Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands Review
Written by: Vic Brubacher III aka MrNeverChillin
Introduction
Spoiler Alert! One of the biggest surprise announcements from 2021 had to have been Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. Watching the initial trailer I was like wait, what is this? And by the end, I knew exactly what it was and became instantly excited for this game. Fast forward until the next year on March 24, we got Tiny Tina’s in our hands. Gearbox Software brought us a game from the Borderlands universe where you are playing an in-game tabletop that is being run by the dungeon master, Tiny Tina herself. Valentine, Frette and the player (you) are playing Bunkers & Badasses. You watch as they team up with Queen Butt Stallion as they take down the Dragon Lord. The game truly begins when you take over as the fatemaker, playing through the starting area with Butt Stallion as your guide. You are eventually stopped by a gang of skeletons who are trying to bring back the Dragon Lord. After defeating them, Dragon Lord awakens but vanishes. Once back at Brighthoof, the city is under attack. Butt Stallion sends you to retrieve the Sword of Souls. You must charge it up with the soul of the Dragon Lord then return to town to put it in the fountain. Queen Butt Stallion tries to Knight you for your valiant effort but Drago Lord appears, takes the sword and slices Butt Stallion’s head off then leaves with it. Now you are tasked to cross the ocean to take down the Dragon Lord…
Gameplay
Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands (TTW) is a first person action adventure RPG that can be played either solo or co-op with up to 3 friends. You also have an option to play it locally on split screen with one other friend. During your play through you play on a board like map with big headed characters as you traverse the Overworld completing questions and engaging in random encounters. You enter dungeons or new areas from the Overworld which is where most of the real content takes place. But before all of this begins, you must create your character. One of the most detailed character creations I have used. Really felt like I was creating a Dungeons & Dragons character. You get to choose from one of 6 classes which you later get to choose a 2nd class to blend your skills with. During your journey to kill the Dragon Lord, you will have access to a large arsenal whether its ranged or melee weapons that are procedurally generated. The gunplay felt incredible and was always fun playing with the goofy weapons. And for those that have played Borderlands, you know you usually have grenades. Not in this game, they are replaced with spells which can be insanely powerful.
Mechanics/Controls
The controls felt like your familiar FPS controls that were easy and simple to learn. The game sets you up by having you play through a 40 minute tutorial before you could even team up with your friends which was a first for this series. Throughout your play through you will complete missions and kill A LOT of enemies which will grant you XP as you work towards the level cap of 40. You can also spend your in game currency to upgrade your storage and ammo capacity which has been a mainstay in the Borderlands franchise. Also in the city you have other machines such as the missed loot machine that collects purple or better gear that you may have missed. There is also the closet machine where you could change you and your banners appearance with customizations that you would collect while traversing the world. There are also the classic vending machines throughout the game where you can buy and sell loot.
Graphics/Sounds
One of these days I will upgrade my GTX 970 because I know this game could have looked better. Trailers and other gameplays looked phenomenal on Youtube when I watched them in 4k. The world and characters were all really detailed and masterfully done especially in the series iconic art style, cel-shade. The voice acting I personally thought was A1 especially with the returning voice of Claptrap, Jim Foronda. The environmental and weapons sounds were solid and met all of my expectations coming from this scifi looter shooter.
Replay Value
Tiny Tina’s does not have much for you once you beat the game other than playing the infinite and continuous Chaos Chamber where you can work on collecting better gear. You can also work on maxing out your character with myth ranks that you get after level 40. Other than that, you could go back and collect all D20 dies and the scrolls to provide even more lore to the amazing story. And one thing I did not know about until I beat the game was the fact that there are secret raid bosses you could fight and conquer.
Verdict
This had to be one of the best games I have played this year (2022). 2K Games has provided me with a gem I did not know I needed or wanted especially coming off of the lackluster Borderlands 3. This is by far the best “Borderlands” game yet. The comedy and seriousness had a tremendous blend and came at the right times. The unique and fun guns such as the rocket launcher that shot hearts, to the sniper that could turn into a rocket launcher, to the guns you threw to reload that exploded like grenades. Not much wrong or bad with this game other than a few bugs early that were fixed eventually such as items not showing up in the inventory menus or the constant disconnects and restarts when playing cooperatively. In the end, this is a must play game and needs to be played by everyone and I give Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands an 8 out of 10 with little to improve on.
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