I don’t really Even know what to say rn.
Ill start from the beginning ig lmao
I recently picked up an older game I’ve been meaning to try, Borderlands two. I bought it at a GameStop, and the cashier told me the game was an absolute blast and crazy fun, and he handed me the game. I got home, and started the game.
The first cutscene was hilarious, and introduced us to the five main characters. Zer0, a robotic/alien ninja type, Maya, a magic lady called a “Siren”, Salvador, a gun nut type, Melrose, an undead ghost sorta character and Axton, the straight forward call of duty type. Then, hilariously, they were all blown up. I went through all the abilities to see which one I’d want to use. Zer0 had a weird clone invisibility ability, Maya could make enemies stand still, Salvador could use two guns at once, Melrose could activate an invincibility mode which would make him do more damage for any damage he took, and Axton could put out a turret. I decided to go with Melrose, not only cause I love undead creepy looking characters, but his ability was super useful, and I felt like it could carry me.
I chose him, and began being spouted basic exposition at by a small character called claptrap, and a AI girl or something called Angel. Eventually Claptrap is stolen away by a giant monkey sorta thing. I walked the level, which was mostly empty, only really seeing the corpses of other smaller monkeys and some masked humans.
Eventually, I arrived to the monkey, with claptrap getting disassembled, yelling a line that went like “I’m a robot and can’t feel pain, but OWWWWW” I killed the boss using Melrose, and picked up what was left of claptrap. He said to install him to my “Echo” a sort of HUD device, which then made him my official guide and voice.
Jack (the villain) would occasionally talk to us, mostly saying nasty things ranging from “I killed ALL your friends, bummerrrr. Here I’m sending you like, 2,000 bux so you can have a funeral or whatever” and actually giving me the money, to saying “I’ll hang you and have bandits eat you alive, and I’ll make sure you’re hooked up to life support so you feel EVERYTHING” to “Hey, a little by the way, I’ve sent an assassin your way, so either he kills you, or you get some super cool loot, I don’t care” and sending a high level boss.
I also interacted with interesting characters, ranging from depressed, to happy, but all of them carrying a sense of unease towards me, and all living a gritty, harsh reality. The game had interesting living systems, such as eating, but instead of all those, my character simply had a “decay” system, which meant instead of eating, drinking, or keeping warm, my character instead would rot, slowing down and losing maximum health. To fix this, I could either eat enemies remains, or go to dr zeds, who would say “I can’t CURE death, but I can’t damn sure prolong it”
My character did have some dialogue, in his raspy voice, like “I CAN SMELL YOUR FEAR“ “I CAN TASTE YOUR DEATH” “MEET YOU IN HELL” “JOIN MY DEMONS” “I HAVE BECOME DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS” “Oh how I wish I could join you” “I envy your mortality” “Kill number 19 trillion and thirty two. Maybe thirty five” Sometimes he’d just give off straight up demonic screeches or laughs.
Dying funnily enough yielded hilarious messages, such as “You got deader, we made you aliver” “I’m scared of whoever killed you” “Did you finally decide to not live, too bad, you didn’t cancel your New-U subscription” “I better get a raise for bringing this back to life, it was dead when it subscribed” among some other jokes. So, I went through the story, fighting Jack, trying to find vaults, and stop Jack from finding it. Going through the game, my character choice seemed kinda mid. It really felt like it barely effected anything. The enemies were really strong, especially enemies which used fire, which basically instantly kill my character.
Jack was confident that he was a hero, and I was a monster, and he began sending out people with flamethrowers after my character, saying he really has to exterminate me. Lilith, another siren was telling me that I need to find a way to stop Jack from finding the great vault. Angel told us she knew how to do it. So, I struggled towards her.
Eventually, my character started getting really strong, his ability now lasted longer, could bring him out of FFYL, he was gaining fire resistance on top of increased health, and my character could even reanimate a few enemies at a time to fight for him. I finally found the AI known as angel, who was actually a siren daughter of Jack. We found their original body hanging, plugged with a bunch of wires, and Jack began crying, begging us to not unplug her, but we had to, or else he would be able to find an open the great vault. He begged, but I did unplugged her anyway, killing her, but foiling Jack.
Eventually, he managed to find it anyway, but, I beat the monster, then beat and ate Jack. The ending cutscene was character based, showing off Melrose sitting on a ledge with Jacks bloody mask, and spouting off an epilogue that went something like
“Well. I saved the planet. But they still hate me. I never chose to be this creature, I was made into this. I live in permanent pain and undeath. But this Eridium stuff.. maybe this can fix something. It can help the sirens, maybe it will help me.”
After I was done with the game, I began leveling my character all the way, and deciding I should find a build for him. I searched up BL2 Melrose, and got nothing. I kept searching, and searching, and eventually just searched for BL2 intro. It doesn’t have Melrose. Melrose doesn’t exist. This disk wasn’t modded, and I bought it fresh and unused. Maybe I have a beta copy ? Can anyone help me figure out the mystery of BL2 Melrose, the Undead Murder Machine