An excellent spin-off to the Borderlands series. Story is genuinely much better than Borderlands 3. More of the jokes and attempts at humor hit their mark, and the references to other fantasy series and TTRPG's are hilarious. Tiny Tina is as eccentric and hilarious as usual. The handful of new characters that are introduced are far more likable than, uhh, certain new characters in BL3 were. Gunplay is still tight and responsive, the classes are varied and unique, locations are diverse and interesting, enemy type and variety is nice (and also predictably absurd.)

The inventory system has been thoroughly fantasy-fied, and is a lot better for it in my opinion. 'Wards' are the equivalent to shields in the BL games, class mods are now called 'armor', and both of these function basically the same as their BL counterparts. Grenades have been replaced by spells, which provide many different effects such as high aoe damage, crowd control, aoe buff/debuff fields, etc, and are far more useful than grenades ever were in BL games, outside of maybe the original. The primary differences in the inventory system however come from the addition of 3 new equipment slots, 1 for an amulet and 2 for rings. These act as a bit of a hybrid between class mods or armor, and the artifacts from BL3 and include many different effects, from gun/spell/skill damage, elemental damages, loot luck, boosts to certain weapon types, melee damage, and a lot more. Having more items that add random modifiers to your character really helps when it comes to min/maxing and loot grinding, which is still the core gameplay loop in Wonderlands.

The 4 main elemental damage types from BL2/3 are still here; Incendiary, Cryo, Shock, and Poison (corrosive). The 5th elemental damage type this time around is called 'Dark Magic' which heals your character for a percentage of the damage dealt. This synergizes well with certain action skills and health stacking characters, and can be boosted a lot by class skill trees and items. In my opinion this status effect is better than both slag from BL2 and radiation from BL3 by a decently high margin, and hopefully something with a similar effect will be added to future mainline BL titles.

As far as negatives go, the story is significantly shorter than BL2/3's story, and the endgame chaos mode can get repetitive pretty quickly. This wasn't an issue for me specifically, and it likely won't be for anyone who is used to or enjoys grinding and maximizing their build potential, but for more casual players there isn't really much to tether them to the game once the story and side quests are finished (roughly 25 hours).

The primary downside to Wonderlands however, is the absolutely awful excuses for "DLC". Each of the 3 currently released DLC's include a repeatable dungeon with 5 new areas + 1 new boss and... not much else. These new areas and bosses get added to the chaos mode pool after beating them once, which adds a bit of variety to that mode but not enough to make it worth the asking price. The 4th DLC is coming with a new class, and might be a better value than the first 3, but as of this review it is not out yet. At $10 a pop, or $30 for all 4 with the season pass, this is decided NOT worth it, and I doubt the inclusion of a new class will change that at all. Once again, this issue wasn't as big for me because I purchased the chaotic great edition for 20% off ($64) when it launched on steam, so I effectively only paid $4 more than retail for the DLC, but the season pass/DLC outside of maybe the 4th one is a HARD pass at retail price.

Overall review score: 8/10

An absolutely fantastic entry in the Tales series. Reinvigorates the series and improves upon the systems that have been somewhat lackluster in other recent entries. Graphically gorgeous, especially certain cutscenes scattered throughout the game that have their own style. The combat is fun and engaging with each of the main party members having their own style and purpose, the world is beautiful and expansive, and has plenty of areas to explore and things to do. The main story gets a bit convoluted and messy towards the end (not really a big shock there) but the dialogue and interactions between Alphen and the other party members throughout the game is superb.

Not a big fan of the way DLC was handled. The costume packs aren't terrible, just a tad bit overpriced for what they are, but selling packs with items, xp boosters, and in game currency for a single player game always feels a bit gross. Luckily they aren't ever needed to enjoy the game fully, and they aren't shoved down your throat via in game popups or menus, so, they can be mostly ignored.

Overall I'd give it a 9.5/10. I had a lot of fun with the game and am looking forward to future entries in the Tales series.