The mission design, art direction, and writing here is remarkably shitty for its day. Most [giant finger quotes] "story" is conveyed via obnoxious HUD mission descriptions, and the mission loops are almost always designed around forcing you to revisit an area you've already cleared, so you can collect an item that won't appear until you receive the new mission objective (which, of course, you can only receive after finishing the area for the first time).

While there was definitely a gap in the market for an endless RNG loot loop game on consoles at the time, it's a little surprising an aesthetic style so bland this found an audience so rapidly. Later games would ramp up the annoying epic cheese-monkey humor factor in the dialogue, but unlike this one, you couldn't really argue they lack personality.

Once the DLCs hit, though, the visual language starts to make a lot more sense, if for no other reason than the new environments use a color other than beige.

I have every Borderlands game but guess who comes back to this gem?
This is the OG Borderlands with BL2 being the peak. Other games are just made by otherworldly people who doesn't understand what basic BL fans basically want.
It was fun, with it's humor, gameplay, references and easter eggs. Even after all those years, it still holds up. I have the urge and passion to 100% this game and it's DLCs.
Hearing Tannis go insane over time was fun. And I liked the reference to Diablo 2 with the Rakkinishu boss.

I guess this GOTY Enhanced version are made by the same people who made the other modern garbages as this game has been worked on more than a few times and still has memory leak which forces you to restart the game as you will be getting 3 FPS. Also the dialogues are bugged and sometimes they won't play which causes you to miss out on the story and the missions (where claptrap informs you that there are new missions at a person/bounty board)
And the best bug yet! Clipping out the map and falling to your demise and you don't even respawn until you restart your save.

I played BL1 and BL2 with passion but the other games just sucked the passion and soul out of me just like those dementors from Harry Potter.
I have no hope for the future of this franchise and the upcoming movie.
Thanks a lot for where you've taken this franchise, Randy Pitchford.

Honestly, coming back to a title I spent so much time on in my youth, Borderlands 1 has absolutely nothing to say in terms of gameplay and quests. The game is absolutely caked on with fetch quest after fetch quest that barely keep you engaged with it's outdated humor, well at least not as outdated as it's sequel. The enhanced edition also brings much more issues to the game then fixes and upgrades as Gearbox STILL hasn't fixed the games memory leak and has made multiplayer almost near unplayable with lag and horrid desync issues. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth as a longtime fan that this is what replaced the original on the steam listing, making fans have to relive one of their favorite games in a worse quality remaster.

One thing that Borderlands 1 does extremely well is it's incredible atmosphere of Pandora's wasteland and the hopelessness that comes with its environment of bloodthirsty bandits and treasure hunters. The story is also pretty captivating with the buildup to whether or not the vault actually exists in the first place, as well as what can be inside of it.

Overall the game isn't bad, but more of a extremely mediocre fps story game. If you're looking for a fun coop experience, there is much better out there than this. If you still want to scratch that Borderlands itch with your buds I would much more steer your attention towards Borderlands 3, or even 2.