It couldn't have been any other game.

To what extent should we evaluate a game merely on its own merits? To what extent should we let exterior context color one's assessment? Is it even possible to review in pure technical isolation? Maybe, if you're a freak.

To me the original Borderlands represents so much more than just some stuff some devs slapped on a disc. A summer of growing up and friendships that barely exist anymore (yet you still see each other once a year around Christmas). Hanging out near farmlands that are now home to bricks and concrete instead of potatoes and onions. Once so familiar rooms that I'll never see again and rooms I have seen unexpectedly again after all, unchanged, as if locked in time. A sense of opportunity in the air that embraced you, like cool cling wrap the moment you stepped outside. Maybe you could summarise it all as a general "joie de vivre", if you want to be so-called literary inclined.

Now you could argue that all the above has nothing to do with the game. That's not the stuff they put on the disc. But let me tell you: that stuff wouldn't have been here anymore, if it weren't for the stuff on that darn disc. Let me be clear: it's not my favourite game by a long shot and it never will be. Yet it has quietly solidified those Summer-of-2010 memories into something I can access again with one mouse-click. Unbeknownst to me, it has become a little part of me, just like any other experience that has stuck with me.

Still, you could rightly ask me why I wrote all this stuff down, that I should shut my pretentious mouth and just tell you if I enjoyed the darn game or not. Maybe you feel an urgent desire to point out to me that I'm writing this only to satisfy my own ego and that, in fact, every writer ever has done so. There's probably some truth in that, yes. But honestly, I don't necessarily want you to play this game. Part of me just secretly hopes that this stuff makes you remember a game that means something similar to you.

If this has somehow convinced you to play this game after all, please, do not think of me when you do.

(bonus tip: install "globals mod" and "borderlands enhanced light reshade preset" for a Real Good time)

(tl;dr: the most sovlful tech demo ever)

I've been playing this game off and on for the last 10~ years. It was usually around the summer holidays when my siblings and I would whip out this game and battle each other, not paying much attention to its storyline. But this summer, oh this bloody warm summer, I finally did pay attention. And... it was a bit of a drag. The AI is a big dumb dumb and most of the opponents use decks that would serve better as shiny toiletpaper. Progressing through the story takes too much time if you don't know how to exploit the duel-radar-thingy. Not being allowed to save before key events doesn't help either. Some cards are bugged and together with the rest of the game guilty of real ugly spelling errors. And it could've been even worse! I played the PAL version which supposedly already enjoys fixes for problems that are still present in the NTSC version. Thinking about these negatives make it appear like a sloppy package with no redemption, if not for the classic YGO TGC gameplay. It's a 100% faithful implementation of the early 2005 chaos meta which is a pure and enjoyable era in the cardgame's history. Heck, even opening packs is a Good Time: the game is not stingy with its currency and that feels like an odd breath of fresh (old?) air in this era of microtransactions. And that kinda sums it all up. I know I won't be reaching for Master Duel when Duel o'clock rings. Nightmare Troubadour all the way, baby.