--Interplanetary Ninja Assassin Claptrap, Borderlands: Claptrap's New Robot Revolution
"Don't turn your back on me unless you never want to turn your back on anything ever again. Wait, that was a crap threat."
--Jakobs Cove Claptrap unit, Borderlands: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned
Anyone who plays the original Borderlands after first playing any of the three sequels will see that the series has undergone a massive evolution since its early days. Borderlands introduces many of the key mechanics that define the subsequent games, but its stort is extremely weak and its missions are brief to the point of sometimes being finishable in less than 45 seconds. Despite these blatant limitations, Borderlands sets up a world full of comedic and philosophical potential that is scarcely exploited until its first sequel.
Production Values
The sudden freezes and crashes of the Borderlands 2 PS Vita port were nowhere to be seen in my 30+ hours of playing the Switch port of the first Borderlands, and the graphics are comparable to those of last year's PS4 release [1]. Several strange glitches, such as one that makes enemy corpses jump up and down repeatedly, do not detract from the aesthetic integrity of the port. As has been the case with Doom (2016), The Witcher 3, and Dead by Daylight, Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition shows that even the Switch Lite is entirely capable of running massive games from the more powerful traditional consoles of the current generation. It isn't until Borderlands 2 that developed dialogue and frequent voice acting are introduced, but what relatively small amount of voice acting is in the game was translated well to the Switch--not that the voice acting and dialogue were ever the high points of the game.
Gameplay
The basic RPG-shooter mechanics of Borderlands as a series are all present in the initial title, but the lack of almost any distinct characterization and the unusual brevity of many missions holds the game back from the later heights of the Borderland series. Some entire missions literally involve walking several feet away from a certain character to a bounty board or to another character. The following missions might even involve walking right back to the nearby area you just walked away from and pressing the button prompt at the right place, making (some of) the missions of Borderlands the shortest I've ever encountered in a mainstream console game in the last few years.
One of the only core game mechanics that does not make a comeback in either Borderlands 2 or The Pre-Sequel is a system that levels up the damage, reload speed, and accuracy of each class of firearm that can be used as one gains XP from using that class. Of all the weapon classes, Eridian weaponry is perhaps the most powerful and even boasts unlimited ammunition (though they can require a recharge period), but every category of weapons besides grenades can be passively upgraded so that it is permanently deadlier. These upgrades carry over in the new game plus playthrough, which features tougher enemies, more XP, and superior weapons.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
Four Vault Hunters ride to the town of Fyrestone in a van, but only one of them (whoever the player chooses to use) is contacted privately by an artificial intelligence called Angel. She guides them as Commandant Steele, working on behalf of the Atlas Corporation, attempts to open an alien Vault containing great wealth and weaponry. The player allies with a resistance movement led by Helena Pierce as they rush to open the Vault first. At the end of the main story, Claptrap's software is suddenly hijacked by Hyperion, a weapons corporation, setting up the Claptrap's New Robot Revolution DLC.
Intellectual Content
The philosophical and even clever comedic writing present in the rest of the series is largely in its embryonic stage in Borderlands, but it does occasionally shine through the narrative's general mediocrity. The DLC campaigns actually have the most prominent and witty references to philosophical concepts or writings about certain concepts. Moral rights, artificial intelligence uprisings, insincere corporate apologies, and Marxism are just some of the topics joked about in a self-aware way, although players might miss some of them if they have not already reflected on the issues. Claptrap's New Robot Revolution even features a very distinct BioShock reference parodying Andrew Ryan's opening speech in the original BioShock, hinting at the grander themes of that respective franchise.
Conclusion
Borderlands may utilize only a fraction of the franchise's later excellence, but embers of greatness appear every now and then. Some series starters already reach the peak of the franchise quality before the sequel has even been released, but the opposite is true of Borderlands. It is inferior in almost every way to later installments. This means that players who start with the first game will only find that the sequels tower above many of the original's elements. Borderlands still offers dozens of hours of exploration, quests, and skeletal worldbuilding, and the physical copy of the Legendary Collection includes two other larger Borderlands games in addition to the first game for less than $40 (at least on some online retail sites). For these reasons, interested Switch owners still have much to gain by playing it.
Content:
1. Violence: Heads and limbs can be shot off of living enemies (as opposed to robots or zombies) with bursts of blood, even if the stylized animation softens the gore.
2. Profanity: "Damn," "shit," and "bitch" are used on occasion. However, the profanity is infrequent.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/07/game-review-borderlands-game-of-year.html
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