Alright then let’s get this out of the way right now, do you enjoy Borderlands games? Then Tiny Tina’s Wonderland is for you. Do you not enjoy Borderlands games? Then this title will not change your mind, even if you’re a big old Dungeons and Dragons fan. I AM a big Borderlands fan so I can honestly say this is exactly what I was after, more of the same. The Borderlands usual fair of comedy, RPG elements and a bazillion guns!
While this might be more of the same to Borderlands overall, there are still a few changes better fitting the story being told by fan favourite lunatic and pyromaniac Tiny Tina. The wonderland is a colourful mess of lights, explosions and loud yelling voices coming from all directions. Sure, this all sounds like stuff we would have seen in previous series outings but this time around it’s been ramped up to the nth degree… to the point of being annoying roughly an hour in. I never thought I’d say this but once in a while I wish Andy Samberg would shut the hell up! This leads me to talk about something that is great though. The casting, my god the choices of voice actors are nothing short of perfect, with a particular point going towards having Will Arnett voice main villain The Dragon Lord. Not since Borderlands 3 has there been an antagonist that I’ve enjoyed hearing from this much!
Of course the Borderlands games are probably most famous for their masses of guns, randomly meshing together bits and pieces to create near on limitless new guns on the fly. Tiny Tina’s Wonderland is no exception with the same mish-mash weapons showing up, but now with a fun fantasy twist such as shotguns being mini cauldron holding pipes or sniper rifles having crossbow elements to them. These are really just skins since all weapons still operate as you’d expect, with the only big change being the addition of melee weapons like swords, axes and knives that replace the bog standard melee attack of previous games of the series. This seems cool, but just feels like you have yet another bit of loot to be chasing and sorting when the games have already been saturated with loot to the point that you’re playing a backpack simulator as you sift through all your gains post fight and sell or drop whatever doesn’t immediately get you weak at the knees.
One thing I have absolutely adored in my time with the game is the Wonderland Overworld, rather than being a open world or interconnected areas, the Wonderland is played on a top down “game board” apparently constructed from scratch by Tina herself using bottle caps, cheese puffs and drawing pins. This makes moving between missions’ hilarious fun as your chibi character runs about between dungeons and quest icons. In a Pokémon like touch if you wander into long grass, you can potentially be jumped by foes who drag you into an enemy encounter in an isolated cave area where winning will net you a decent stack of loot, but if you can’t be bothered… you can just sucker punch said baddie in the overworld to avoid the battle altogether. Amazing.
So overall, is Tiny Tina’s Wonderland, well, wonderful? At first you better believe it, but after a while the repetition will begin to wear on you. Collecting loot loses its magic after a while and with the new “loot score” mechanic that alters the loot you receive based on rolling a D20… it’s very easy to become frustrated when you’re hitting higher levels and still getting common weapons and wards. Like I said from the start, if you liked Borderlands then by all means come back for more with a fresh coat of paint, but if you haven’t played one before, this wouldn’t be the best place to start.