Bynski Borderlands 4 Review

I'm going to look past the optimisation issues on release. Not because they're not worth noting (we all know how important first impressions are, just look at the user reviews on MetaCritic), but because I think the devs did an excellent job patching them incredibly swiftly. There were frame rate and graphical issues that were quite noticeable, but again, they are a thing of the past now. I am a huge fan of Borderlands 1, 2, and the Pre-Sequel, but Borderlands 3 just wasn't for me. That said, now that I've played and loved Borderlands 4, it has made me want to give 3 another shot. I think it's fair to say that with 3, they took quite the risk in changing the visual and movement style. Both of which i wasn't a fan of. But with 4, they made more significant changes (e.g. the open world of it all) and doubled down on keeping the changes from 3. Lets be honest, visually, 3 and 4 aren't too different, but why does 4 feel so much better than 3? My personal conclusion is that maybe I wasn't ready for Borderlands to change when 3 came out. But with 4, the team have essentially said "Borderlands is changing, and you're going to have to deal with it". If you accept the change, you'll have an incredibly good time on this game. You will, however, need to accept that 1, 2, and the Pre-Sequel are a part of an old era, and if you want to get that old feeling back, you'll just have to replay the oldies. I was quite excited to see that the || first primordial guardian fight involved the hooks, which added a nice variety in the boss fight. I thought maybe the rest of the game would involve some creative splashes. That's until I realised they're just repeating the hook thing, but I still thought it was cool. Throws a spanner in the works. || The style of Borderlands really suits the new open world element. Its a shame that they limited themselves to || the 4 basic biomes (Snow, Desert, Grass, City) then mingled with outer space a little, || but I think they nailed what they accomplished so no complaints. I'm a huge fan of mixing weapon manufacturer parts, especially when ||they use parts from dissolved manufacturers like Atlas and Hyperion||. It is unclear how these weapons came to light in the first place in terms of lore though. Why would an Order troop, one who is designed to maintain order and eradicate chaos, drop and Order weapon with a Ripper and Jakobs attachments on? Surely this is considered contraband? I understand that they just want looting to be cool and available, but it does undercut their message. The trip to ||Elpis was very cool and nostalgic. I love references to previous titles. Its also really cool seeing containers from Elpis amongst other rubble with "SCAV" sprayed along the side. I must admit, I did expect some SCAV weapon attachments to go along side this, but unfortunately there are none. || I'm just going to say it, I do not like the sound design. Its fine for ordinary things like wind and trees and water and whatever, but the sounds that are generated using a wavetable like the vehicles, most Order equipment, the main menu sounds, they all sound crunchy and sort of the same to one another. It bothered me more at the start of my playthrough than now, but I hope they get a different/larger sound team on their next project. One thing I have to mention is Harlowe's dialogue. Oh my goodness. When she's talking to other characters shes totally fine but, the random quips she gets in while you're in battle are top tier cringe, some of them don't even make sense. They're like dad jokes, but they're so bad that they go beyond being bad funny, just bad. ||It all made sense when it was revealed that the Timekeeper was a Primordial Guardian, but I think I'll need to play the game again to understand all all of his motives throughout the story.|| || I quite like the way you increase in vault hunter modes, but I was also quite looking forward to starting again with Harlowe to go up to UVHM 1. Unfortunately, with the inability to start the whole game again with your main character and the ability to start new characters at level 30, there's really no motive at all to do more than one playthrough, especially for someone who is just trying to get all achievements. Don't get me wrong, i will probably do a new save with a new character from level 1 one day in the future, but I have no need to right now.|| All in all, this game was excellent. It is different to what i wanted, but it is still a very good game none the less. The plot isn't amazing, but it does have its very good moments. The class building is fun, the looting, as per, is beyond any other game I've played, and the combat is much much smoother than ever before. It has its quirks, but so does every game. I really really want to give this game a 10, but due to its mid plot and the unfathomably high bar set by its unbeatable sibling, Borderlands 2, it can only get a 9.