My son's and I just finished playing through Pre-Sequel, 1 and 2, and are planning to go through 3 and Tiny Tina soon. The game is a blast in co-op and the world and characters that inhabit it are great.
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Started Borderlands 1 on Switch. Is this it?
- Thread starter Blackpuppy
- Start date
OP
OP
Well the missions haven't felt very satisfying and the enemies feel like bullet sponges and my character moves a bit slow… maybe these aspects are improved?
Yep that's it. Even playing with friends it should have been a one and done game series for me. We all got 2 thinking it would be better but ended up even more bored where it was more the same but with more shitty internet meme jokes.
That's why we all call it Borederlands lol
That's why we all call it Borederlands lol
Same. I think overall pacing of the first game outshines the sequels.
The sequels are mechanically superior, have better visuals and a better villain, but they're difficult to appreciate when the levels are too big and characters just…don't…stop…talking.
All the comments in here about Borderlands being FPS Diablo make a ton of sense to me. I haven't seen that comparison before, but I didn't like Borderlands when I tried it and I also kinda bounced off of Diablo IV recently for what I did not realize at the time were similar reasons.
I agree. They are fantastic games for when they each released. BL1, BL2, and BL3.
The DLC for each is absolutely incredible DLC. It's top-tier DLC content across the entire industry for quality level imo.
3 plays soooooooooooo much better than 1.
I don't hate Pandora and the classes in 1 are pretty peak actually so I enjoy it as there's just enough nostalgia there to really hook me in.
New players though? I'd seriously consider trying out Borderlands 3 instead. Everything before 3 feels very stiff, these days.
I don't hate Pandora and the classes in 1 are pretty peak actually so I enjoy it as there's just enough nostalgia there to really hook me in.
New players though? I'd seriously consider trying out Borderlands 3 instead. Everything before 3 feels very stiff, these days.
If you want snappy gameplay, I would argue you should skip to 3. Movement is much better in that game.
For the enemies feeling like bullet-sponges, that is actually kind of part of the fun of it. Because once you pop a great gun it feels SO GOOD to start mowing down enemies.
The missions are mostly very basic in the first one. They get better in the sequels but the bones under them are still exactly as you state. They are "go here and collect this thing and bring it here."
The games really live and die by the looter shooter loop they helped create. I am personally a fan of the humor and story as well, but that is definitely stuff that isn't for everyone. It's about getting better loot and creating a build around your loot so you are wrecking mobs.
You start to kill things more quickly as you get better gear/skill tree stuff going on.
BL1 had boring powers and guns that feels like shooting wet cardboard. Also, the world was pretty drab.
BL2 improved on everything and has arguably the best vilain in any FPS.
BL2 improved on everything and has arguably the best vilain in any FPS.
Mission design is improved, but only marginally. It will still feel like questing solo in an MMO from 2010. The main improvement is in the characters you interact with and their writing/dialogue, but I need to stress the STRONG caveat there that it's entirely dependent on whether the humour works for you. Some people love it, some absolutely detest it.
Bullet sponges - mostly yes imo, early on. But enemy variety improves too, so it can feel fresher, and like all ARPGs you're aiming for that endgame build where regular enemies start to melt and it's all about the boss grind.
Movement speed - I haven't played BL1 in such a long time, so never considered this and can't recall how it felt. I feel like it's not been a complaint I've ever had, but I played them in order. And I also love fast characters. There's an assassin class in BL2 that has a great movement ability to help him feel fast and reactive.
Ultimately I think if you're the kind of person that can enjoy ARPGs and the loot grind, then BL is a series worth checking out, but I'd jump in at the latest entry, or maaaaybe BL2. You're not missing out on the story. There really isn't much of one. Same way you wouldn't suggest playing Diablo from the first entry so you understand the story in 4.
2 is better in every way, and if the shooting is a real hangup, 3 (and Wonderlands) is another massive jump.
That is the loop, though I'd argue that's the loop to most non-linear games with NPCs that give you quests. Can't say I ever really liked the gunplay either and never played in co-op so I've never been the biggest fan, but I do enjoy the art style and world and humor/writing so I tend to keep giving it a chance.
Might be misremembering but I think Borderlands 1 was hit by critics and players for a couple of the issues mentioned in the OP even on release: quests being inconsequential to the point of feeling almost vestigial, enemies feeling more like bullet sponges later in the game. Hell, I remember the meme about Borderlands at the time being that you could get to the final boss, park yourself in front of it, and just shoot at it for a few minutes and wait for it to die.
I enjoyed Borderlands 1 quite a bit and you're totally right that no one had really come up with a game like this before and so it felt novel and fresh. But people did notice the problems, I think, it's just that the rest of the package overshadowed the problems for a lot of people.
Yes, it's how the game is structured throughout. That said, the actual missions you get sent on get a lot better farther in the game.
The entire selling point back in the day was
Imagine if Diablo 1 was a shooter with a cool art style
That's what you got
Imagine if Diablo 1 was a shooter with a cool art style
That's what you got
I thought the characters, particularly handsome Jack, were great
The writing in Tales from the Borderlands runs circles around every other game in the franchise.
That's the loop, yeah.
If you don't particularly like the shooting, I get it. I didn't like it either, at the beginning. But then I got a half decent assault rifle that did decent damage and then had a great time with the game.
The changes to assault rifles in number 2 kinda left me bummed so I never really finished that one, but I loved BL1.
If you don't particularly like the shooting, I get it. I didn't like it either, at the beginning. But then I got a half decent assault rifle that did decent damage and then had a great time with the game.
The changes to assault rifles in number 2 kinda left me bummed so I never really finished that one, but I loved BL1.
Ryan Davis was the best lol
(for context, BL2 was written by Anthony Burch)
It's Diablo with Guns
And it's excellent, but you can skip 1 and go right to 2. At least there is a good story.
And it's excellent, but you can skip 1 and go right to 2. At least there is a good story.
Borderlands 2 Easter Egg: Psycho Recites Hamlet
www.youtube.com
The bandit reciting a full Hamlet soliloquy with 1000% earnestness in B2 cemented the franchise as, "You'll always be good in my books." status.
The first game is really fucking hard to get into and its one of those lets play this coop with friends and less of a lets solo this game, cause the grind in the first game IS terrible. It got better in 2 but in 3 its pretty much the best way to play it.
BL1 is pretty bad yeah, BL2 is decent, but gunplay may have aged poorly, it was meh even back then
Yeah, Borderlands 1 is basic as shit compared to it's sequels. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
I wouldn't say the writing in any of the Borderlands is amazing. But what I do appreciate is that it leans 100% into what it's trying to do. I respect that. If you're going to be puerile and silly, go for it.
I'll always enjoy that more than games that in trying to appease all audiences end up a bland, anodyne, overprocessed mush that no one loves.
The shooting/character building/looting aspects make it fun. Like you aren't literally walking off to fetch something. You go do FPS gameplay with guns with different properties and stats, with the checklist as your motivation but ultimately the gameplay itself is the reward (plus loot/XP to allow you to improve and see more shooter gameplay).
It's a fairly basic concept, but it was novel in 2009.
It was the first of the genre that did the Looter Shooter thing and be successful at it. An offline MMO that revolves around the FPS style of gameplay. Now it may be a dime a dozen, but back then it was refreshing.
A friend and me both played Borderlands and Borderlands 2 and took a dive into Destiny 1 and later Destiny 2 because of how we enjoyed the game mechanics.
A friend and me both played Borderlands and Borderlands 2 and took a dive into Destiny 1 and later Destiny 2 because of how we enjoyed the game mechanics.
You start getting missions with more of a point as you go, but BL1 went through a serious overhaul mid development and the resulting "plot" is the cobbled together remnants of a larger plan that got carved up and dragged over the finish line. There's some good dry humor here and there, but the series didn't really figure out its tone until Mikey Neumann got to cut loose with the web marketing, and that tone didn't really bleed back into the game until the Knoxx DLC, which is great.
The gunplay can feel good—and guns feeling worse across the board was an incredibly common complaint about BL2 at the time, seeing the opposite here is wild—but it varies wildly by gun. Anything that actually has worthwhile accuracy or recoil reduction will probably last you twenty levels.
The gunplay can feel good—and guns feeling worse across the board was an incredibly common complaint about BL2 at the time, seeing the opposite here is wild—but it varies wildly by gun. Anything that actually has worthwhile accuracy or recoil reduction will probably last you twenty levels.
On the bright side, at least Blackpuppy is getting a taste of Borderlands with the newer Game of the Year Enhanced edition. I could not recommend anyone to delve backwards into the original version, which bizarrely lacked essential features like a minimap.
Things die way faster when you have combinations of effects and abilities going off but if you're looking for that purely through gunplay then few weapons will offer that.
I feel like Borderlands 1 doesn't lean 100% into it, and that's why it's the only one I'm (just barelly) able to stomach.
OP
OP