Name: New Tales from the Borderlands
Item: New Tales from the Borderlands
Rating: 7
Author: robiu013

NOTE: I played it on PS5, but somehow mistakenly ended up in the PS4 version of the game. I assume they are mostly the same game, but the PS5 version runs better??

Borderlands was always that one franchise that I loved for it's world, characters and humor, but that I also struggled to complete a full mainline game from, because I'm just not the biggest fan of first person shooters, lenghty health bar boss battles and open world fetch questing.

As such the original [Tales from the Borderlands](https://whatoplay.com/switch/tales-from-the-borderlands/) felt like a massive gift to me as it involved none of the things I struggled with and all that stuff I loved. You can imagine my excitement when out of the blue just a month or two ago the announcement dropped that a sequel is coming in the very near future.

I guess my excitement came with a bit of a grain of salt. You see Anthony Burch is no longer involved with Borderlands and he's kinda the guy who catapulted Borderlands 2 and Tales From the Borderlands to the top of Borderlands story and lore with his writing and ideas (dunno, I didn't really like Borderlands 3 that much, gameplay was still great, but the humor felt like a hit or miss copycat act to me).

Anyway, how well does New Tales From the Borderlands hold up? I'd say pretty good. It definitely stands in the shadow of it's predecessor in some aspects, but overall I enjoyed it.

The tale told is once again that of a struggling bunch of losers:

We have **Anu (Anuradha Dhar)** who left her home planet in search for a better life by getting hired by Atlas (the company the previous game's protagonist Rhys Strongfork has taken over, sorry if spoiler but this is made known right at the beginning of the game, if you hadn't known yet), but day 1 she gets fired for providing a flawed pitch that causes the company (or rather it's boss) quite a bit of damage. When she sees her home planet getting invaded yet again, she ditches Atlas' space station to return home.

Our second playable character is her brother **Octavio Wallace-Dhar**, who is hustling back on their home planet of Promethea. He wants to be a popular entrepeneur but has little to show for it.

Last but not least we get to know Fran Miscovtz, the owner of Fran's Froyos, a struggling business, that was just damaged in a previous invasion. Fran is wheel-chair bound and under constant supervision by her sponsor-bot tamagotchi to keep control over her angry outbursts.

The main trio converges with a cast of recurring characters like LOU13 a friendly assassin robot, who occasionally gets help from Octavio, Brock a loudmoth gun on legs and Tediore employee - a company owned by the games' antagonist Susan Coldwell. The latter mentioned CEO of Tediore is out and about trying to harness the power Vault artifacts to give herself an advantage in the market, which ultimately kickstarts the game's conflict. I guess I shouldn't get too much into spoilers.

My review of the story is: it's good. The main cast is well fleshed out and their chemistry works. I was intially taken aback by the trailer, as I didn't quite find their presentation in it too charming. Heck, Octavio is giving me that AI Tik Tok rapper vibes. But immersed in the story they grow on you. I suppose the game hits a lot of themes similar to it's predecessor: a rag tag team of misfits, edgy humor, bloodshed in spite of none of the main characters being a conventional fighter. Yeah, I'll admit: It was good, but in some ways I just wasn't impressed by it. Anu's whole pacifist motivation was a bit cliched and her whole bridging the past with her brother was kinda fluffy and too much "tell, don't show" for my personal taste. Oh well, but I did really like Fran being an anger-managed wheel-chair bound berserker and LOU13 for his sophisticated robotic "autism".

Gameplay didn't improve or change that much. To be fair, it didn't exactly have to. It's still mostly a collection of interactable cutscenes. When the action gets going there are Quicktime events for dodging attacks, punching back, slapping objects, hacking, etc. Ocassionally the game goes into explorer mode and you need to piece the puzzles together to get the plot going. Tbh, puzzles are relatively straight forward and the QTEs might be easier than in the first game. If you are looking for a challenge, this isn't a game for you.

One of the cooler minigames is collecting Vaultlanders. Vaultlanders are like Amiibos - essentially collectable figures, which you collect through a fighting game emulation. A Vaultlander superfan will arrive and challenge you to a duel Yu-Gi-Oh! style. The game plays like a QTE-based fighting game. Tbh, the game mechanics don't make much sense outside the game. Only logical explanation is you are playing pretend with collectible figures. I guess it's trying to emulate the humor of the finger gun section from the first game, but the cool part about it is they get to add cameos from characters of the older games in a way unintrusive to the main story.

Actual cameos and throwbacks to the previous game or mainline Borderlands series are scarce. Some characters return, but with the exception of Rhys (who also isn't a central figure in the story) their roles are really brief.

Much like the predecessor the game features a couple of licensed tracks. One per chapter. It gets bonus points from me for featuring The Armed's Bad Selection at the beginning of its final chapter.

Overall it's a good addition to the Borderlands universe, but it seems optional and I thought story-wise the predecessor was stronger.

NOTE: I played it on PS5, but somehow mistakenly ended up in the PS4 version of the game. I assume they are mostly the same game, but the PS5 version runs better??Borderlands was always that one franchise that I loved for it's world, characters and humor, but that I also struggled to complete a full mainline game from, because I'm just not the biggest fan of first person shooters, lenghty health bar boss battles and open world fetch questing.As such the original <a target="_blank" rel="ugc" href="https://whatoplay.com/switch/tales-from-the-borderlands/">Tales from the Borderlands</a> felt like a massive gift to me as it involved none of the things I struggled with and all that stuff I loved. You can imagine my excitement when out of the blue just a month or two ago the announcement dropped that a sequel is coming in the very near future. I guess my excitement came with a bit of a grain of salt. You see Anthony Burch is no longer involved with Borderlands and he's kinda the guy who catapulted Borderlands 2 and Tales From the Borderlands to the top of Borderlands story and lore with his writing and ideas (dunno, I didn't really like Borderlands 3 that much, gameplay was still great, but the humor felt like a hit or miss copycat act to me).Anyway, how well does New Tales From the Borderlands hold up? I'd say pretty good. It definitely stands in the shadow of it's predecessor in some aspects, but overall I enjoyed it.The tale told is once again that of a struggling bunch of losers: We have Anu (Anuradha Dhar) who left her home planet in search for a better life by getting hired by Atlas (the company the previous game's protagonist Rhys Strongfork has taken over, sorry if spoiler but this is made known right at the beginning of the game, if you hadn't known yet), but day 1 she gets fired for providing a flawed pitch that causes the company (or rather it's boss) quite a bit of damage. When she sees her home planet getting invaded yet again, she ditches Atlas' space station to return home.Our second playable character is her brother Octavio Wallace-Dhar, who is hustling back on their home planet of Promethea. He wants to be a popular entrepeneur but has little to show for it.Last but not least we get to know Fran Miscovtz, the owner of Fran's Froyos, a struggling business, that was just damaged in a previous invasion. Fran is wheel-chair bound and under constant supervision by her sponsor-bot tamagotchi to keep control over her angry outbursts.The main trio converges with a cast of recurring characters like LOU13 a friendly assassin robot, who occasionally gets help from Octavio, Brock a loudmoth gun on legs and Tediore employee - a company owned by the games' antagonist Susan Coldwell. The latter mentioned CEO of Tediore is out and about trying to harness the power Vault artifacts to give herself an advantage in the market, which ultimately kickstarts the game's conflict. I guess I shouldn't get too much into spoilers.My review of the story is: it's good. The main cast is well fleshed out and their chemistry works. I was intially taken aback by the trailer, as I didn't quite find their presentation in it too charming. Heck, Octavio is giving me that AI Tik Tok rapper vibes. But immersed in the story they grow on you. I suppose the game hits a lot of themes similar to it's predecessor: a rag tag team of misfits, edgy humor, bloodshed in spite of none of the main characters being a conventional fighter. Yeah, I'll admit: It was good, but in some ways I just wasn't impressed by it. Anu's whole pacifist motivation was a bit cliched and her whole bridging the past with her brother was kinda fluffy and too much "tell, don't show" for my personal taste. Oh well, but I did really like Fran being an anger-managed wheel-chair bound berserker and LOU13 for his sophisticated robotic "autism". Gameplay didn't improve or change that much. To be fair, it didn't exactly have to. It's still mostly a collection of interactable cutscenes. When the action gets going there are Quicktime events for dodging attacks, punching back, slapping objects, hacking, etc. Ocassionally the game goes into explorer mode and you need to piece the puzzles together to get the plot going. Tbh, puzzles are relatively straight forward and the QTEs might be easier than in the first game. If you are looking for a challenge, this isn't a game for you. One of the cooler minigames is collecting Vaultlanders. Vaultlanders are like Amiibos - essentially collectable figures, which you collect through a fighting game emulation. A Vaultlander superfan will arrive and challenge you to a duel Yu-Gi-Oh! style. The game plays like a QTE-based fighting game. Tbh, the game mechanics don't make much sense outside the game. Only logical explanation is you are playing pretend with collectible figures. I guess it's trying to emulate the humor of the finger gun section from the first game, but the cool part about it is they get to add cameos from characters of the older games in a way unintrusive to the main story.Actual cameos and throwbacks to the previous game or mainline Borderlands series are scarce. Some characters return, but with the exception of Rhys (who also isn't a central figure in the story) their roles are really brief.Much like the predecessor the game features a couple of licensed tracks. One per chapter. It gets bonus points from me for featuring The Armed's Bad Selection at the beginning of its final chapter.Overall it's a good addition to the Borderlands universe, but it seems optional and I thought story-wise the predecessor was stronger.

New Tales from the Borderlands

New Tales from the Borderlands

Player Score

robiu013

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