The first three games of the Borderlands series have arrived on Switch in the form of the Legendary Collection. The bundle includes an enhanced version of the original Borderlands, Borderlands 2, and Borderlands the Pre-Sequel with all DLC (Minus the recent Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary for Borderlands 2, for some reason) included with the package. We already have reviews for the games individually, but how do they hold up on Nintendo’s little console that could?
In terms of performance, all three games look fairly sharp and there weren’t any hiccups in the framerate I could notice outside of having tons of enemies and four players all making mayhem on screen at the same time. Performance is comparable in portable mode as well, which is very impressive. Of course, it pales in comparison to each respective PC version, but they all look and run very well considering you can take it on the go. Well, the first game’s art style may not have aged as well as its two sequels, but to me at least it looks better than its original release. While multiplayer can introduce some issues, it doesn’t affect the shooting and looting experience all that much. And besides, taking down tyrannical corporations is always more fun with friends.
As for controls, yes there is gyro aiming, which I consider a requirement for shooters on Switch. Unfortunately, enabling this feature will disable aim assist. I can understand this decision when dueling other players over a piece of loot, but that isn’t a focus of the game, fighting hordes of enemies is. You also cannot choose to only enable the gyro when aiming down the sights, it’s either always on or off. Furthermore, the option for gyro and aiming controls are in different places in each game’s options menu, for some reason. It’s not a huge issue, considering all three come as separate downloads, but some parity between versions would help a little to make this collection feel more like, well, a collection.
Aside from those issues, these games are exactly what you’d expect: Borderlands… but on the Switch. There’s no fancy new additions aside from motion controls, it’s exactly what you’d get on other consoles or PC. So the main selling point for this specific release is the inherent portability of the Switch, which is a great fit for this type of game. While you won’t want to use the gyro on a train or bus, or at all considering it disables aim assist, it’s nice to be able to quickly jump into Pandora or its moon, do a quest or two, then put it down and continue with your day. It might feel a bit redundant now, with everyone stuck inside, but it could be worth picking up once the world returns to some semblance of normalcy.
David is the kind of person to wear his heart on his sleeve. He can find positives in anything, like this is a person who loved Star Fox Zero to death. You’ll see him playing all kinds of games: AAAs, Indies, game jam games, games of all genres, and writing about them! Here. On this website. When not writing or playing games, you can find David making music, games, or enjoying a good book.
David’s favorite games include NieR: Automata, Mother 3, and Gravity Rush.
All three of these games are exactly what you’d expect from other versions: the same shootin’, lootin’, and possibly rootin’ and tootin’ found on other platforms. However, this style of game is a great fit for a portable console and may be worth double dipping if you’ve never played the DLC before.
PROS
- Extremely stupid fun
- Quests are short and a great fit for portable play
- Gyro aiming
CONS
- Gyro aiming has strange limitations
- Multiplayer can introduce some slight performance issues
- Latest DLC is not included
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