Alice McMullan

Like many players I am a long time fan of the Harry Potter series and have a decent amount of knowledge retained from my childhood about the world in which it is set. Setting this game apart from that as an open-world RPG without previous sentimental value is something worth considering. So, thinking of it as just that, it's a decent game. It's not that amazing, it's not that revolutionary. The side quests become boring quickly, the lack of a karma system is frustrating, the hints at certain quests (such as meeting the mer people or becoming an animagus) become irritating when most of the side quests are 'go here, oh look some spiders, find this'. The actual main quest is decent enough although just like in the Harry Potter books, why the eff is a technical child doing all the hard and dangerous work?! Anyway.. puzzles were okay, bit boring. Good customisation system and the combat never felt uneven either. Lack of different types of enemies. Pretty bland open world, some nice detail and lore references. I look forward to seeing what they may do with a sequel but this underwhelmed me a little.

Pretty bad acting and very predictable with lots of plot holes. I really liked the premise but it just wasn't executed well - it could have been so much better. The CGI is pretty terrible too. One of my favourite bits was when the dragon was like 'oh yeah be quiet you're clever I can't hear you etc' and Mille Bobbie Brown spends the entire time going 'AAAAaaAheeeeHAAAAh' for various different reasons, yet the dragon is like 🤷

How..how could you think this was a good film!? Genuinely worried for the future of humanity.

I really enjoyed the first half of this game, but then I felt a bit let down. So here are my positives: The combat is fun, with a combination of spells, melee and guns to choose from and of course your specific class builds power. You can eventually pick an extra class to add to your current build, which was a good idea in principle, as is the varied personalisation options although I was disappointed by the lack of hairstyles! I enjoyed the many melee weapons and the hunt to find a legendary as they seemed few and far between as opposed to BL3 constantly spunking them out and making them feel commonplace. The world is large and relatively varied in itself, with some interesting side quests and lots of Easter eggs and references to other games/stories to pick up on, I really enjoyed the Borderlands take on various fairy stories such as Jack and the beanstalk, Pinocchio etc. Originally I was wary of the 'Overworld' aspect but I did end up enjoying this side of it with it's extra exploration and dungeon options. Goblins and their variations were my favourite enemy style to fight due to their range of attack styles, although they get left behind relatively early on in the game. Now for the bad: The level cap is too low. It's 40. I got to about 75% of the game completing every side quest and main along the way before I reached this point, this then opens up 'Myth Rank' which, for previous BL players is similar to 'Guardian Rank' yet you can't seem to choose where you place your points as freely. The level cap being so low was an issue for me, this enables you to mostly fill out one skill tree and about 50% of your secondary skill tree. To hit it so early on in the game felt disappointing and reduced my enthusiasm to carry on playing in the same way. I generally do go through a game completing every quest/challenge along the way, so for the levelling up to end so soon felt rather abrupt and reduced the reward aspect of trying to complete everything. I also found the game incredibly easy, with a lack of varied enemies. It's basically all skeletons in different costumes, snake people, goblins and sharks - few unique enemies and boss fights. There are many areas which I assumed would continue to have different enemies with different fight styles, but it fell into an endless crunch of skeletons and snakes towards the end - the snakes with no apparent reason why. Skeletons I get. The story didn't make all that much sense to me, I appreciate it for what it is which is a take on a tabletop game, but it could have gone further. I didn't much care for any of the side characters, who only had small roles to play at convenient times in the story. I assume this was inspired by the success of 'Tiny Tina's assault on dragon keep' which was a great BL2 DLC, however I think that did much more for adding depth to Tiny Tina than this game. I think I preferred the actual 'baddie' as a character to any goodie? The ending was pretty weak. I do think they are onto something good here and I hope they continue with the series, I'd like to see how it can be improved. Due to the level cap being so low with apparently no plans to raise it as of yet I am unsure if I will buy the DLC for the game. I understand the risk of being completely overpowered with a higher level cap, but that's happened well before level 40. Surely the answer to that is to make the enemies more difficult to defeat.. anyway, it's a personal gripe. This is a fun game that at first I wondered if I preferred to the best installment of BL (clearly BL2) but unfortunately in the end, it fell short. 3.5 ⭐⭐⭐

I just don't understand why they felt the need to make this, other than to make themselves into 'celebrities' and earn money - of which surely they have plenty. You can push your own truth as much as you want, but there comes a time to just accept things for what they are and know that you can't always convince others to see it your way, filming crying etc always feels disingenuous and to me it feels pretty clear that they have an obvious agenda. I feel that to make a documentary for so much money comes across as very transparent. It feels fake and their version of the facts just do not add up. I don't love the royal family by any means, but prefer the subtlety - at least they don't shove their opinions onto the public.

There's something very refreshing about watching a show that features teenagers where the cast are actually similar to that age. Alot of them have spots, scars, different body types etc. It would have been so different to grow up with shows like this compared to the typical American high school shows that have actors in their 20s/30s portraying teenagers. Of course by that age their skin and bodies are mature and whatever. It was so unrealistic and I think watching a show like young royals at that age would have really helped me to know that it's okay if you don't look 'perfect'.