I can’t help but feel just a little bad for the folks at Iron Galaxy. In many ways, porting the excellent Borderlands 2 to Vita could be considered a fool’s errand of sorts, but they’ve pulled it off as well as anyone could have expected. If that sounds like conditional praise, it’s because it is. The Vita version of Borderlands 2 is remarkably content complete, right down to the two DLC character classes and all the major expansions, but that means very little given how deeply and consistently its technical issues compromise the moment-to-moment gameplay that’s supposed to form the core of the experience.

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Few games have had a longer train of substantial DLC add-ons than Borderlands 2 has, and getting it all crammed onto the Vita is an impressive feat by any measurement. Of course, corners have been noticeably cut in order to make that happen – sound has been compressed, and many textures and effects have been simplified to make weight as well. Even on the Vita’s beautiful screen, Borderlands 2 lacks the color and crispness of both its console brethren, and more importantly, other games on the platform. Cross-Save functionality is a boon to be sure, as is the ability to play online, though the drop to two players from four is another example of the watering down that had to be done to make portable Borderlands a reality.

These compromises are the least of this port’s worries though. Borderlands 2 has never been about visual splendor, but about fluidly placing bullets or blades between the eyes of all manner of monsters and bandits. At its best, Borderlands 2 on Vita plays like your Vault Hunter is fighting underwater with dumbbells strapped to their ankles; at its worst, it’s a nearly unplayable slideshow. Even during rare stretches where it maintains a constant framerate, it’s well south of 30, and it hitches at random like playing an MMO on dial-up. The “limitations of hardware” excuse just doesn’t apply here. Killzone: Mercenary, and Uncharted: Golden Abyss both managed solid performance and stunning visuals, making Borderlands 2’s showing a disappointment by Vita standards.

The coup de grace is the ungainly control scheme, which hurt my hands about as much as the flickering framerate hurt my eyes. On console or PC, Borderlands 2 uses every button available, so it’s only logical that getting it to work on the Vita would require some compromise, but placing vital gameplay functions like sprint and melee on the unresponsive rear touch pad was not the way to go. Aside from being painfully awkward to reach, the rear panel just flat out doesn’t work half of the time. Sure you can remap the controls, but no matter which way you slice it, two functions are always going to be unreliable, and that’s two too many.

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The sum of these compromises is simply too hefty, making just about every firefight feel like a chore. The fact that I know just how great those very same encounters can be when I’m not being forced to slowly hobble through them just makes playing this version of Borderlands 2 that much more frustrating.