Shadow of the Tomb Raider

This game is almost always on sale and is worth getting. I just don't like how the game takes away your weapons a lot. If anyone wants a copy I will gift it whenever it goes on sale.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition Review
Introduction
We all know & love Lara Croft. Square Enix couldn’t have made a better ending to the Tomb Raider Trilogy than this. The transformation of Lara Croft from the prey to the predator is what we all waited for, and this game finally gives us our long-yearned desire. Can Lara master the deadly jungle & overcome terrifying tombs to save the world from the apocalypse she started?

About Lara Croft….I mean the game

Storyline

The story picks off from where Rise of The Tomb Raider stopped. Compared to the inexperienced Lara from the previous two parts, here, she is well aware of all her abilities and also knows what to do against the Trinity. As always, Lara is accompanied by her best friend, Jonah, who Lara relies on a lot. It’s not clearly visible, but the story could have not been set in motion without Jonah’s help as he helps Lara take major decisions & find clues. I, obviously, do not want to spoil this well-woven story, hence I will not be revealing anything. I Will just give a really short intro:

As the game unfolds, Lara Croft seeks the key for a Silver Box with positive intentions to help the people but ends up releasing a catastrophic apocalypse, endangering thousands of lives. The story revolves around how she will fix her mistakes and the obstacles (Mainly Trinity) that fall onto her path.

The previous games had at least a bit of Open-World Freedom during main quests, but this game makes you take the pre-defined route. They encouraged the use of curiosity, to bring out one of Lara’s main characteristics to the player. Using curiosity permits you to enjoy this game & discover hidden tomb/treasures etc.

Funnily enough, we don’t have freedom in combat too. The game wants you to take a Stealthier Approach rather than a direct assault as you could in the previous parts of this trilogy. For instance, in one part, the only weapon you have is a knife/Pickaxe and the enemies have legit Assault Rifle & Armor, so a sane person would obviously take the Stealth approach as there is no chance of survival otherwise.

Gameplay

The game has the classic Tomb Raider mechanics along with newly introduced mechanics that shows Lara is now experienced. You can now Rappel down from higher spots instead of Jumping down or falling. You can also throw your Axe to reach places that are out of your reach. They made it so you can overhang over ledges & ceilings. They increased the Swimming mechanics as there are several instances where she’s thrown underwater & survive while hiding from dangerous creatures like Piranhas, holding her breath & finding a way out.

Combat has been altered to encourage Stealth. You can cover yourself in mud and hide behind vines on walls. You can jump on tree branches and drop jump on enemies, executing them. Or use your bow, shoot an arrow with a rope attached to it, pull in the enemy & hang them on the branch, then choke them to death. There are so many ways to get stealth kills. Combat is overall smooth & decent. But I prefer the freedom granted in the previous games.

Like several other RPGish type games, SOTR also has a skill tree. There are three paths you can follow;

Seeker (Perception)
Scavenger (Handicraft)
Warrior (Physical Capabilities)


These can be unlocked by earning skill points. The easiest way to obtain these is to just follow the main story. The other side quests, tombs, etc. give you rewards but, in my opinion, they are kinda useless as you can sustain the main story with the items you get. I feel like they are just there so the player gets more content for the high price of the game.

You can upgrade your weapons too. Firearms play a vital role in survival. Personally, I prefer using the bow as it’s One-Shot One-Kill to enemies with no armor & is silent. You can also use Fire Arrows, Exploding Arrows, or Fear Arrows, which make this weapon even better. I personally had a lot of fun using fear arrows to make the enemies turn against their comrades, might sound sadistic but was needed for Survival. I forgot to mention that you can change outfits. Certain outfits give the player some buffs. But if you want Lara to look hot, you need to sacrifice the buffs. I used the fitness outfit as she looked o.o in it.

You can hunt for animals to get supplies to upgrade your items & crafting. Hunting has been brought up a notch as now animals flee when they even sense you a bit. But ofc, hunting with an Assault Rifle is a piece of cake.

Graphics & Audio

Graphically, all the games that are part of the trilogy were beautiful. But Shadow of the Tomb Raider is even more beautiful. From tombs to Caverns, the size of everything was increased, offering more areas to explore & permitting Lara to use her abilities pretty well. Everything is detailed to perfection for the best visual experience. From the high rising mountains to the splashing waterfalls, everything was a real feast for the eyes. You see green everywhere, a very calming color! The one thing in this game that obliviously steals the limelight is Lara herself. She looks stunning as always! Well, there’s nothing much to speak on the aural aspect of the game as the dialogue deliveries were on point. I liked how they had an option where you can choose to permit the NPCs to speak in their native languages for a more realistic experience. This is the first time I came across such an option!
Pros

Purely a Story-driven game.
Beautiful Graphics. Lara Croft is a feast to the eyes as always.
Loads of Side-missions & Tombs to complete.
Skill tree that allows you to make Lara even stronger.
Upgradable weapons. There’s a lot of secondary fire modes to the weapons. The different types of arrows available for use make the bow stand out from the rest of the weapons.
Jonah never leaves your side. Yes, this is a Pro as Jonah is the best of the best when it comes to friends.
Your sense of curiosity drives the gameplay by helping you find hidden objects/tombs.
You can choose different difficulties for different aspects of the games. The aspects are: Puzzles, Combat & Environmental Exploration. There are four levels of difficulty; Easy, normal, hard & deadly obsession.


Cons

The main story is really short. I finished it in under 10 hours.
Side quests and tombs are quite unnecessary when it comes to progress towards the Main Story. It feels like they just squeezed it in there for content.


The Finale

I am a big fan of the Tomb Raider trilogy. I enjoyed each & every one of the games. They have something in them that makes me hooked to them. Well, I am sure it’s Lara Croft but okay. Jokes aside, this is a real masterpiece and if you don’t play it, you are missing something wonderful. But yeah, the game comes with a heavy price tag for a few hours of fun. I recommend getting it on a very good sale.
Ratings:9.5/10
I swear I don’t s-simp for L-Lara Croft! ☹

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☑ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☑ Average
☑ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☑ Can get annoying (some bugs)
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ Replayability }---
☐ One and done
☑ Maybe after a year
☐ Worth a second run
☐ Played it 20 times and still not bored
---{ Microtransactions }---
☐ None
☑ cosmetics and other stuff
☐ Slightly pay-to-progress
☐ Pay-to-win
☐ More shops than gameplay
☐ Casino Simulator
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

---{ ☑Graphics☑ }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☑ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☑ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

A beautiful game in every sense of this word, and the most pleasantly surprising comeback after the disappointing Rise. Feels like this time it was made by people who really understood and cared about the franchise, because the way they managed to make it much closer to the old entries while keeping all the modern mechanics is super impressive.
You could say it is the most "proper" Tomb Raider game out of the new trilogy, with little combat and a heavy emphasis on slow, careful exploration. There are still tools that can dumb it down to a generic open-worldish collectathon, but if you deliberately avoid relying on those, you’re in for a very immersive experience. I’d highly recommend opening the map or using survival instincts as rarely as you can. In fact, one of the most rewarding things you can do in this game is just walking slowly, taking in the stunning vistas, enjoying Lara’s smooth movements, thinking about the puzzles or lore while getting the lay of the land. Play it on "One with the Jungle" (it’s not hard at all), be one with the jungle.
Another rewarding thing to do here is, as it should be, raiding tombs. Boy, they really went all out this time; every tomb is like its own little world with pretty much zero repetition. The puzzles got more involved and now have just the right difficulty to help the immersion. The traversal is still mostly straightforward, but the removal of the white paint helped, and occasionally you can even get stuck because you didn’t spot a climbable wall or a ledge, just like it was in the good old days. There are also proper underwater sections now, which is another nice little bridge between the old and new.
The story may not have the same dramatic highs as TR2013, but it’s a solid, competently written affair where everything is a notch above what it was in Rise. Some may be put off by its more subdued tone or slower pacing, especially during the middle stretch, but this is exactly what lets the characters breathe and eventually develop into something more nuanced and mature.
The antagonist is a flawed yet relatable, sympathetic man, and with him comes a conflict that’s much less generic than "I want eternal life" (although at the cost of any consistency in Trinity’s depictions, but who cares about that). Jonah is as important as a partner can be: not just a trusty mood-making sidekick but also indispensable emotional support for Lara. Another special mention goes to Lopez, who, despite only appearing on screen for a few seconds as mummified remains, plays a very important role and is gradually fleshed out both through the main events and lore collectibles.
And, of course, there’s Lara herself, feeling like a real human, showing subtle emotions on her realistic high-poly face. She might be a bit all over the place in terms of personality or motivations, but that is also a decidedly human trait. The much-praised flames/rampage scene is masterfully done, marrying a scared little girl with a cold-blooded killer in a convincing, meaningful manner, and the way the plot uses a supernatural setup to bring closure to her personal trauma is beautiful and touching.
Visual-wise, this game is an absolute feast: lush jungles, breathtaking landscapes, beautiful realistic illumination, fascinating architecture. Each of the three hubs has its own unique vibe: a poor native village ravaged by a storm; a small Christian settlement centered around missionary work; a bustling city in a hidden valley with multiple distinct districts and impressive verticality. It’s not just top-tier graphic design that makes exploration rewarding, though, but also meaningful density; you never have to travel too far to find the next set piece or lore item that at least won’t be boring, and at most will tell something memorable about the world.
The only part where the level of quality falters is the side quests and DLC stories, which feature a number of stiff, unpolished conversations (much unlike the precise directing of the primary cutscenes), but they aren’t numerous enough to ruin the overall impression, and compared to the previous entry’s fetch quests they can still be seen as a slight improvement.
It’s funny because I was so frustrated with Rise for its uninspired storytelling and shallow gameplay, lamenting how TR seems to have become another franchise whose soul got sucked by the bloated progress-bar-filling AAA approach. Yet Shadow blew away those worries completely, even though at first glance it appeared to be doing the same things. As usual, the devil is in the details, and I couldn’t be happier that such details allowed Tomb Raider to stay relevant in modern times without sacrificing its core identity.

I am obsessed with this game. After Rise, I didn't think they could elevate the experience. This is my favorite of the Survivor Trilogy for sure. I find myself unable to stop playing. I just want to get one more achievement, one more tomb. I really love the skills, the combat, the outfits, the voice lines, I mean everything. I love Lara's little witty one-liners and how caring she is. I've already 100% the other two and cannot wait to add this to my list of accomplishments. Cannot wait for more.
Warning: If you are gonna go for the 100% be prepared for the hardest mode being incredibly irritating. You will die to Lara refusing to grag a ledge or grapple anything. Cenotes will become nightmare fuel. Good luck.

9/10.
It's a fun game, the exploration and combat mechanics are the best from the 3. The levels are pretty cool and the puzzles and tombs are very well done.
Lara is an awful protagonist, though. She is selfish, whiny and obtuse and she has actually regressed from the previous games. She has no relevant character arc and her making knee-jerk decisions is the cuase of like 90% of the problems she has to solve. Even Jonah lost his cool with her on this one.
The internal logic of the game is also pretty bad (from a caucasian lady with a heavy british accent passing as a local figure just because she is using a costume is actually hilarious - also, for a Village with little contact with the outside in the middle of nowhere, a LOT of people just speak english pretty fuently, huh?), so calibrate your suspension of disbelief accordingly.