Warning, because a comment called me out: light spoilers in this review.

I love Borderlands. I've got 260 hours on BL2, and it's one of my favourite games. I love the combat and the leveling system and the art style and the world and much of the writing. So I did enjoy Pre-Sequel. It was fun. But it has it's problems and it's easily the worst in the series.

The main issue is the writing. Most of the jokes don't seem to land. A lot of the characters are annoying, and not in the jokey way that Claptrap has always been. The main example I would bring up is Janey Springs, who's only two character traits are that she's enthusiastic and gay. Like they really drive it home that she's gay. Like it would be great to have a character that just happens to be gay, or who has some interesting plot conflict related to them being gay, but this... it's like it's a punchline. Like she just throws in some line about how obsessed she is with Moxxi, and it's not funny, it's just sort of creepy. No means no, lady.

Then there's also so much standing around waiting for dialogue to finish so you can move on to the next objective. It's tedious. I got to a point where I just turned the dialogue volume to zero and just listened to podcasts instead. The game has much less content than the others, you can pretty easily finish every sidequest, and there's very little opportunity to grind for experience even if you wanted to. Some of the bosses felt a bit unfair and poorly designed if you're playing single player.

It also annoyed me that this game was made. They pawned it off to a lesser studio, and made it a prequel so they could re-use Jack. Jack was a great villain in BL2, and his popularity seems to be the whole reason this game was made. Just more cashing in on that character. I don't like the idea of going back just so they can use a dead villain, but the least they could have done is make the story make sense. Jack goes from wannabe hero to a complete lunatic on a dime, with no real progression. When we finally see why he has the mask, it just ends up being Lilith saying she's going to kill him, punching him in the face and leaving. Why? Why would she leave? Why didn't she kill him? WHY WASN'T LILITH A BOSS FIGHT THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO COOL. Very disappointing.

BUT, it is Borderlands. The same core combat system. It's the same kind of loot drops. The things they added are mostly nice. The oxygen management is a bit annoying, but flying around with air jets is a lot of fun. I really love that the player characters talk, and I hope they bring that back in BL3. The new characters have really cool abilities, and I hope I will see some of them again in later entries (the ones that aren't dead at least).

So basically, if you already love Borderlands this is probably worth picking up, dispite it's disappointments. But this is a really bad introduction to the series and the weakest of the three, and I'm giving it a non-recommendation for that reason.

Edit Jan 5: Fixed some typos.

Warning, because a comment called me out: light spoilers in this review. I love Borderlands. I've got 260 hours on BL2, and it's one of my favourite games. I love the combat and the leveling system and the art style and the world and much of the writing. So I did enjoy Pre-Sequel. It was fun. But it has it's problems and it's easily the worst in the series. The main issue is the writing. Most of the jokes don't seem to land. A lot of the characters are annoying, and not in the jokey way that Claptrap has always been. The main example I would bring up is Janey Springs, who's only two character traits are that she's enthusiastic and gay. Like they really drive it home that she's gay. Like it would be great to have a character that just happens to be gay, or who has some interesting plot conflict related to them being gay, but this... it's like it's a punchline. Like she just throws in some line about how obsessed she is with Moxxi, and it's not funny, it's just sort of creepy. No means no, lady. Then there's also so much standing around waiting for dialogue to finish so you can move on to the next objective. It's tedious. I got to a point where I just turned the dialogue volume to zero and just listened to podcasts instead. The game has much less content than the others, you can pretty easily finish every sidequest, and there's very little opportunity to grind for experience even if you wanted to. Some of the bosses felt a bit unfair and poorly designed if you're playing single player. It also annoyed me that this game was made. They pawned it off to a lesser studio, and made it a prequel so they could re-use Jack. Jack was a great villain in BL2, and his popularity seems to be the whole reason this game was made. Just more cashing in on that character. I don't like the idea of going back just so they can use a dead villain, but the least they could have done is make the story make sense. Jack goes from wannabe hero to a complete lunatic on a dime, with no real progression. When we finally see why he has the mask, it just ends up being Lilith saying she's going to kill him, punching him in the face and leaving. Why? Why would she leave? Why didn't she kill him? WHY WASN'T LILITH A BOSS FIGHT THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO COOL. Very disappointing. BUT, it is Borderlands. The same core combat system. It's the same kind of loot drops. The things they added are mostly nice. The oxygen management is a bit annoying, but flying around with air jets is a lot of fun. I really love that the player characters talk, and I hope they bring that back in BL3. The new characters have really cool abilities, and I hope I will see some of them again in later entries (the ones that aren't dead at least). So basically, if you already love Borderlands this is probably worth picking up, dispite it's disappointments. But this is a really bad introduction to the series and the weakest of the three, and I'm giving it a non-recommendation for that reason. Edit Jan 5: Fixed some typos.