Crystal Dynamics already made a reboot of sorts with their Legend trilogy, but then decided to have another go with another reboot trilogy. "Shadow Of The Tomb Raider" is the final game in this new trilogy, but has been finished by Eidos.
The graphics here are really impressive and there's a lot of detailed objects and a few densely populated villages. There's an improved volumetric lighting model, and a warmer colour palette. However I did notice a few lighting bugs, like if I turned slightly, the area behind me sometimes went dark.
I thought the facial animations were rather inconsistent - sometimes they looked impressive, but then other times they looked rather strange. There were a few occasions where the dialogue seemed rather quiet. In the menu, you can choose if you want the natives to speak their own language or in English. Lara will reply in English regardless though.
Another impressive option is how "combat", "exploration" and "puzzle" difficulty can be set independently. Exploration determines the amount of paint illustrating climbable areas, and I think Puzzle difficulty drops more hints.
The game opens with a Day of the Dead festival in Mexico. It features very slow walking as you talk with Jonah - seems like Assassin's Creed with the crowds and easing people out of the way. When you do get some action, you take out a few enemies using stealth. You meet Dominquez, the leader of Trinity, who seeks a magical dagger and box to remake the world. After rappelling down into a tomb, Lara takes a mythical dagger and triggers an earthquake which floods the area, and puts you into an intense action sequence of the typical collapsing structures as you leap to safety. Lara feels guilty about triggering some apocalyptic events and wants to stop Trinity. You then fly to Peru where your plane crashes and you get temporarily split from Jonah and lose all your equipment which you need to recover, but all you get is your bow at first. After an encounter with some ferocious jaguars, you eventually come across a small town and Lara's adventure truly begins, eventually spending a lot of time in the nearby Paititi.
The action set-pieces were toned down in the last game, and it's the same here. However, the few that are here are very over the top like the floods, and a helicopter chase whose gunfire is spraying everywhere but at Lara.
They have also decided to tone down the combat - now putting an emphasis in platforming, puzzling, and stealth. In the previous games, I felt there were some ideas that weren't really developed, or pretty much forgotten about and this is also this game's weakness.
The hunting and crafting aspect is still here, and could have been more interesting, given the jungle setting. You will find some capybara, deer, jaguars, and a few birds. The skins are used for upgrading your weapons, but you don't use your weapons enough for it to be meaningful. Many skins are also acquired through chests.
The costumes are a good idea for customisation, but there's sections of the story where you are limited to the native's attire. For the capacity upgrades, these are now purchased in shops. To access the Large pouches, you need to unlock a specific upgrade. However, I didn't see them in the current shop. The next shop I found did have them, but I couldn't buy them because I didn't buy the small ones from the previous shop.
There's loads of plants, wood and other miscellaneous things to pick up in the environment, but I was often at maximum capacity, and then occasionally sold my stash at the shop. There was a long period of time where I hadn't visited a shop and therefore was just ignoring all the loot as I explored (since I was at max capacity). I did wonder if I would find the latter parts of the game difficult if I was limiting the amount of money I had, but it made no difference. Maybe on higher difficulties it matters, but the standard difficulty means you can just rush through and ignore all this because you don't need the extra equipment.
As usual, campsites act as quick travel points, and the place where you craft and spend your upgrade points on perks. The skill tree seems a bit cluttered in its presentation. There's some unlocked at certain story points, some have prerequisites but often aren't even related. There are many upgrades that increase the available moves you have like special arrows, explosives, and a few stealth moves. However, many you barely use due to the limited combat situations. I think I bought the Lure Arrow upgrade really early on, but I didn't see an option to craft the arrows. I think they required poison, but it turns out there was another upgrade I needed in order to obtain poison, but it wasn't a prerequisite for the Lure Arrow.
There's a few simple cover-based shooting sections, but most of the combat scenarios see you hiding in bushes and mud walls, attempting to take out the enemies using stealth. Lara seems significantly weaker in the damage she can take, and the damage she deals, so simply gunning everyone down is more of a challenge. You can quickly craft healing items to restore your health, and there's a couple of special items to improve "perception" or "endurance" which can help in combat (also aspects I barely used). Lara still dodges using her "scramble" technique which is a less elegant form of fleeing, almost on all fours, and great for moving between cover. There's no acrobatic flip like in the original series of games. It's always beneficial to look out for the classic exploding barrels which can quickly dispatch groups of enemies. Otherwise try and go for a trusty headshot.
Lara has some guerrilla warfare tactics here, and occasionally goes full Rambo. If she finds a muddy patch, Lara can cover herself in mud which reduces the enemy's visibility of you, and allows you to back against a mud-covered wall. You can sneak behind enemies and strangle them, and if you are currently in a bush, Lara will drag them to the bush to hide the body. Enemies always die silently even if you are axing them in the back. Bodies out in the open can be rigged with explosives to take out an inquisitive guard. Some trees can be climbed, and if an enemy walks under the tree, Lara can either leap down for a kill, or use the rope arrow to pull them up and hang her victim on a tree.
If enemies see a fallen soldier, they will begin to search the immediate area. If they see you, then they will actively engage. I think you might be able to flee and hide, but it was hard to do so, and sometimes they seemed stuck in that alert state. There was one bizarre moment where enemies were alerted to my presence but I didn't know what triggered that state because I was 40 yards away and hadn't killed anyone in their vicinity.
When you clear out an area with pure stealth, it's like a violent logic puzzle. There were a couple of occasions where I couldn't work out how the designers wanted you to progress - enemy patrol paths don't pass your hiding places. Then I couldn't work out how to take them down when there was a fixed enemy with a line of sight covering their position. Maybe you needed to lure specific guards away?
I loved popping out of water to take out enemies, but I think there were only maybe 2 situations across the game.
There's loads of crates to find, then more unique relics, and diary entries. This time, you need to press another button to view what you have found which I imagine pleases the speed-runners. It keeps the pacing of the game up which was a problem in the previous game. You can also look at previous objects in the menu anytime.
Just like the previous game, there are certain objects with text which levels up Lara's appropriate language skill. All this really means is that there's a few objects you may find, but need to come back to later in the game to actually get the XP. For the most part, I could read it straight away anyway. It's pretty pointless really.
Lara still uses her Survival Instinct which can highlight interactable objects, collectables and enemies. Some aspects are upgrades, and some aspects can be tweaked in the options menu if you feel this makes the game too easy. There's an upgrade which also can highlight traps, which, again, is a rarely used mechanic in the game. Since it was underutilised in the previous game, I expected them to use it more here, especially since they have increased the size of the challenge tombs. I suppose I only found a few of them.
The challenge tombs are normally purely puzzle and exploration, although this time there was one that involved combat. Many of the puzzles rely on physics, so you might be weighing down a ramp/elevator, moving rafts, or spinning structures. I found some of these aren't as obvious what to do, or might be slightly janky in execution.
There's lots of climbing around which is like the usual Prince of Persia style stuff such as shimmying, jumping off poles etc. The jumping animation seems a bit more floaty, yet there's loads of jumps you think you should make but won't. Then sometimes she will awkwardly jerk to make sure you reach the platform. One place I forgot about rappelling (you were supposed to drop down, then wall run right), and instead I just jumped and held right. Lara seemed to awkwardly jerk, and I actually made the jump. There was a similar thing later on in the game where I definitely bypassed a few jumps.
The previous game introduced swimming but these sections were very brief and usually was a case of holding forward for a few seconds. Now these sections are much larger, and more free-roam. Lara can hold her breath for quite a long time but it wasn't clear how long you actually had left. Many sections involve popping up at designated breathing holes, and sometimes avoiding eels and piranhas.
There are some really claustrophobic sections where Lara is pulling herself through a tight crevice. All you do is press forward to progress but it's quite stressful to watch. I'm not sure if this is a hidden loading screen, or is there just for tension and putting Lara in uncomfortable/perilous scenarios. There's loads of places where you need to squeeze through small gaps in walls to progress - these are definitely loading screens, but the frequency of them is a bit jarring in terms of immersion.
Throughout the game, Lara will acquire gadgets to progress to new areas. The rope arrow is a key feature like the previous games, and the grapple axe is more prominent. You often use it to swing across chasms, and also rappel down walls. The grapple and rappelling are quite slow manoeuvres so I feel using these more does slow the pace down. Once you acquire the spiked shoes, you start climbing rocks that are angled towards the screen. I don’t think this adds anything other than feeling rather awkward/cumbersome.
Although it does still feature some of the negatives of the previous game, and some negatives of its own, I think I preferred the jungle locale over Siberia so I think I have a slight preference for this one. It doesn't capture the action and atmosphere of the first game, so that remains the best in the trilogy. I think the main frustrations is that there’s all these ideas but they aren’t fully fleshed out, but the gameplay is fine overall.