Recent reviews by Auraven

pretty good fun actually, also actually pretty challenging which I wasn't expecting

it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ glorious

I really like this game, maybe love but with some asterisks.

Huge casual fan of Borderlands 1 and 2 (casual in the sense that I love the writing, gameplay, looting, graphics, and co-op compatability but don't care about grinding for god-rolls, perfect character builds, multiple toons, or guzzling deep deep YouTube lore videos every night). This game delivers on most of the expectations I have for the series but there are flaws. Just to preface why I like the games and what i do and don't care about when it comes to a Borderlands type game. If you are hardcore and grind boss kills every day in BL games, I'm not gonna share the same expectations, demands, and opinions. Jussayin.

The gameplay is crisp. Where Borderlands 2 and the PreSequel lacked a visceral and in-your-face weight and immersive feeling to shooting guns, Borderlands 3 blasts it to pieces. Guns feel way more snappy and hefty like actually powerful firearms, perhaps even a bit too much at times but I enjoy the exaggerated explosive sound and feel of just about any gun in the game. The only negative in this aspect is the weapon brands have been further relegated to specific roles and functions, in some ways that may make people forever hate some brands and love others. As an example, Maliwan weapons are largely the same in function from BL2 but now have to charge up for up to a second or two before firing, which I dislike. I will only use Maliwan weapons with short spool-up times now. But Dahl's infamous Borderlands 2 woes bc of the questionable ADS burst mode for all guns and full auto for hip fire has been repaired by having most Dahl Weapons in Borderlands 3 feature two fire modes with a hard toggle rather than an ADS toggle -- and it isn't always for burst fire! Now I love Dahl Weapons whereas I avoided them in BL2, especially snipers.
There are plenty of guns though, so even if certain vendors now repel you greatly, there will definitely be a brand that has grown in a way that greatly pleases your style. Jakobs, Vladof, Dahl, and Torgue have all become exeptionally exciting to make up for brands that I no longer like.

Borderlands 3s budget certainly shows in the weapon pool. Almost every gun feels interesting and exciting. It can be overwhelming after a while where realizing how many weapons you have to try before you've seen them all, but I think that pleases a simple minded gamer like myself.

There are almost too many Legendary weapons and during special events, it can be a little overwhelming and make you feel desensitized concerning the viability of Epic tier guns as you can easily have a full 4 weapon loadout of legendary guns in no time while I was lucky to GET just two or so in BL2 from my experience.

The graphics are fantastic, and after some optimization, run reasonably well on modern mid range GPUs. I won't gush for too long on that.

The cooperation system is fantastic. You can either okay with shared loot with co-op players and have your levels as-is or you can use cooperation mode which isntances all loot and levels in your game. This means that going back and playing with a newer player allows you to fight enemies and earn loot at the same level difference as the host-- so your gameplay experience will be balanced and not out of wack if you aren't at the same part of the story or level! It's awesome and solves the biggest issue I had with Borderlands games in the past-- being forced to start a new toon just to have a fair time with a new friend starting up. It was never fun being overleveled and crushing everything in my partners path, leaving him feeling slightly robbed of actually playing the game fairly and providing me with trash XP. Now, I can have my level scaled so I'm just as challenged as the host, and I will also get something out of the experience with enemies scaled to my level. Awesome system and makes the game 30 times easier to recommend to friends for co-op play!

I could talk about a lot more but to avoid going too overboard, I'll talk about the one biiiiig negative, and one extra negative to keep in mind.

I can't comment on endgame just yet, but I wasn't ever that into Borderlands endgame grinding so that's somewhere I can't comment, at least yet. A lot of more hardcore endgame grinders are complaining about how worth it is to play and how challenging it is. It may or may not even be better or worse for someone with my interests. Will comment if it changes my overall opinion.

Major negative: The writing is weak. Not only is it weak, but the few jokes it does throw at you are mostly not that funny. It's a shame since BL2 got a lot of credit for it's exeptional writing, which I think helped raise it up as a classic despite it's various gameplay weaknesses. BL3 traded better guns, gameplay, and graphics in exchange for cheaper voice acting and lower-quality dialogue and humor. Characters are not as charming or likeable as past games, which is a shame. Some are downright annoying, such as the infamous Ava, who ends up being a major component of the base games story. I would say spoilers, but you should know what you're getting in this case to soften the blow of disappointment.
There are some funny jokes that work, some funny voice acting and decently voiced characters. While I hate that Rhys's role was not reprised by Troy Baker, Noctis's voice actor from FFXV did a decent job in his stead. Clap Trap is no longer charming or funny, his old Voice Actor added a lot of personality to the character that is no longer present and has left Clap Trap an irritating, sassy, repulsive shell of his former self.
It's truly a shame, and I hope that Gearbox can look towards BL2s original writing staff for future inspiration. A majority of the writing of BL2 was due to the prodigal Anthony Burch, brother of the hilarious voice actor if Tiny Tina, Ashley Burch. It's odd to not have him around but still have her reprising her role.
I firmly believe that convincing him to return to write for future DLCs and/or full games will save this aspect of the game, though it's a shame the base game will never recover from the severe lack of cleverness in it's storytelling and dialogue. Better luck next time.

The world variety is also...ironically lacking?? One would have thought additional planets would have meant more variety in environments, but for some reason, it has felt this far like BL3 consists of 3 types of environments: Pandoran Deserts, Promethean Cityscapes, and Eden swamplands. Each planet is mostly just more of that one type of environment...with some slightly more varied side areas like the asteroid Skywell on Promethea and the Jakobs mansion on Eden 6, but it feels basic and shallow in comparison to all Pandora had to offer as a SINGLE world in BL2 base game. Pandora in BL2 had tundra, hillscapes, deserts, canyons, eridian wastelands, a city on the water, multiple sprawling bandit fortresses, ice caves, Hyperion research facilities, and more in between.
It's comparable to be honest, but DO NOT expect 3 worlds to mean 3x the variety of environments of BL2.

That being said, the environments likely too more time to perfect in BL3 with the increase in fidelity. So it's very forgivable on the whole. For some reason, BL2 just felt a bit deeper and more complete.

Yes. I'm ignoring Athenas. That's because...
SPOILER
It has one zone. It's a pit stop. A pretty oit stop, but it's a single zone and that's it. Invalidates it as a world in my opinion.

All in all, as a non-professional review, I pretty much love the game so far despite it's flaws. Borderlands is well known for reasonably substantial DLC expansions with cool new environments, guns, and characters so there is room for improvement and replayability. I could see Borderlands 3 doing a second DLC Pass if they wanted to since having a ship increases the possibilities for having more content seamlessly slide into the endgame. I'm at the word limit so I'll say this: it has flaws, but they are largely forgiven!

The fact that the servers havent collapsed & I somehow feel the PC controls are actually good were both a surprise upon launching the game.

I will have to come back to this later bc I am already planning to lose my job to have more time to fall in love with this franchise all over again...
...ONLY NOW ON PC

It's like crispy bacon. I think that's all i need to say. Buy this sh** now!!

Bring back Loot Cave 2013!!!

If you like Super Mario Sunshine & feel that the world has forgotten you, this game is proof that not EVERYONE has forgotten...

Excellent. Base game is a bit short, but the fact that the game can have DLC levels unlike 3D Platformers of old is a huge plus

It's beautiful.
My eyes are tearing up.

10/10 so far.

[EDIT]
{btw i read over everything i super quickly typed below and it is strewn with typos and improper grammar. I just wanted to voice the issues I've noticed and how I care about the game, so be ready for some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ spelling and grammar. I hope to have raised some points though!}

A few more hours into the game and I have some more constructive feedback for the quality of the port.

This edit focuses on the optimization and glitches in hopes that people will be aware of wehat is currently not working so it can be fixed! Because if these optimization errors can be fixed, this will be one of the most fun and most GORGEOUS Japanese action games ever.

The Game: I've played a lot of this game on the Xbox One, and I bought this for the improved framerate and maxed out graphics alone. The vanilla game was simple and extremely enjoyable for me, and very hard to put down because of its ease of play and how satisfying it feels to warp around and fight enemies in a variety of awesome ways. I love midair sword combat, and this game gives me one of the best sandboxes for me to do that with blade warping and stuff. It's not easy, but after a year, it feels fluid.
All of that is made even better with UNCAPPED FRAMERAAAAAAAATE
ITS SONIC LEVELS OF SPEED
LIGHTNING MCQUEEN or whatever that cars name was.
The game is best played this way, I CANNOT go back to 30 fps in good consience now. It makes it kind of sily that the graphics reccommendations for this game on the store page are based on 1080p....30fps. Eat my socks! 60 minimum or bust! Make the most of your money, and of the fact that this port took an extra year to be released.
...
AND there's the inclusion of all the Season 1 stuff with all DLC packs, the Comrades expansion, all cosmetic add ons for no additional cost, updates with an off-road set of wheels (apparently) and a slightly expanded endgame with some added cutscenes, from what the trailers have shown. Console players are having to pay extra for this and we get it all out of the box for only fiddy bucks...thats a very nice deal on top of the maxed out graphics. I'm only on chapter 7 atm so I have yet to see some of this new content, but that will be in the next edit of this quick review.

So yeah. That stuff is all still 9.5 or 10 out of 10. Super fun.

The Glitches and Optimization:
This is an altogether pretty good port. Not as smooth as the MGSV to PC port (Mouse and Keyboard controls asides) but there's nothing here that really makes this not worth it. Even if the devs were lazy and did not update this with fixes and improvements, I would still say its worth it because it's functional.
However, it's not a seamless port! SO i'll just list some stuff that has prevented perfect gameplay for me:
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-In some areas, grass plots and certain models in the environment start to pop in and out, appearing and vanishing depending on the angle of your camera and proximity from the player. It's distracting, but rare and a minor issue. The new Nvidia grass effects are completely worth a few hiccups, so i just encourage this get fixed somewhere down the line to MAKE THIS GAME VISUALLY PERFECT

-After summons (only one I've used is Ramuh twice) once the effects and models from a summon finally fade out, the framerate instantly drops and gets stuck at around 20-25 fps. Reloading a save does not fix this, you have to save, exit the game, and start again. (Thats actually what I just did before deciding to edit this review, so I'm about to reboot my save since I just used a summon...)
The realtime player-controlled summons in this game, save for the one during the first Bust-a-Base (you'll know what that is after you've played) are rather optional. They're kinda like a free get-ou-of-jail card if you're stuck in a losing battle. They are marvelous and beautifully animated, however, which makes it a shame that even when i'm feeling the desire to watch the newly 60fps'd (mostly) summons in FULL GLORY, I will have to save my game and quit and reboot immediately afterward...THIS SHOULD BE FIXED SQUEENIX. It is a beautiful part of your game.
But like i mentioned before, you can get through battles without them so it technically doesnt prevent you from playing the game.

-Certain areas in the game have stutters. The Hunter base in northern Leide had some hiccups during the prelude to your first tomb, but the issue is few and far between. I was also playing on a television during this portion of the game, and the TV was very very not friendly with this games default Fullscreen settings, but I'll blame it on the fact that most HDTVs do not like PCs much yet.

-If you decide to put on the Half Life workshop DLC suit (and maybe all of some other future WOrkshop modded items), I've found that it bugs out the cloth effects for Noctis' get-up. Like whenever he is wearing a jacket. So if you start your game, switch to the half life suit,and decide to wear something else with cloth effects, the bottom half of whatever jacket you are wearing will awkwardly look frozen in its default static model and clip through Noctis' torso a lot. Not a gameplay error, just looks funny, and i have a feeling it just has to do with switching between custom-made 3D mod asets and vanilla equipment with realistic cloth properties.
Just reload your save and it will behave normally. Just remember this whenever you unequip a modded item!
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There are probably more things that might be slightly off with the game, but they are very minute and don't break the experience -- THUS FAR. I will re-update this after finishing the game to ensure there are no other game-shattering moments up until the curtain call of the main story.

If you actually read this, thats awesome and you get 50 points for Gryffindor. I don't write reviews for crap on Steam, but I care soi very much about this game that I've followed for over a decade now that it is a visual marvel and it is technically enjoyable. WHile not the most perfect game, and a bit questionable whether or not it is a true Role Playing Game of any kind, it is a FUN game that packs in the best mix of Western Japanese artistry and worldbuilding for a larger audience that I've seen and played in a long while. It deserves to be perfected, and there are definitely things that need ironing out!

Pre-fix version with all the afforementioned bugs: a solid 8.9/10
If everything gets ironed out and fixed: a solid 9.7/10
That sounds more fair than the typical fanboy "10/10 Best Game Evar"

If i made typos, ♥♥♥♥ it I don't care THAT much lmfao

gave me ptsd in 6 hours