Completed the story earlier today and overall I'd say Shadow of the Tomb Raider was underwhelming.
A very good looking game at more than a handful of spots, and Paititi was definitely a very different city/hub type environment compared to what you see in most games these days, so that was a nice refreshing change.
The rest of it was lacking. In particular, I found Lara's voice work to be.. flat? Almost felt like the actress didn't want to be there. Most noticeable to me was when you'd examine various artifacts or notes found throughout your journey, to which there would be an accompanying vocal reading by Lara and, in every case I can remember, was entirely monotone and dead. There is also the neat feature of having localized voice overs, NPCs and characters speaking in their native tongue, but it feels weird and incomplete because they don't have Lara attempting to communicate with the same language. So you have Lara standing there talking in everyday English to some native, who then responds in Peruvian or whatever and has subtitles, and then Lara responds in English again. Not even attempting to simplify her sentences or words and no physical hand gestures to go along with it, as a person might do when trying to express something to someone when you don't speak their language. So while the option for "Immersive Language" seemed like a neat idea at first, I turned it off almost immediately. Too jarring.
Not much to be said about the rest of the game. Story felt somewhat irrelevant to me, but not as dumb as Rise of the Tomb Raider. I haven't played many of the Tomb Raider games, but Lara's backstory and all this Trinity stuff is entirely unnecessary to my enjoyment of this series. Just let me explore cool areas. Remove all the dumb gun fights and stuff. The climbing and level progression continues to feel very linear and a direct copy of Uncharted. Whole skill system felt pointless. I would just open it, stick some points in stuff I didn't care about, and then continue playing. None of the gear felt necessary to craft or purchase. You don't use the weapons very often. Again, all of that stuff is just excess baggage that the series doesn't need. All the animations seemed like they were under cooked, looking disjointed and janky at times. I always hated how you constantly make these huge leaps of faith and then you hit the button and her trajectory changes as she magnetizes to the appropriate ledge to grab. I did like having the options to make combat easy while making all the exploration and puzzles as difficult as possible, which is exactly what I did.
If I were to make a Tomb Raider game, there would be some brief intro narrative that gives a reason for Lara being dumped and stranded in the wilderness, and then you spend the rest of the game freely exploring a vast jungle, or mountain range, or desert, an island etc and trying to survive against the elements while simultaneously exploring the ruins, caves, caverns and tombs you come across. Maybe sprinkle in some educational information about the indigenous fauna and cultures of the area. She doesn't even have to be stranded, she is just out exploring and you operate out of some remote village in the middle of nowhere, gathering artifacts and information.
After seeing credits, I had zero interest in getting back into the game to find more tombs or unlock more stuff. Meh. Just glad it was over.
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