izigame.me

For the positives; the game overall is beautiful, the environments at least are wonderfully done. Also the game's engine is really solid. No real issues with stability this time around, barely any bugs; impressive technology. The music, although sparse, is very nice. Some themes really put the hook in me. In terms of game play, overall it's a more refined version of TR2013, particularly some of the stealth sections really were enjoyable. Not all perfect, but overall quite solid.
However, that's where the positives end for me. This is a very well liked game, I'm honestly surprised by the score, but my critiques for this game make it less than enjoyable for me. If this was Uncharted, the chick edition, it would be more recommendable for me, but considering that this is supposed to be a Tomb Raider game, I can't entirely disconnect the name from the game.
I recommended TR2013 because it was focused, concise and overall an enjoyable experience. The trends that Rise is adopting are worrisome though and they've doubled down on those trends for the third game as well. It makes sense that I really didn't like Shadow then.
They tried cramming too much in this game. There's too much busy work, too many trivial side quests, too many resources to gather, too many deers to hunt, too many collectibles to get... TR2013 was a lot more focused and didn't outstay it's welcome. By the half way point of Rise, I was done with the 100th "exciting" climbing sequence while the world is crumbling and Trinity is blowing up mountains. I was done with falling through the floor for the 10th time going into a slide sequence.
But most of all I'm thoroughly done with this "Lara". What an terribly annoying self-centered protagonist! The constant yammering while I'm trying to work on a puzzle in that high pitched voice was honestly stressing me out to the point that I had to stop playing... Furthermore; her personality is so far removed from the original character that I'm actively repulsed by this new one. Her motivations are so selfish that she became incredibly unlikable in this one. In TR2013 she was at least bearable and when the game came out at the time, I didn't mind giving her a chance, but she's so much of a Karen in Rise that I honestly turned down the volume for parts of the game and wanted to skip cinematics in my first playthrough.
Same goes for her looks. I know Karen Croft is liked by many, but she doesn't look or act like Lara. She's too much of a short little princess with a bad haircut. She's fairly good looking, but horribly boring and bland. She at least had something going for her in TR2013; I had a connection with her, she was attractive. But with every new game in this reboot, she looks less interesting, less special, less attractive, systematically undone of any identifying characteristic and her body slowly turned from a 9 into that of a 12... year old boy. I guess making people ugly is progress? Maybe that's why Western games are losing out to the Eastern market. Whoever decided that turning the strong, sexy, beautiful Lara from the original games into this Karen was a good idea, needs to stay far away from Tomb Raider.
The entire story of Rise and for that matter Shadow is honestly subpar. TR2013 had quite a good story, simple, quite focused, with complications along the way, but the overall mission was clear. The story in Rise is terrible; I played this game 3 times up to this point and with every playthrough, I completely forgot what the story was about. The entire thing with the "prophet" and the atlas... I honestly couldn't write down the story if I had to. Maybe my interest was diminished by matters peripheral to the main story, but either way it's a sin.
The side characters are for the most part boring and forgettable as well. Although I remembered Sofia for being another insufferable character. Basically a clone of Karen, now that I think of it. And what happened to Jonah? He was quite enjoyable in TR2013, albeit a bit underused. In this one, he's so much underused that he would have been better used if he wasn't in the thing at all. And what happened with his appearance? How did he get downgraded so much in 2 years? On a positive note, I didn't hate Ana, her role in this was quite solid and one of the rare highlights in the game. I also don't get why they just recycled the "undead" warriors from the first game. What are the odds that basically two identical supernatural armies attack Lara twice in two years? Inspiring writing! Talking of which, are we basically going with the ending from Raiders of the Lost Ark? Really? Who okay-ed this?
In terms of gameplay it's not all good either, but apart from the "open world" busy work, overall I have a few nitpicks, nothing more;
The climbing arrows need to go, they are inventive and fun for the first climb, but after that they are relied upon too often and slow down the game way too much. Maybe if they would stay put whenever you come back later...
This game introduces a few sections with offset cameras. Which are a blight on Shadow. This is one of the worst inventions in this type of action adventure game. Your game is built on muscle memory and then you go offset the camera, so the player doesn't know if you need to look at this from the point of view of the character or the pov of the camera. At least in this game the highest difficulty doesn't spawn you back at the campfire for the most part, unlike in the next game.
Another thing that grinds my gears in games like this is that you might unlock a gadget that gets you further which is fine, but it's sometimes so unclear that you might think a certain situation can be overcome with your current tools. Causing you to lose time for no reason.
The final battle with Constantine wasn't bad, the part with the helicopter is okay, but the melee combat at the end is very poorly designed. You can stun lock him in melee combat, you can keep hitting him, but that doesn't progress the fight, this lasts indefinitely. You can only take him down with stealth attacks. Not really the final battle I hoped for...
Lastly, what's with all this micro-transaction fueled side content that doesn't have anything to do with the main game. I thoroughly hate that single player games do this and I repeat; if you want to add this shit: don't attach achievements to it!!! Talking of which, some of the achievements are bugged, which is great for a completionist....
In the end, I know that this isn't a terrible game and the Steam score reflects that, but I had too many issues with it and I honestly don't like where this franchise and this character is going. If these are going to be sacrificed to the mythical "modern audience" that wouldn't buy a TR game anyway, I guess I'm going to stick with playing the remastered original games that still have real Lara <3.