The role I want to talk to you about today is something special about her.
When she first appeared, she was just a child, she carried a school bag, but hidden in it was not knowledge but "bao" (zha), she liked to bounce around like a rabbit, of course, I mean "reloaded bunny", no one would question the huge energy contained in her small thin stature, because she can always give the player the impression of "red, hot, mushroom-like".
Sorry to misplace the picture, this is today's protagonist - Tina in the Borderlands series.
For Borderlands players like me, Little Tina may not be the character who has been with us the longest, but she is certainly an impressive character who may also make a bit of a "spoiled father".
Although Tina's appearance in the "Tina's Tea Party" mission is already halfway through the plot of the 2nd generation, the final boss battles of the 2nd, prequel and 3rd generations have no chance to appear, the character image is not pleasing, she is incoherent, the action is weird, and she likes to study bombs... She has a pair of large teeth unique to rodents, and when talking, her left eye will also have an uncontrollable exostropia because of what has happened to her.
This did not affect Tina's deep popularity.
I think this is probably because in traditional literary works and even in today's games, it is generally difficult for us to remember those characters with stereotyped images, a successful character must have a very unique sense of layering of TA, TA's story may not need too much space to expand, TA can be a riddle who relies on mystery to lure the play (color) family (batch) to take the initiative to understand, can be the "Last Lesson" to teach the protagonist / player love and sacrifice of the immeasurable Tajizi, of course, can also be in Arkham City to plant countless challenges of the riddle man.
The Same is true of the Borderlands series' portrayal of little Tina, relatively short but particularly divine.
How to say it, she gave me the feeling of being a "dry daughter raised by my own hands".
Her childhood experience is tragic, coming from an ordinary family, and ordinary parents who do not even deserve a name to pan for gold, but are abducted and sold as experimental subjects for the Haibolong company's ytterbium mines, Tina eventually escapes from the magic cave because she secretly hides a grenade in her clothes, while her parents stay in the laboratory forever.
In the years that followed, she became an orphan and suffered a complete mental breakdown by watching her parents being irradiated by ytterbium in front of her and eventually becoming inhuman, a story that of course played out every day in the borderlands of Pandora's Star.
Tina was lucky to meet roland, one of the protagonists of the original Borderlands, and was helped by him, and she said when talking about Roland that without him, she might not have survived to this day. Perhaps in the beginning, Roland simply saw helping Tina as a form of atonement, as he had been one of the first members of the Atlas Company Scarlet Spear who had come to Pandora to find the secret and then make a mess of the planet.
As Roland said in his line when he introduced us to Tina — I saved her a few times, and she saved me, countless times — the most ingenious way Borderlands handled this plot was that the two did not stage a sweet and everyday father-daughter relationship in this non-everyday wasteland, and their relationship was more like a pair of comrades who could trust each other's backs.
This also makes Tina put down Roland's death in the 2nd generation ending full of complicated emotions, such as a very rare farewell to Roland's statue in a gentle tone, and then write a poem that is full of "kill Jack".
If I want to deconstruct it further, in the Borderlands, a somewhat anti-RPG RPG, a role like Tina is relatively more in line with the "protagonist" in everyone's cognition, and most of the protagonists in "Borderlands" are mostly interstellar famous "thieves" when they appear, compared with Tina's growth.
In Generation 2, we help her successfully avenge the robber fresh meat popsicle who once betrayed her family, and replace Roland as her "parent", through a table game, taking her out of the pain of losing Roland, which allows her to appear in front of the player as a relatively cheerful image in the prequel two weeks, we can clearly feel Tina's change under the care of herself and Roland, just like the positive feedback brought by the game into Good Ending;
In generation 3, she has grown into a single warrior, no longer often sick, and successfully integrated into the duo of Brick and Mordecai, becoming a family, arguably better than most of the characters in Borderlands.
Especially compared to the 3rd generation of Ava, the two have similar origins (orphans from low-class families) and experiences (accompanied by a protagonist of the previous work who is also a teacher and father/mother), and Ava not only did not repent after killing Maya, but also shirked responsibility when the protagonist went to comfort her: "The death of the war is beyond reproach, I can understand it."
In the borderlands, a B-movie world full of chaos and a little crazy, Tina simply represents that little bit of occasional shimmering human brilliance.
And if you're already a little moved, maybe because of the story between Tina and Roland, or maybe you recall the years when you played Borderlands 2 online with your brothers on the Ranger Battle platform, no matter what it is - I also want to pour cold water on you very "Borderlands", when you know that Tina's voice is Ashly Burch is actually the sister of Anthony Burch, the 2nd generation chief screenwriter, and probably can understand why the writers and plots are so fond of this character.
▲ It turned out to be a relationship household ah I super
Anyway, Tina still has a good appearance rate after Borderlands 2, and even has her own exclusive DLC "Little Tina Strikes the Dragon Castle" and the exclusive game "Little Tina's Fantasy Land". Of course, the popularity of Little Tina is also inseparable from the excellent quality of "Little Tina Attacking the Dragon Castle".
Until now that all the plot DLC of Borderlands 3 has been updated, if I had to name all the DLCs in the Borderlands series, "Little Tina Strikes Dragon Castle" would definitely be in the top three, on the one hand, because the gameplay of this DLC is very good.
The moment you step on the DLC, you can feel that it is different from all the previous Borderlands, in the art, you can see the coastline flowing with out of place magma, you can also see the castle and the perfect blend of traditional D&D elements such as dragons, skeletons and dwarves, the river made of overturned drinks, the 20-sided dice and pushpins that block the road also remind the player all the time, this is a very dramatic fantasy board game world.
In terms of gameplay, in addition to the sudden and sudden gameplay of the main Borderlands, the magic elements common in fantasy works such as changing sheep and ice rings have also been added, bringing more freshness to players.
What's more interesting is that when we come to the main city, we will face a desolate scene, and little Tina will introduce to us at this time: there is a tavern here, and then a tavern appears out of thin air in the open space, and the picture is very similar to the dm trying to build a world view to the player when running the group, describing the visual sense of dungeons, monsters and stories;
At the end of the novice mission, the crazy little Tina will also directly arrange an invincible BOSS flying dragon for the player, and in the spit of the off-site player's voice, she has to change the BOSS to the weakest dwarf, and the integration of these meta elements also presents a special effect of breaking the fourth wall for "Raid dragon castle".
On the other hand, when I spent about half a day online with another friend, laughing and jokingly through the DLC, and seeing little Tina gently holding the statue of Roland, very calmly accepting the fact that Roland left herself, and saying goodbye softly in my own way, the two of us were silent again—this time the story was really well told, at least that's what I thought at the time.
The excellent experience of "Little Tina Storms the Dragon Castle" also made me have a unique expectation for "Little Tina's Fantasy Land", which will be released on March 25.
Especially after the very grounded localization of "Borderlands 3" has been well received by players, "Little Tina's Fantasy Land" has also announced that it will add a full Chinese voice, and various "C language" and less serious paragraphs will surely add a lot of fun to this adventure made up by the brain of "Crazy Lolita". I also have a hard time imagining that in 2022, there will be an FPS masterpiece that can press the minimum configuration to N Card 960 to play.
As for the little expectation of the plot of this game - if I can see my "daughter who has been raised for so many years" grow up healthy in this absurd wasteland and become a strong, independent, and no one dares to provoke the Chaos Demon King, or GEAR BOX can also be a little more straight, directly announcing that Tina will become an operable character in Borderlands 4, then I am willing to pay for it again.
▲ Tina, you hurry up and take me Tina