Tales From the Borderlands episode four tries to tackle every emotion possible in a short, sweet package.
Rhys, Fiona and the ever-changing gang at their backs ended episode three with some issues to sort out. Inside the Pandora adventure, villainess Vallory had the upper hand with the only certainty being that the gang was heading to Hyperion to complete their Vault adventure. Escape Plan Bravo begins directly after that last fire fight, pushing the cast of characters to the stars after a lengthy introductory sequence. What follows feels like an improvement technologically over Catch-A-Ride while seeming to want to give the player plenty of emotional attachments for the last episode.
Environment
A lot of old environments are visited in Tales From the Borderlands episode four with most of them given new pieces or interactive spots to find, helping to mask that repetition. Jack’s office, now a shrine to his time in Hyperion, is one new stop and acts as a display of the megalomania that the character is known for and brings back memories of past plot threads, both exaggerated and real. What seems to have made a return here is the detail in the backgrounds and the inherent rewards for those that closely inspect their surroundings. Jack’s office, again, is ripe with opportunities to sift through the despot’s personal trophies and detail his brand of happy memories.
As previously stated, the bug and hiccup count seems to be way down from episode three. Ample time was given to every meaningful decision, and the character models actually stuck around for that stylish opening, making it a highlight yet again. The voice acting here is the tops with scenes of disgust, sadness and everything in-between coming across as genuine for the most part. One exception shows what happens when a chosen character doesn’t quite fit the intention of the scene Telltale is attempting to portray.
“There are a bunch of characters that appear in Tales From the Borderlands episode four…”
As a vague example, there is one scene that’s clearly supposed to appreciate a character that makes a choice to help out the team. This character, however, has never been portrayed in the light this scene casts; you’re supposed to have a certain ping of sadness, but this character doesn’t ever do sad in any of their scenes. There are still plenty of emotions tied to this action and choice, but it just doesn’t seem to hit home when this character begins speaking in an out-of-place way, then reverts back to normal at the snap of a finger. This was never a well-rounded character and didn’t have to become one at this juncture for this scene to work. As a side note, kudos for that Cowboy Beebop reference.
Gameplay
Tales From the Borderlands episode four doesn’t hand you any more or less gameplay than any of the other entries. You’ll still waltz down halls, tap buttons, move cursors and select dialogue when prompted. The difference, and fun, comes from the new situations you find yourself in. Rhys has himself the bulk of gameplay this time around, Jack hounding him the whole way, while Fiona is almost entirely used for dialogue decisions, which is nearly the exact opposite of last episode. I actually saw my first death of the series thus far this episode thanks to game logic working over some slightly-sarcastic, “that would totally work!” reasoning. Even that death lead to a cute scene involving Gortys before a restart, stamping out any frustration.
Entertainment
A lot of the entertainment from Escape Plan Bravo comes with the building of Handsome Jack and questioning what he’s going to do next. His dialogue walks that line between sadistically joyful when a situation comes down to blows and just a little forlorn for a life he can’t fully remember in multiple scenes with Rhys too focused elsewhere to catch on. You get the sense of what his ultimate plan is regarding his temporary host, and he seems to unravel it with such elation that you want to see his next step regardless. The other entertainment comes from Fiona and Rhys and their comical scenes, including one that could be a video gamer’s dream flash mob scenario. This episode might be the funnies of them all even without the menace of Handsome Jack.
Originality
There are a bunch of characters that appear in Tales From the Borderlands episode four in only about two hours of game length. That cram gives the characters very little time to have moments of introspection or reflection, but it does set up some interesting scenarios for the final episode. And episode five may have to be just as jam-packed because very little progress is made in the main story and very few characters arcs are closed. As far as setup episodes go, this feels like a proper way to handle the concept in structure with a lot of threads left dangling and the cliffhanger feeling appropriately menacing.
Telltale Games seems to have some grander ideas for The Vault of the Traveler as a conclusive episode to this personality-filled series, but that doesn’t stop this entry from feeling like a whole lot of fun and a bit truncated. There are a lot of character plot points and emotions to be found in scenes still, not to mention what seems like a long way to go in one episode to reach this journey’s end. Tales From the Borderlands episode four will probably be the runt of the litter as far as length, but does the series proud in bringing quality and detail back to the Vault Hunters.
Final Thoughts
Without much time, Escape Plan Bravo brings plenty of smiles and sets up grudges to be settled in the series finale.
