"Where the first episode set high bars, the second episode only serves to raise them. "
Tales From The Borderlands Episode 2 REVIEW
Written By Tyler Pederson
Telltale are working overtime now days it would seem. First coming onto my radar with their release of The Walking Dead Season 1, the adventure game developers have since released a second season of that, The Wolf Among Us, announced two upcoming series, and continued to expand upon their take on Game of Thrones. Tales From The Borderlands seemingly drew the short straw, leading to what I believe may be the longest wait between episodes in their development history to date. Thankfully, it would seem that was time well spent.
The world of Borderlands has always intrigued me, but fallen short in some small aspect. The first episode of Tales was definitely a fresh take on the now established IP, and one I fully believe to be the strongest start to any of their episodic games yet. I passed on reviewing it with the intention of waiting until the season was complete and reviewing it all at once, but that was partly out of hesitation for where the series would go. I went into the first episode with a good dose of skepticism and left impressed. I entered this second episode with just a little more, and left absolutely stunned.
You once again see the tale told by both Rhys and Fiona, and both are really beginning to come into their own as characters. Fiona especially lends to a sense of belonging as her tale continues to be the more inherently intriguing. That’s not to say both characters don’t have incredible levels of depth carved out during this episode, but Rhys does a lot more for setup than delivery. The characters are all really beginning to come into their own, albeit a persona dictated by your choices.
I really couldn’t stop laughing for long the entire way through the episode. That sounds silly, but I mean it literally. The sense of humor delivered in punchlines and carried into casual conversation is second to none in the genre, and I was seriously laughing out loud at a dozen moments peppered throughout the adventure. I wasn’t totally sure I liked the entire voice cast until now, but with a little more characterization out of the way, it feels a lot better fit. It’s hard to honestly imagine them continuing on this high bar, but I hope very much they do so.
I don’t know if it’s the fact that I am playing more and more games of this sort, but the puzzles felt completely too easy. They tend to come off less like proper puzzles asking for me to think about things and more like sudden instances of I-Spy that only serve to interrupt the otherwise compelling storyline. They’re scarce enough that it doesn’t detract from the episode as a whole, but they leave a bit to be desired.
The episode does a lot to ramp things up at a surprising pace. The first episode gave me the impression the story would be a relatively small one, involving few key characters. The second episode has a particular plot point that really leads me to believe it’s doing more to set up a proper Borderlands 3, or Borderworlds than most would ever assume this would have the right to do. I’m certainly not complaining, but if it’s leading to the logical conclusion it’s gonna be interesting to see how those who skip out on this apparent side-story take that.
Where the first episode set high bars, the second episode only serves to raise them. The number of times I laughed aloud during a single episode probably outweigh many other entire games attempting to be strictly humorous. It’s hard to imagine that they can keep this track record going through to the end, but I for one feel that hope is worth holding onto. Oh, and that soundtrack continues to impress. Damn, son.
Tales From The Borderlands Episode 2 gets a 9/10.
