Tiny Tina's Dragon Keep Assault, an expansion to Borderlands 2 that doubles as an endearing parody of Dungeons & Dragons, was released in 2013, a year before the fifth edition of D&D revitalized interest in the game and two years before Critical Roll was first released. At the time, the jokes about D&D seemed rather niche. It was a surprising move for a shooter's expansion, but it worked: D&D tapped into an untapped vein and quickly became everyone's favorite DLC. But in 2022, D&D is more popular than ever and approaching cultural saturation.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands looks like a bouncy fantasy comedy, but plays like a Borderlands game. Specifically, it is Borderlands 3. Some guns shoot crossbow bolts and grenades have been replaced by spells, but in the moment it is a typical "Borderlands" game. You shoot hordes of bad guys who repeat witty one-liners, compare loot to see if a new gun or shield is better than an old one, and do it all over again.

Being a review of a "Borderlands" game, we are obligated by law to talk about the best guns that the randomized loot pool spits out. Sniper rifles that fire saw blades do more damage the more saw blades there are on the target. A reload-free teddy-ole gun transforms into a throwable explosive and teleports a loaded replacement to your empty hand. Another summoned a poison-spitting hydra head. This was good.

One significant change is character creation. Instead of each class being tied to an individual character, you play as a nameless "newcomer," create a face and color scheme, choose a voice (you can even change the pitch, an option I haven't had since "Saints Row 4"), and then pick your favorite class.

I spent most of my time as a Spore Warden. The Spore Warden is a fungus ranger of sorts, with a walking mushroom pet that has been upgraded to release venom. Several classes have NPC allies. My co-op buddy was playing a Graveborn with a floating skull unlocked. My mushroom companion was in his element when playing solo, reviving me when I fell when my co-op partner wasn't around; co-op is chaotic and fun as always, but having an NPC ally makes playing alone an even more viable option, and it's a completely satisfying way to play! It was.

Friendly Fungus also had to be resurrected from time to time, which got him into trouble on more than one occasion. But really, the worst thing about him was how distracting he was. When the quest client was talking, he would jump around in the background, the title "MUSHROOM COMPANION" floating above the NPC's face in big white letters. His unusually detailed buttocks were also disturbing.

Spellshot's class ability to slot not one but two spells seemed underwhelming, but once you get a spell that drops an icy meteor on a skeleton (skeletons have no skin to keep them warm, so they take bonus frostbite damage), it is almost worth it. However, a stabbing surgeon who can throw melee weapons that spin as blade tornadoes can be repositioned all over the battlefield.

Melee weapons are a new addition, but not a game changer. Normal melee attacks remain mapped to V for some reason, but you can hit with any sword, axe, or stick you get your hands on. Stats are randomized, but nothing as wild as guns. The same goes for armor, which mostly increases class abilities, like the Relic in the main Borderlands game, rather than actually protecting you.

While each class had multiple skill trees in the previous game, there is only one in this game (although a second active special ability is unlocked, such as the stabber gaining the option to become invisible instead of throwing a tornado of knives). Instead, the diversity of the build comes from multiclassing at higher levels and bolting on a second class of choice. My spore warden multiclassed to spellshot and became a sorcerer. However, I mostly just stuck with my trusty fungus power. After playing so many Pathfinders, it makes me sick to think of having to use my galactic brain to interact with overpowered classes again.

The last change worth noting is the overworld map. Instead of zooming through empty space in vehicles, top-down table tops covered in dice, big head figurines, and spilled junk food fill the space between the lands. It's super cute and loaded with side quests and random encounters where you walk through long grass and a battle arena appears.

This is a Pokémon reference, of course, but much of the trademark Borderlands-quoting humor of Tiny Tina's Wonderland is aimed at non-RPGs. There are extended stories with "Smurfs," "Don Quixote," and "Monkey Island" as fodder. The last one in particular is baffling, "Monkey Island" was pretty funny to begin with, and redoing Guybrush Sleepwood as a skeleton named Bones Sleepwood is pretty laughable. [Andy Samberg and his friends, voiced by Wanda Sykes, interject role-playing stereotypes that anyone who has ever played D&D or similar games knows are familiar with. She is the one who knows all the rules and how to kill everything most efficiently; he is the one who cares about backstory and wants to solve all problems through seduction.

Sometimes, he is painfully faithful to the tabletop RPG experience. For example, while the player obsesses over minor NPCs whom he decides to distrust for arbitrary reasons, Tina fails to convince them to move on. This made me chuckle. Tiny Tina's Wonderland is a fresh take on role-playing comedy. It's certainly funnier than [Borderlands 3]. It helps that Will Arnett as the Dragon Lord makes for an interesting villain. It's Will Arnett, so it's no surprise. His self-important monologue is his thing, and if he will never be the equal of Handsome Jack in "Borderlands 2," it's only because no one else will be.

I played through the "Borderlands 2" DLC that inspired "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands" and found that the quality-of-life added in "Borderlands 3" that was included in "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands" -like features, such as cloaks, not having to hold down the E button to pick up ammo, fast-traveling from anywhere, and only having to do the occasional side quest to get to the right level for the main quest instead of playing bloody all the time, were missed, but "Tiny Tina 's Wonderlands" was a blast.

If anything, I like it even more now. That DLC wasn't just a bunch of jokes about a guy who throws too many dice or fumbles a skill check to do something so basic that he probably shouldn't have rolled the dice in the first place. It was also a fantasy retelling of "Borderlands 2," with the cast reimagined as knights and sorcerers as if they were in "The Wizard of Oz." Most effectively parodied was himself.

"Tiny Tina's Wonderland," on the other hand, is sandwiched between "Borderlands" and "Borderlands," so that "Borderlands. Given that "Borderlands 3" was a flop, it feels like a missed opportunity.

Still, it succeeds more often than it fails. This is partly because the "Borderlands" formula has been refined over the years. Other loot shooters have forced their way in with crafting systems, gear levels, repeatable activities, and 15 different shards to collect (why is it always the shards?). ), "Tiny Tina's Wonderland" is simply a game about shooting bad guys with silly guns and taking more silly guns from their corpses. And sometimes, in between, there are gags about how messed up the average game of D&D is, and they shock you like a knife gouging your heart out.