Where TelltaleвЂ™s take on Fables allows us to make some decisions in choreographing the flow of fight scenes, Borderlands relies heavily on pass/fail quick-ime events. Actions like this came across as tedious, and took me out of the story and the world for a brief moment.Speaking of action, the chase scene near the end feels like a step back from the action scenes in The Wolf Among Us. IвЂ™m absolutely fine with this, but there are a few instances where I was forced to do a mundane action like push a cart across the screen and use it to climb up into a vent. Like Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us, Tales is almost entirely devoid of puzzles, instead focusing on dialogue choices and character development. Maybe there are big plans for buying your way into or out of trouble in future episodes, but for now money is the root of most of Tales from the BorderlandsвЂ™ evils. The amount of money I was carrying dropped between two scenes for no apparent reason, and the actual things you can spend it on seems entirely superficial. While I like this concept in theory, its execution is a bit clunky. Fiona is able to accumulate money through our various decisions and actions, like finding hidden chests or choosing whether or not to pillage some cash from a dying man. While the traditional Telltale mechanics of dialogue trees and tough decisions work as well as ever in Borderlands, the new currency system feels half-baked. Great writing and fantastic acting make each scene a joy to play through, and I found myself genuinely laughing out loud every few minutes of the first episode. Characters are introduced with the seriesвЂ™ signature over-the-top title cards, and using RhysвЂ™ ability to scan people and items in the environment leads to a ton of often-hilarious fun facts. Tales from the Borderlands hits humorous notes through its dialogue, situations, and even elements of its menus. Does your Rhys want people to view him as a fearsome murderer, or a genius with a silver tongue? If your Fiona has a clean shot at a target, does she take it, or would she rather get out of a situation with as a low a bodycount as possible? In the quick duration of Zer0 Sum, I fell in love with my versions of these two characters, and I canвЂ™t wait to see where they go from here. This is mostly thanks to how strong of characters Rhys and Fiona are, and how great it is to be able to shade them in with your own unique decisions. While having prior Borderlands knowledge helps add a bit of context to the relationship between Hyperion and Pandora, why Zer0 is so rad, and just who the hell Handsome Jack is and why heвЂ™s so notorious, newcomers will be just fine in Tales.

Zero tales from the borderlands