TLDR: I loved Borderlands two and I’m going to start a replay with a different character, which i almost never do.
I had fun with Borderlands 1, but was basically pushing through by the end trying not to fall asleep.
B2, on the other hand, I was very engaged in the entire ride through, although it seemed well balanced and the game ended when it should, even including the side quests.
Improvements -
The writing! I think I heard a reference to Anthony Burch writing in Borderlands 2 from hey ass. Whatcha playing episode, and he got some award?
Experience tiers, which I didn’t initially like because it wasn’t explained, but basically the quests are more important than farming enemies for experience, so you get much more engaged with the stories because you’re following quests instead of trying to kill enough boring enemies in the same way to get high enough of a level to destroy future enemies.
In any case, the writing that I did like in Borderlands 1, was perfect in 2. Not too long, always funny, always engaging, every character very well defined, which brings me to my next point:
The voice acting was hilarious and perfect, again, very well defined and idiosyncratic for every character, just so much fun to listen to. Every time handsome Jack pops up. It’s fun to listen to him be an a******.
The quests were so much more satisfying. At the end of the first game, I was basically just following marker to marker without caring what anybody said or what was written down just tapping through to the next wavepoint until the quest was finished.
In Borderlands 2, Even if I accidentally clicked through the introduction to the quest, I would go back and make sure to read because I know that the paragraph introducing and explaining the quest is funny and that the quest is going to be rescuing lab experiments and I have to find a particular valve or putting together a treasure map with a weird lure, rather than just find the bigger bad guy punch him to death.
Driving was huge - I was not into driving in Borderlands 1 and got really bored and irritated every time I had to drive. I felt like the aiming system was complete dog s***, and it was just not very fun to drive around in general, like the handling was terrible.
I loved driving around the Borderlands too and was actively bummed out whenever. I didn’t get a car, but it made perfect sense and they used the car just enough so that the game wasn’t too easy. But you could still boost and race around however you wanted, or chase down a beer van. So much fun driving, such a huge improvement from the first game.
Larger levels with more interesting landscapes in them, each level felt much more unique than the entire The first game to me, like each area had its own style to a degree I hadn’t seen before.
I can’t remember a single place from the first game, but I’m going to remember the different style of the underground bug. Bunker and the dust and all these other places that had an impact on the personality of the game.
Lastly, art is more efficient, not as many bold lines emphasizing the comic book quality, which is carried through more by the personality of the game instead of by the specific art.
Can you explain what’s wrong with bl3 without spoiling anything?
Personally, I found the villains to be obnoxious. Handsome Jack had that great “love to hate” quality, whereas BL3’s villains are just annoying. Overall I just found the story and writing in general to be not nearly as entertaining.
Dang, That’s exactly what I liked about BL2 and didn’t like about BL1. Handsome Jack, definitely nailed it, like I cannot imagine the writing, characterization, anything being better than that specific plot in the game it was in.
I think they recovered from this a bit in the new Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands game. Will Arnett does a great job as the BBEG. Who would have thought a disgraced member of the magician’s alliance would make such a good dark wizard?
I ran into a number of bugs in that game and got frustrated (I can’t recall what exactly, anymore). It’s the only one where I didn’t roll another character to play though again in a different playstyle. It’s great they did it mostly remotely during covid, but that they couldn’t be arsed to fix the bugs left a bad taste in my mouth.
I loved the commentary on Social Media culture and its ability to mindwipe people into mindless followers who don’t question what they are told.
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Yes. Bad, unfunny, annoying writing. Gun options are WAY WAY overcomplicated, and yet the affects do not often feel terribly varied. Stupid plot.
Man, I remember hearing about borderlands 3 bragging about how many guns they had when the game was coming out, and I was like oh man what a bad idea.
So it’s gratifying to know that it was a terrible idea, because they already had too many guns with too little differentiation.
And the writing is so good in two, and the delivery is so good in two, that if they are not matching that, then they shouldn’t try to make another sequel.
That’s sad. Not having played BL3 yet, it’ll be hilarious if I play it and disagree with everybody, although obviously I doubt it.
To me BL3 was waaaaaay overbloated with content, but lacking in writing. There is so much to do, but I didnt care about most of it. Some of the DLCs are decent
Dang. Thanks the writing on 2 really changed m mind on the whole series, I was going to give it a 15-minute check, but then it hooked me and then I started paying attention and realized the writing was phenomenal.
I don’t think too much blame can be attributed to the production team for writing. Specifically, I think that’s a very mercurial recipe
In my experience BL2 is the peak of the series because the writing is so good. Pre-Sequel, BL3 have some improved gameplay mechanics but the writing is so bad in comparison that they are forgettable. BL2 is top tier.
Dang, That’s interesting, because I couldn’t imagine better gameplay mechanic, but I know that better writing is impossible without lightning in a bottle.
The writing really was at the top of my list because it blew me away.
And I want to specifically mention the voice actors as well, they f****** killed this game.
Thanks, I appreciate it
The gameplay stuff (iirc) was pretty trivial things like better storage of guns, etc. Really nothing big. Since you’re so into BL2 I want to second what others said about the DLC - all of them are worth your time I believe but Torgue is fantastic and save Tiny Tina for last.
That’s great to hear. I’ll take a break because I went through one and two within 10 days or so, but I’m definitely going to bear this in mind when I regain the gusto.
Thanks.