Borderlands 3 Review - Give It A Chance

Review based on patch 1.29.

I went back to Borderlands 2 after finishing 3 just to compare the two and couldn't believe how much better Borderlands 3 looked and felt. Gun-play is smoother and punchier. I loved the design direction, new customization options, and being able to switch between elements on the same weapon. Each brand has its own gimmick and enemies have more of a reaction to getting hit. The environments are gorgeous and more varied compared to its predecessors. I had put off playing Borderlands 3 for years after hearing about its abysmal characters and poor performance. Apparently Gearbox managed to salvage this one with patches, although my play-through wasn't without a few hiccups here and there, and at least one crash.

After producing a legendary villain like Handsome Jack, I knew whatever came afterwards probably wouldn't be as good, and the BL3 twins are... unique. They are purposefully written to be cringe streamers that went from a life of complete isolation to being worshiped as gods by a cult of literal psychos. They're decent enough villains that are never properly utilized, if that makes sense. What I mean is, Tyreen and Troy never face "you", the player, only your allies. They have no personal involvement with the player, and the Vault Hunter (player character) is never rendered in any of the cutscenes or included in pivotal moments. The only personal interaction the Vault Hunter ever has with either of the twins is with Troy at the Jakobs Estate on Eden-6 when he Phasegrasps (magically restrains) them. Unlike Handsome Jack, the twins agenda isn't really against the Vault Hunter - its with Lilith, a character (among many recurring ones) that BL3 assumes you already have some familiarity with. I had played Borderlands 2 and the Tales series of games, but that was so long ago that I had a hard time recalling who many of these characters were, and likewise didn't much care when they died. I imagine a complete newcomer to the series would have an even harder time keeping up than I did.

The inclusion of a new child NPC called Ava, also gets a lot hate from the fandom for replacing her mentor Maya, who is a much more beloved NPC and former player character that gets killed off because Ava disregarded orders. Ava then blames Lilith (who wasn't part of that mission) for the incident. It wouldn't have been so bad if Ava grew as a person, but she never walks her words back or expresses regret. Instead, Ava gaslights Lilith into accepting full responsibility for the death of Maya. Lilith's sacrifice(?) at the game's conclusion is then framed as a redemption arc for what happened to Maya, and Ava is rewarded with something she hasn't earned. The story also hinges on every Siren being an idiot:

• Maya, who can stick people in unbreakable bubbles, decides to restrain someone with physical force.
• Lilith, who has the ability to teleport, gets restrained.
• Tannis, who can act as an AI to manipulate technology, somehow can't keep track of two kids who do nothing but live-stream.

That said, the dialogue for FL4K and Zane Flynt was quite amusing. Typhon, Balex, Clay, and Wainwright were great new additions to the roster of eccentric Borderlands characters. I also liked the power imbalance between Troy and his sister, and how that affected their relationship. When the scales were finally balanced, allowing Troy to be more assertive, I was expecting a divide in the cult or a betrayal. One was set up during the Eden-6 content and Tyreen straight up said "you're killing me!" during the Troy battle. It felt like something was at stake and it would have been a good time for Troy to kill Tyreen, either unintentionally or on purpose. Towards the end I was even entertaining the idea that their dad might talk them down when their actions increasingly appeared to be nothing more than a cry for attention. But someone higher up must have stepped in at some point because that doesn't happen. Tyreen remains the BBEG and only traces of a different narrative with Troy are left behind. Lots of hints of him turning on his sister and becoming the Big Bad, or a reluctant villain that changes sides are there. I am not even sure how Tyreen felt about Troy. Is she sad to have lost her brother? Happy to be rid of the "Leech"? Did she care about her blood-relatives at all? It isn't clear. I still had a way better time with Borderlands 3 than I was expecting, and the gameplay is so smooth that I am more likley to replay this over BL2.

For anyone that cares, my lingering questions after beating the game:

• Tyreen's powers are only capable of draining vault keys, not charging them. So why did the Crimson Raiders (Lilith's group) charge and open the vaults to begin with? By now the crew should know whats inside a vault. Why not break or safeguard the non-charged keys?
• Why didn't Tyreen and Troy destroy the Sanctuary ship? They broadcast to it and so must have at least a vague idea of where it is located.
• Why was Troy able to kill Maya, but Lilith just lost her powers? And why didn't Tyreen leech every Siren of their powers when she downed them at Nekrotafeyo?
• Why did Tyreen half-fuse with the Destroyer? Did something go wrong?
• What did Lilith even do at the last vault, besides putting a picture on the moon?

Related Reviews:

Werewolves Within - Maybe I'm The Werewolf?

Werewolves Within is a 2021 American film loosely based on the video game of the same name; itself an adaptation of the social deduction game Werewolf. While the game was set in medieval Europe, the film is set in the modern day United States. Filming was done in New York State's Hudson Valley, near the town of Woodstock. The historic Fleischmanns Yeast family estate served as the Beaverfield Inn. Due to the movie's meager budget, they were not able to afford the license to the U.S. Postal Service's logo. A made up "National Mail Service" was used instead.

Spoiler Warning: I am going to give a synopsis and my opinions at the very end.

The Valley of Gwangi

Intro:

This is a series on old dinosaur movies. Specifically, I am looking at anything released before 1990; before Jurassic Park revolutionized cinema with its CGI animation. I will not be covering anything "dinosaur-adjacent", such as kaiju monsters like Godzilla or the creature from The Giant Behemoth, which are perhaps inspired by dinosaurs, but clearly not meant to represent any real world genus. I will also be skipping over films that are heavily dependent on "borrowed" footage from other films, such as the Valley of the Dragons / Prehistoric Valley.

Also known as:

The Valley Of The Mists

The Valley Where Time Stood Still

Gwangi's Revenge - The Valley of the Dinosaurs

Runtime:

1 hr 36 min

Background:

The Valley of Gwangi is a 1969 American film and the last dinosaur-themed movie to use stop-motion effects by Ray Harryhausen. Willis O'Brien, who was responsible for the effects in 1933's King Kong, had planned to make The Valley of Gwangi decades earlier in 1942, but the studio at the time didn't think the public had any interest in prehistoric animals. Willis O'Brien died in 1962, at which point the script rights were purchased from his widow. The plot of Gwangi was inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's book The Lost World with elements of King Kong mixed in - namely a wild animal running amok in human society. Early drafts had Gwangi fighting circus lions and getting rammed off of a cliff by a truck. Although meant to be an allosaurus, Harryhausen based Gwangi's model on the tyrannosaurus painting by Charles R. Knight, and scaled Gwangi to be within the upper limit of the largest known allosaurus and the average adult size of a tyrannosaurus.

A year was spent on the special effects, of which there were more than 300 - a record for Harryhausen. The lassoing of Gwangi was the most labor-intensive animated sequence because it required coordination of Gwangi's animation with live actors on horseback. The first animated sequence in the film was achieved with a toy horse and rider purchased from a toy store because the 40-foot (12-meter) drop was deemed too risky for a real horse. A real elephant was also planned for later in the film but one large enough to satisfy Harryhausen's requirements couldn't be found.

Filming was done in Almería and Cuenca, Spain, although directer Jim O'Connolly reportedly "didn't have his heart in it" and "lost interest in the middle of shooting". Producer Charles H. Schneer also "didn't care for the subject matter" or "the period in which it was set". Their lack of enthusiasm worried writer William Bast, who was forced to make last minute changes to the script. The lack of advertising and getting double-billed with a biker film at theaters is credited by Harryhausen as the reason for Gwangi missing its target audience. However, Gwangi has gone on to become a cult classic that is still referenced in media from time to time, including in the hugely popular Jurassic Park.

Fire Emblem Engage Review: Popstars Save The World

I am still very new to Fire Emblem; Three Houses was my first foray into the franchise and initially I wasn't interested in Engage at all. The gameplay in the trailers looked fun, but there didn't seem to be a storyline and the new art style was too ostentatious for my taste. First impressions are often wrong though, and after watching some YouTubers playing Engage, I decided to pick up a copy as an impulse buy.

Gameplay:

One thing Engage does really well over Three Houses is balancing the various units and encouraging diversity on the team. Armored units have better movement for example, while magic users are good for support. The various infantry units each have unique traits and roles now, such as halbediers having guaranteed follow-ups while heroes give the party damage boosts.

The weapon triangle from past titles makes a return: sword > Axe > Lance > sword; Martial arts beats thief, mage, and archer. The triangle further discourages class homogeneity by inflicting a "break" status effect on units that are attacked by one they are weak against. Units suffering from "break" cannot counterattack, which encourages planning and mindfulness of enemy compositions. Engage's main gimmick - the 'Emblems' (heroes from past games), whose power can be called upon for a set number of rounds, plays into the player power fantasy and are fun to use while still being limited enough that they do not let you plow through levels.

Story:

A human named Alear awakens with amnesia from a thousand year slumber. Through the years they were protected by their mother - a divine white dragon, who is embroiled in a conflict with the dark fell dragon Sombron. Twelve magical "Emblem Rings" can be "Engaged" with to gain power from phantom-like beings from other worlds (past Fire Emblem games), which Sombron plans to use to conquer the world.

My biggest issue with Engage is the focus on 'bonds' and 'friendship' as a theme while Alear's relationships are based almost exclusively on people worshiping them for their status as the "Divine Dragon" rather than that trust having to be earned. Everybody, including rival kingdoms, just get along. Loyalty is never tested because Alear is the only path to avoiding the apocalypse. Non-villains (mostly parents) get about 1 chapter before they are offed or forgotten about. Actual villains have the opposite problem in that they are recurring and get a big sob story dump right before dying rather than revealing it organically through gameplay and interactions over the course of the game. The player is also expected to have pre-existing emotional connections to the Emblems, so Engage doesn't bother to flesh them out beyond one-note cutouts. Support conversations with allies aren't much better and typically boil down to something about cuteness or muscles that just isn't fun to listen to.

Engage's art direction has spawned many toothpaste and "popstars playing warriors" memes.

The writing on the whole is goofy and I can't tell if this was intentional or not. The game seems to take itself seriously for the most part, but then the characters say and do things so silly that it has to be some attempt at comedy. For example, Alear has two caretakers that start a literal Alear fan club. Two other companions regularly make animal noises and another man keeps trying to lick and smell sauce off of Alear's clothes. It is possible there is just some cultural difference in humor I am not getting. The narrative also suffers from contrived storytelling, juvenile dialogue, plot induced stupidity, and telling rather than showing. The narrative tries very hard to pull off plot twists, but they all end up being pointless, such as having Alear die and revive twice in the same mission, orSombron (the Big Bad Evil Guy) dispersing the Emblems just so Alear can call them back seconds later. Sombron's goal keeps changing as well. First it's to conquer Elyos, then it's to raise his kingdom Gradlon from the sea, then it's to leave Elyos to conquer all other worlds, and finally it's to locate the Zero Emblem (whatever that is).

Paralogues also felt disjointed from the rest of the world because they just appear on the world map with no context. It is not clear why you should go there or why you're fighting or how this "strengthens your bonds" with an Emblem. The Emblems make the fight out to be a mock battle but then they kill your units for real. It would've made more sense to have the Emblem fight on your side against some evil from their world. For comparison, in Three Houses the relevant characters tell you about their paralogue and you go to the location indicated because you care about this person. You understand why you are there, why you are fighting the enemies you are, and why you get the reward that you do.

Conclusion:

Apparently the team that worked on Engage is not the same one that made Three Houses, hence the wildly different styles, and I enjoyed Engage for different reasons than Three houses. One is colorfully flamboyant, silly, and has good gameplay mechanics and balancing. The other is bleaker with a more serious narrative and deeper characters. Very different beasts. Three houses is the type of game I derive more enjoyment from playing; enough to sink 300+ hours into it. While I had a good enough time with Engage, after my first playthrough I felt no desire to replay it anytime soon. Maybe in a few years time I'll get the itch to return.

Related Reviews:

• Fire Emblem: Three Houses Review: Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Rune Factory 5 Review: Not Quite Ripe

Rune Factory is a fantasy farming sim series with combat and dungeon crawling. You tame monsters and then put them to work on your farm or ride them around town and into battle. Rune Factory 5 is the series first foray into 3D and it is a downgrade from its predecessor - almost a clone of Rune Factory 4 - in the best and worst ways possible.

Fundamentally RF5 is the same game - dungeons, fighting, farming, socializing, dating, and learning new recipes are all here and mostly unchanged, but the mechanics are more awkward in 3D. The camera auto-sets to a top-down perspective when farming, which wouldn't have been so bad if I could use the D-pad to move the farmer. Instead I am forced to use the analogue stick, which causes the player character to slide a short distance forwards rather than coming to an immediate halt; I lost so many valuable crops to this.

I still had a reasonably good time despite the bugs and unfinished state of the game.

Time moves much slower in RF5 than is typical for the genre, presumably to make it a more relaxed experience. This left me with so much excess time each day that after checking in with the shops, conversing/gifting, and tending to five different farms I was still finishing most days at around noon. Leveling is less grindy than in RF4, to where I rarely upgraded my gear and could finish an entire dungeon in a single day with time to spare; not necessarily a bad thing as RF5 doesn't have a New Game+ feature, so the relaxed combat makes replaying the game easier.

Menus are easier to navigate now, and there are a lot of cool weapons to pick up and different combat styles to try out. The color temperature of the whole game and the way it shifts as the day progresses is also very well done. The night skies in particular are gorgeous.

Gameplay:

Alice/Ares (the protagonist) is an "Earthmate" - someone with a strong connection to nature; essentially a farmer. Your job as an Earthmate and member of SEED (a group of rangers) is to cultivate a farm, build relationships with the townsfolk, and undertake missions for Livia (your boss). The game operates on a four month, 30-day calendar cycle, with the player free to decide what activities they engage in each day; limited only by the amount of in-game time and stamina (RP) the farmer has to spend on physical labors.

Farming:

The player is given a field in Rigbarth that has to be maintained by hand. Later, living "Farm Dragons" will be unlocked with expandable barns that can be filled with monsters who will help with tending to the crops, freeing up more of the player's time. These special fields are eternally stuck in one season, so the player can efficiently grow crops outside of whatever season Rigbarth is currently experiencing.

It doesn't matter if you partake in the farming aspects or not, but it generates a lot of revenue and resources. Monsters can do the work for you, but when monsters work a field they lose a percentage of their HP each day. Eventually they will become too tired to work and stop. Giving them potions/food or rotating beasts every few days will keep them working.

The 3d environments can look "off" at times due to some objects being too smooth and colors being too uniform, especially in the grass.

Dungeon Crawling/Taming:

Nearly all of the dungeons are tied to the main storyline and you can no longer grow your own dungeon for special loot like in Rune Factory 4. Nearly every monster in a dungeon, including the boss ones, can still be tamed by the player using friendly pats and food. As an added bonus they drop loot periodically that can be used in crafting or cooking. They can even be taken along as companions or ridden.

Social:

The player's relationship status with each person in Rigbarth is tracked using Love Points (LP). LP is increased by talking to people, handing out liked/loved gifts, or winning festivals. There is the option to date, marry, and raise a family with any of the bachelors or bachelorettes. Starting around LP level 7 the player can ask the townsfolk to be their boy/girlfriend, however, there's only a small chance they'll say yes. Around LP level 9 they are more likely to agree.

Story:

Alice/Ares arrives at the seaside town of Rigbarth with no memories of their past due to amnesia. They are quickly recruited into SEED, a group of rangers that keeps dangerous monsters at bay and operates as a pseudo-police force. Not long after, a dark dragon with a vendetta against Earthmates arrives to disturb the balance of nature and SEED's founder may have had a hand in it.

The new cast of characters were all well written and varied. I really like how they kept some of the character backstories, such as Beatrice's reason for being in town or what Ryker gets up to at night, locked behind their romance events. The townsfolk do not play as active a role in the narrative like RF4's Guardians or even interact with one another all that much, so I constantly forgot that Lucy was the daughter of Simone and that Cecil and Martin were brothers. There is also not nearly as much unique dialogue as RF4, and the cast oftentimes felt too similar to the ones from RF4:

• Reinhard = Vishnal
• Beatrice = Arthur
• Scarlet = Forte
• Elsje = Clorica
• Cecil = Illuminata.

Conclusion:

Despite my gripes, I still had a blast with this one. Rune Factory 5 isn't the best game in the series, but it's far from the worst. The rough transition to 3D and releasing after what is generally regarded as the best game in the series just doesn't make it look good. There are also a lot of technical issues that really drag this release down, like furniture always leaving a large gap from the wall or the frame rate dropping every time you enter or exit a building. For the first few hours of gameplay the erratic frame-rates actually made me physically ill. Eventually I adjusted to it, but I wouldn't recommend picking this one up on the Switch.

Related Reviews:

• Friends of Mineral Town Review: Out to Pasture
• Rune Factory 4 Special Review: Gone With the Wind