can be spend on cosmetic changes, with each episode featuring one place where you can do so.
[b]Playtime and replayability[/b]
Full playthrough took me 10 hours.
As per usual with Telltale games, you can give game another go in order to check how different choices impact the scenes and overall narrative.
[b]Impressions[/b]
Not gonna write anything new in here that hasn't been written already I'm afraid, Tales from the Borderlands is fantastic!
Initial worries that series primarly focused on lootershooter gameplay might not be as fun and good when focusing purely on narrative and characters quickly moved away after opening 5-10 minutes.
Game perfectly captures humour and violence of main games, while featuring a great, well-written roster of characters, some of which fans will recognize instantly and appreciate even more while some will appear for the first time. Game however knows when to change the tempo with emotional moments throughout the episodes, adding extra depth to overall story.
Cel-shaded visual style series is known for returns, looking good as always, and soundtrack if my ears (and memory) didn't fail me, is primarly composed from tracks from previous Borderlands games which is a smart way of reusing them in both combat and dialogue sections. They are great pieces of music so nothing wrong about that! Voice acting deserves a shoutout too, fantastic work across the board which only further enhances the emotional depth and overall characters profiles.
Important part of Telltale Games games, choices and their outcome that is, in Tales is pretty decent. They do change how certain scenes and dialogues play out in same fashion as they did in Wolf Among Us or Walking Dead, so overall narrative won't change much but individual scenes or dialogue pieces will. They change enough to give game another swirl like I said before.
While I personally didn't really mind the gameplay, it has to be said it does feel a bit...boring, unfortunately. Gets carried by previously mentioned humour and violence because it's same pointing and clicking as before, though attempt at spicing it with dual protagonists unique..."abilities"? I suppose that's how one can all them, is appreciated.
To the negative side I have to mention existing since games release and never patched out bug that can remove your save files, forcing you to either choose an episode individually and hope game will randomly select same choices as you did or start all over again. Annoying! Fortunately I avoided such fate but I prefer to give a warning so noone can be surprised when playing.
In short, easy recommendation! From very start to very finish, it's a fantastic title that has been an absolute pleasure to experience.
[b]Conclusion[/b]
Epic adventure with humour and violence series is known for, with great characters and engaging story to boot! Tales from the Borderlands is simply superb from start to finish.
Feel free to check out [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/31947302/] my curator page [/url] for more reviews!