Sidekick Jona is notably likeable here and anchors Lara’s emerging chaotic darkness. All the voice-actors do a bang-up job, by the way, with Camilla Luddington expertly reprising her role as Lara. For instance, there’s a flashback sequence that showcases some fun storytelling centered around imagination, play and childhood innocence. There are some lighter, more touching moments that help to break up the intensity. Croft is actually a little emotionally distant in this entry, dealing with the weight of her decisions throughout and reconciling with a life spent fixating on the unobtainable. Generic Jurassic Park: Lost World -style evil organization Trinity makes a predictable return, intermingling with and often thwarting Lara’s attempts to save the planet from the disastrous blight she’s set in motion. The main story is actually quite good, mostly centering around an ancient cult that wants to ‘remake the world’. I will mention that while nicely varied, side missions can sometimes feel like busy work, especially with how long-winded and chatty NPCs can be, but I found most of the extra quests to be pretty satisfying and worth the reward effort. I’ll admit, the latter is actually why this review is slightly late to publish I got completely lost in solving murders for acquaintances, tracking down sacred objects for strangers, untying captive villagers, finding heights off which to swan dive and tearing down frog insignias over people’s houses. After Shadow’s introductory hours, this giant map is where you’ll spend the majority of your time, engaging in main story quests, or in my case, chasing down an endless plethora of challenges and side missions dictated by designated ‘mission givers’. The game as a whole boasts several varieties of large quasi-open areas to explore, but the main hub is the hidden jungle city of Paititi, a bustling (and impressive) social center of stairways, waterways, huts, merchants and native townspeople going about their days. And like that, we’re off to the ritualistic human sacrifices. And it all makes for a really compelling narrative, one that Lara inadvertently sets in motion early on, to disastrous consequences, of course. That’s right-the entire game takes place under the shadow (pun intended) of that ominous end of days we all feared back in 2012. What is completely new, however, is the awesomely inspired setting: The steamy, unpredictable depths of South America’s tropical jungles, complete with empress jaguars, hooting howler monkeys, capybara, poison dart frogs and, oh, you know, the encroaching Mayan apocalypse. Shadow of the Tomb Raider Credit: Square Enix There are a few Sonic the Hedgehog- style sections that will have you holding your breath and practically hearing that infamous running-out-of-air warning music. Stealth and swimming have also been reworked to encourage more strategy, I’d say successfully so. On top of that, Lara can now rappel down cliffs, a useful added skill for swinging onto faraway ledges or dropping safely onto precarious perches. You’ve got your warp-ready base camps, your resource crafting, animal hunting, constant looting and the expected gear upgrades. Besides a few important tweaks and additions, there isn’t much new here in terms of basic gameplay and progression structure. Right off the bat, it’s important to note that if you’ve played Tomb Raider 2013 and Rise of the Tomb Raider, you’ll feel right at home with Shadow (and even get some extra goodies if you played them on the same console). And while Lara’s latest outing doesn’t do much to progress the action-adventure genre as a whole, it’s still one of the most polished and enjoyable exploration titles I’ve ever played. The end result? Proof that despite our own limitations, we (and our heroine) have the power to shape the future. 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider aims to complete this newer trilogy, showing what can happen when an unrestrained treasure-hunting obsession begets real catastrophe, tragedy on a colossal scale that demands difficult choices be made. The 2013 Tomb Raider reboot surprised a lot of gamers with its mature, character-driven origin story catalyst, which led to the excellent Rise of the Tomb Raider, a sequel that saw a more considered Lara coming into her own, forging a fresh gritty path. An in-game quote that reverberates throughout the entirety of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, this sentence also describes Lara Croft’s 20-plus-year journey from low-polygon video game sex symbol to the fully realized female adventurer badass that we see before us today.
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