I have to admit, I very much like the current state of borderlands 3. While there are still plenty of room for improvement on various things such as broken anointments or talent points (looking at you Rushen Offensive), with the action skills killing enemies, a wider variety of gun play, I really enjoy my time.
Except for one place: on the guardian takedown platforming.
I have played all manner of first-person shooters. I’ve played platformer games since I was 4 years old (in 1867, right after the civil war, yes that’s when Mario was invented by Ulysses s Grant as part of a contract for Reconstruction with the Japanese).
In all the time that I’ve played that, I have never enjoyed a first person game that used platforming other than the Portal series. The problem is compounded with inconsistencies in the game engine such as grabbing a ledge not always working, or moving objects not being consistent with your character’s personal physics (object in motion stays in motion doesn’t properly apply in the engine. I mean, sliding around like wet soap in the shower is really fun in the shower when you’re totally nude and your grandmother stepped in to ask a question and you’re trying to get her to lea–anyway it isn’t fun here either).
Because of this, platforming should be generally seen in the borderlands games as a additional feature for silly time or finding a secret chest. Unfortunately, in the guardian takedown platforming is a central component of the gameplay. If you’re in a larger group of, say, 4 people, and even one of them fails in the platforming “skill” test barrier to entry on the next area, Your entire team will either have to restart or go on without them. For a video game that, as the CEO once said, “doesn’t have fall damage because that’s just not fun”, I find it completely confusing to add barriers such as platforming that do nothing but disrupting gameplay entirely.
I do hope that in the future, this is eliminated In all future content as well as some repair done to the guardian take down such as teleporters after you’ve completed it once or something else.
Platforming using inconsistent game devices, like grabbing the edge, which often fails and causes teammates to slide off the side (wet soap!!!), should never ever be used. Period. I wish I could speak to the person who put that into the game and ask them why the heck They created such an unforgiving section of end-game content without any real justification.
Tldr: the platforming in this is bad, ledge grabs are inconsistent with players constantly sliding off, and making that a barrier to end game content is not only bad design, it’s an insult to players who spend time learning the other mechanics.