Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands Review
Gearbox Software is known for supporting its games post-launch with regular updates and paid expansions, and Borderlands 2 is no exception to that rule. In 2013, Gearbox Software released the popular Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep expansion for Borderlands 2, giving the looter-shooter a fantasy makeover in the form of a Dungeons & Dragons parody game hosted by the fan-favorite character Tiny Tina. Assault on Dragon Keep seems to be popular enough to justify Gearbox exploring the concept further into a full game, while Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands takes that foundation and makes a proper standalone experience out of it. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands tells a story that takes place primarily in the fictional world of Wonderlands, which exists in the Borderlands version of D&D, Bunkers and Badasses. Instead of taking on the role of a Vault Hunter like previous Borderlands games, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands players instead play as The Fatemaker, a completely original, custom-made character that they are free to customize as they wish. . Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands character customization is one of the main ways in which it differs from other games in the Borderlands series, where Gearbox gives players a lot of work to make their character look exactly right. what they want. Players unlock more customization options later in the game to further refine their look, but what’s there at the start is plenty and helps give Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands a personal touch that relationship.
This freedom to customize a person’s character goes beyond their appearance. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands has six classes to choose from, all with their own skill trees and unique abilities. Later in the game, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands lets players choose a second class as well, further deepening the build options and giving players more agency over their character than before. Once players have created their character and chosen their class, they are set loose in Wonderlands, a fantasy world that is a breath of fresh air after many games set on the desert planet, Pandora. Gearbox has created a fun world with many visually unique areas that make it interesting to see exactly where Tina’s imagination will take players. One area looks like something out of a fairytale book, with players battling trolls and goblins, while the next might be a beach area patrolled by land-based shark monsters. Unfortunately, interacting with these enemies and exploring the levels can be monotonous at times, even with some variety to see. Battles in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands are the exact same ones players will remember from Borderlands, except they now have spells to use instead of grenades. Each area boils down to shooting all nearby bullet-sponge enemies and then moving on to the next, without the need for strategy, unless one is playing on higher difficulties or battling more challenging endgame content.
It doesn’t take long to see all that Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands has to offer from a combat point of view, and unfortunately, repetitive combat isn’t the only bad habit it carries over from Borderlands. One of the hallmarks of Borderlands is the presence of an absurd number of guns that players loot during their adventure, and the same is true for the weapons in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. The problem is that most of this loot is completely worthless, really worth picking up to sell to a vendor later. The gearbox once again went for a quantity over quality approach with loot, which meant spending a lot of time managing one’s inventory and making trips to vending machines. The unfortunate thing is that there are a couple of seemingly obvious ways to improve this aspect of the experience. One is to reduce the loot of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands so that players can get less items, but at least it will be more useful every time something is found. Another is to make sure valuable inventory slots aren’t wasted on things like cosmetics. With cosmetics, players need to pick them up, then go to their inventory and click on them to pick them up. Players can’t sell unclaimed cosmetics, so it’s a wonder they aren’t automatically redeemed when collected. It’s a small thing, but it adds up to more time wasted in the inventory menu. It doesn’t help that there are a lot of glitches floating around in the inventory, some of which seem to be carried over from Borderlands 3. It’s not uncommon for items to be marked as unsellable even though they can be sold, and sometimes the pictures for in one’s inventory items will simply disappear.
Inventory isn’t the only thing bugged in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. Players will experience all kinds of problems when playing the game, such as lag, freezing, quest list not appearing, and Chaos Chamber loot disappearing from the ground. There is a particularly annoying problem when it comes to Shift Servers, as the game will sometimes struggle to connect or stay connected to servers, which translates into long periods of freezing and stuttering until it resolves itself. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands had serious technical problems, but it fixed some of the issues present in Borderlands 3 at least. As some may recall, Borderlands 3 had bad lag when playing split-screen, with the game stuttering every time the other player opened their menu. This problem does not exist when playing Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands split-screen. Split-screen, in general, has been improved, with Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands players also having a choice between horizontal and vertical split-screen. So technical issues and monotonous combat aside, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands provides a looter-shooter adventure that’s fun to play with friends and often entertaining throughout. There are plenty of funny jokes in the game for those who enjoy Borderlands-style humor and all the actors deliver great performances, including the voice cast of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands featuring Ashly Burch as Tiny Tina, joined by Hollywood talent Will Arnett , Andy Samberg, and Wanda Sykes voicing the rest of the main characters.
That said, Tina’s over-the-top personality is definitely better in smaller doses, as players will probably get tired of hearing her say, “RNG ain’t got nothing on you” and such. similar line every time they pick up one of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands lucky dice collectibles. Otherwise, the main story has fun set pieces and some emotional moments that really make it worth playing for Borderlands fans. It’s also better paced than Borderlands 3, because it’s shorter and less bloated with filler. There’s a lot to like about the main story of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, but the side quests really go above and beyond. The side quests in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands are mostly fun, with one of the most entertaining mixes of hillbilly Smurf creatures, zombie apocalypse tropes, and Star Wars to good effect. After beating the side quests and main story, players will probably want to turn their attention to the Chaos Chamber. The Chaos Chamber in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands serves as endgame content, where players kill a room of enemies, choose a curse to make the next room more difficult, and try to make it to the end to get the best loot possible. The combat of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands isn’t really her strong suit, but the Chaos Chamber curses help to make it more interesting than what players experience in story content, so there’s still some fun to be had here. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is an easy recommendation for fans of Borderlands and D&D, but those who have had their fill of the franchise may tire of the repetitive battles and constant looting of useless items. Technical problems are the biggest issue, so hopefully, Gearbox Software has released new updates to Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands to address them soon. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. Today Technology was provided the PS5 code for this review.