hmmm this is a bit of a loaded question!! i’m no game critic but if i had to give this game a score out of 10 i’d give it a 6.5. there were a lot things i loved about it and a lot of things i hated. things i loved: 1) the vaultlanders action figure combat mechanic and every time the badass superfan showed up. so silly and fun! 2) stapleface!!! worlds first ever lesbian psycho!! she and anu should’ve kissed and gearbox are cowards for killing her. 3) FRAN!!!! she’s pansexual. she’s jewish. she accidentally murdered dozens of people with her hoverchair one time. her struggle with her anger issues felt so realistic, and her battle to overcome them felt well-won. 3) L0U13 is… to borrow a phrase from 2014 tumblr… my baby murder boy. 4) on that note i really enjoyed all the voice acting and mocap performances in this game! 5) i was really pleased to learn that even though gearbox made this game, they brought on former telltale employees to help structure the branching narrative. i found myself genuinely struggling to make a choice in the time provided.more than one time! ok now onto things i hated… 1) the runtime and pacing. once the action ramps up it gets better but the first several chapters are a bit of a slog. i think i would’ve preferred if they did weekly episode releases like the first tftbl. 2) the absence of established characters except for rhys and [SPOILER ALERT] fiona! i get that they were trying to make this game more accessible to new players but i really wish we’d gotten to see more of our old friends outside of vaultlander figures. ALSO SIDE NOTE I HATE YOU GEARBOX FOR NOT ADDING A GAIGE VAULTLANDER TO THE GAME!!!!!!!! 3) the writing felt cloying and heavy-handed at times, and though there were a few lines that got a laugh out of me, i thought most of the jokes didn’t land. i was surprised to see that anthony burch worked on this game because i loved his writing in bl2… bro what happened? 4) UNNECESSARY CHARACTER DEATHS! spoiler alert again but there is absolutely no reason why anu shouldn’t have been able to save stapleface with the anahatium shard. she healed octavio’s leg a few minutes ago and suddenly the shard won’t work when stapleface gets shot?? seems lesbophobic to me! and as if that wasn’t painful enough they had to kill L0U13 in the saddest way possible. him singing “daisy, daisy” right before the grenades went off broke me. 5) janky gameplay and art style. i could tell they were going for a style more similar to bl3, but i hated it. the game froze up a few times. 6) too many annoying robots/AIs. timm-3 felt like a claptrap redux, i get that sponsor-bot was supposed to be annoying but i still hated him, brock was just exhausting, and i want to strangle foop to death with my bare hands.
all in all i enjoyed new tftbl but probably won’t play it again for a while. if gaige isn’t in the next borderlands game i might go postal