Shadow of the Tomb Raider Review (Yaerveth)
I'm not gonna lie, after great games like TR 2013 and Rise, I've been looking forward to playing it but my expectations were pretty low due to time gap between Rise and Shadow. Shadow of The Tomb Raider got released almost 2 years after the Rise and I knew that it was going to be one of those rushed products. So, I didn't set my bar very high. After almost 4 years of its release, I finally got myself a new PC that can run it and I've experienced it to its fullest. Did it leave me satisfied? That's going to be one of those complicated answers sadly. I'm actually torn between giving this a positive or a negative feedback. If there was a mixed option, I'd have picked that one immediately. However, since it scratched that Tomb Raider itch I've been having, I'd decided to go with the positive option. Be warned, though. This review will contain spoilers.
I'd like to start with the thing that bothered me most: level design. Both Rise and 2013 were linear open world games but they offered some huge hub areas to explore that you don't feel claustrophobic all the time whereas in Shadow, even hub areas are so clustered and claustrophobic, thus resulting in a feeling of discomfort most of the time. Not to mention that game forces you to squeeze through tight holes almost all the time just to put a tension on you. As a claustrophobic, going through some of the areas was like going through the worst sections of hell. On the top of that, I don't know if it's me or not but the whole world felt really small compared to Rise. It's been a long time since I played Rise, so don't quote me on that.
Climbing feels like it's deliberately made worse by adding some very precise jumps. It's very easy to mess up your run because of them, especially on Deadly Obsession difficulty and I'm sure you can imagine the frustration considering the fact that there are very few base camps that you can save. I believe the only "new" climbing mechanics they added is climbing to the ceilings which also acts as the same way of climbing to walls with Climbing Gear except it's a lot slower.
Combat is stealth based now and it's really good. However, there aren't as many combat sections as there were in Rise and 2013, thus it renders most of the skills you acquire useless. There are way too many skills in skill tree that can be easily counted as useless since you won't be using them that much. There isn't much to say about the combat since it's not that deep and there aren't many sections, so I'll just skip to Challenge Tombs. Challenge Tombs are really good and they were what made me feel like I'm playing Tomb Raider. Some of them are very cleverly designed that most of the time, they gave me a hard time about figuring out what to do next. They are also the only external challenge that you can play outside the main game with time and score attack modes implemented, so it's better to master them if you're aiming to get a 100% completion rate.
Story is... meh. It's a generic Hollywood story. Nothing more, nothing less. Antagonist feels not threatening enough since he's sentimental about saving his homeland Paititi where the whole game revolves around and remaking the world into his own image. The way they tie him to the death of Lara's father also did not make any sense. It was a poor attempt of making the audience to hate him more I guess? He's also supposed to be the leader of Trinity but it occurred to me that he wouldn't be able to lead himself anywhere, let alone a huge organization like Trinity. Konstantin was a better antagonist in my opinion. There's also Commander Rourke, but he's just there. He almost never appears outside of radio communications. Other characters that's supposed to be our allies do not make a lasting impression. I mean, Jacob was pretty good but Unuratu, Etzli, Uchu and Abby are all just there to play their part. I couldn't feel any attachment to them. Jonah's been made more... sentimental and his character growth is the best one in this trilogy in my opinion. Lara feels like completely a different character from 2013 but Jonah? He's mostly the same and he's improved a lot.
In conclusion, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an "alright" game compared to its predecessors. It doesn't live up to its hype. However, you will most likely enjoy it if you're itching to play some Tomb Raider. Just... keep your expectations low, so you won't be disappointed. Know that it is truly the "shadow" of its former self.