At times, playing Tina Tina’s Wonderlands can feel a little like working through a hangover.
A lot of noise.
A lot of energy.
A lot of ibuprofen and coffee needed to figure it out.
Does it just reset to whatever the most recent roll is?
Again: not a clue.
This is Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, a Borderlands spin-off that is still very much Borderlands.
And then beyond that there’s some satisfactory depth for a casual RPG.
Having that system present feels like a welcome little treat.
It leaves non-shooting builds feeling like an afterthought, spells essentially just taking the role of grenades.
This leads on to the other main issue, which is inventory management - and it is dreadful.
It’s been a long time since Borderlands 2, which was the last one I properly played.
A long time for UI to evolve and change and, crucially, improve.
And repeat, repeat, repeat, for each item slot you have; and then sell.
The main issue is the structure.
The basic goal of: do lots of damage and cause some pleasurably bright but shallow chaos is fun.
Do that dozens of times in similar places with similar events in similar order, and it wears thin.
Finally, there is Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands' tone.
- but it’s hard to think of a better example of a game shouting over itself.
The dialogue is the soundtrack.
I would prefer music.
And Brooklyn-99’s Andy Samberg does his usual vain-but-self-deprecating-guy thing.
It’s Ashly Burch’s character of Tiny Tina that sums it up best.
But Tina’s also sympathetic somehow, through all that noise.
The goofiness is not always endearing but again, that’s baked into the character.
And it’s baked into Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, and the wider Borderlands world.
That’s really all this game is.
