SoTR is the best of the remake trilogy

[Mišmil]

Just started playing yesterday and i am amazed by how much they improved. Here are some improvements of the top of my head.

-Sounds - The sounds in Rise and Tomb are terrible, guns sound like hitting a pan, or like pew shooters, Shadow has impactful, heavy gun sounds. The atmosphere is also a lot better due to all the haunting sounds in Temples, wildlife in jungle, etc.

-Movement - In the previous games Lara moved finicky and awkward, the camera was pulled back more and it always felt "off". Now, it is so much better, the movement feels precise and accurate.

-Traversal - So much better! Rise was a nightmare with verticality and cramming everything upwards which, coupled with bad movement mechanics, just made exploration feel frustrating. Now, the map is more compact, navigating makes a lot more sense and discovering secrets is actually exciting.

-Tombs - no more just going into an abandoned Soviet mine, no more bizarre solutions, no more finicky animations - tombs are now spooky, haunting, dangerous, with great audio cues and fun puzzles.

-Combat - the best in the series. Weapons pack a mean punch, stealth is functional and highly rewarding. Different stealth takedowns offer a lot of variety, while the enemy AI is clever enough to go looking for you, checking last known locations, etc.

-Crosshair - Finally good crosshairs - we are done with that stupid circle! Now, aiming for that headshot feels rewarding.

-Story - They toned down the melodrama, the set-piece explosions, the constant "running only to fall and injure yourself and get back up". a much more personal, slow, paced experience. Lara herself feels like a more normal person now than in Rise where she felt off.

-Quests and NPCs - who even remembers those stupid Remnants from Siberia? Or any NPC from Tomb? The town in Shadow is fun to explore, feels lived in, has its own sense of place. The whole idea of bartering is great, there is a merchant, quests are now finally fun, you get a short cutscene of Lara chatting instead of some fur barbarian telling you to collect hardwood or whatever.

-Graphics - Oh, my GOD. The game looks stunning. I cranked up everything and it shows. One interesting issue - this will make future platforming, and Third Person Adventures MORE DIFFICULT - everything seems so realistic it is hard to figure out what is collectible and what is only clutter. I guess that is why some form of Detective Vision is a must. Light bounces off great, giving everything warmth and color, dark crevices are damp and cold, the shadows are fantastic. Faces look great, cloth moves naturally, foliage looks AMAZING. You really have to play it just to experience the look of the game.

Every single thing that was an issue, they improved. I had my doubts whether this series has a future but, if they carry on like this, they will create a fantastic series that will be fondly rememberd, like the Batman Arkham series. Honestly amazed how much they improved the core of the game over Tomb and Rise.

9/10 so far!

[Metr0]

The remake trilogy as a whole is pretty bad like they ruined laras character and personality you could argue she is the true villain in these games she looks worse then the previous model and is selfish immature and seemingly driven by petty reasons and emotions. the plot to these games is pretty god awful as well the old games and lara are better for sure

[Maya]

I love the 2013 trilogy and Shadow is my favorite, Love it super much. And what really stands out to me little extra in the best ways is the acting in shadow.

[Mišmil]

Originally posted by Magic Crafter:

The remake trilogy as a whole is pretty bad like they ruined laras character and personality you could argue she is the true villain in these games she looks worse then the previous model and is selfish immature and seemingly driven by petty reasons and emotions. the plot to these games is pretty god awful as well the old games and lara are better for sure

True, the whole Trinity plot and Lara being this hot mess that justifies everything by "But they killed Daddy :(((" needs rework. She feels most normal in the 3rd one but yeah, new Lara is a menace - DESTROYS Yamatai, DESTROYS the divine source (Why not give it to the UK government, or the UN? BECAUSE TRINITY IS EVERYWHERE AAAARHHHH TRINITYYYY!
Very weak reasoning. In the third one she drowns an entire town and is just screeching TRINITY TRINITY LETS GET TRINITY.
They even toned it down A LOT but there can be more improvement. No need for end of the world nonsense, and definitely no need for some villain organization. Honestly, they don't even seem that unreasonable in Tomb and Rise. Maaaaybe in Shadow.

[Mišmil]

Originally posted by NLLY:

I love the 2013 trilogy and Shadow is my favorite, Love it super much. And what really stands out to me little extra in the best ways is the acting in shadow.

I hated, HATED the nonsense of RIse - the whole Siberian plot felt contrived, hammy, the "running while things are collapsing and jumping woah :0" was finicky because she moves weird and her personality was just weird. The plot is also veeery "I must defeat Trinity? But why though? I JUST HAVE TO OKAY?!?! DAD?!!! DAD!!!! SOURCE?!?! DAD!!!?"

In the third one you have the villagers, the townspeople, everything has much better pacing...

If they decide on a new trilogy, they just need to stay away from the Tomb/Rise splosions, falling down only to "injure" yourself and get back up, and cinematic bloat. Hell, even collecting stuff is a damn chore in Tomb/Rise - over 100 achievements half of which you can't get because of damn mulitplayer! Shadow has 99, no challenge bloat, no collection bloat, it really works.

If they decide on a new series then Shadow is definitely the good way forward.

[Havean]

Originally posted by Magic Crafter:

The remake trilogy as a whole is pretty bad like they ruined laras character and personality you could argue she is the true villain in these games she looks worse then the previous model and is selfish immature and seemingly driven by petty reasons and emotions. the plot to these games is pretty god awful as well the old games and lara are better for sure

Not really she only kills people in self defence.
I know its silly to claim over 100 acts of self defence in a day but hey it happened.

[Mišmil]

They still managed to make an error that makes no damn sense. Why can't i TURN ON THE DAMN FLASHLIGHT? I am trying to see in the damn dark because its not my decision apparently. What a stupid oversight.

[Mišmil]

Pretty good so far, but they really need to STOP ADDING THOSE RUNNING SEQUENCES. I was in that temple with those freaky screechers and apparently i was supposed to run but the camera was facing the wrong way so three of those just showed up and beat the sh*t out of me it looked so funny. The shotgun is so good though. BLAM!

[Mišmil]

Amaru, or Professor Dominguez - is 100% right. Unuratu is an useful idiot that would get taken out the minute they made contact with the outside world. Look at what is happening with the last native tribes in the Amazon, they get decimated constantly. He's only "evil" because the plot necessitates it, but he makes complete sense.

[Mišmil]

So apparently, The Cult of Kukulkan - or Trinity - has controlled the Hidden City for 500 years. So... why are they villains? They made it thrive for 500 years, kept the population stable, didn't loot it (like Lara), didn't burn it down, etc. All things considered, Trinity is a remarkably "rational" organization.

[Mišmil]

Aaaaand the game keeps crashing now.

6/10

[Mišmil]

Fixed the crashing. Now there's a bug where it doesn't count the collected documents.
Truly a hopeless series.
Crystal Dynamics should just give up at this point, bunch of hacks...

[Mišmil]

AGAIN WITH THE DAD COPOUT. In Rise it was that blonde dude that killed dear PAPA. Now Amaru was the one that ordered it. Can they find some new justification other than PAPA?? Will the next villain be the one that sold the gun that killed PAPA? PAPA! PAPA!

EVERYONE is involved with his death at this point this is ridiculous.

[Mišmil]

Just finished the game. WOO!

Somehow managed to collect every damn thing, solve every puzzle, find everything, a great game this was. There was a lot of jank around those stupid running sequences while stuff collapses (have no idea why they are obsessed with this stuff), a bunch of bugs, a few crashes, etc.

Pretty cool. The ending battle was nonsense. PLEASE STOP SHILLING THE BOW ALREADY I AM SICK AND TIRED OF IT.

Now that the "Dad" Trilogy is over, i guess in the next installment we are going to discover someone killed Mommy! *gasp!*

8/10 at the end, pretty good.

[amanstaett]

They already did the mommy thing with king Arthur sword in the trilogy before this one i believe.

[Mišmil]

Originally posted by amanstaett:

They already did the mommy thing with king Arthur sword in the trilogy before this one i believe.

Damn... I reallyyyy enjoyed Sotr - Rise was a headache for me, the original Tomb with Yamatai was pretty good. It is a pretty mid character, maybe they should just accept it, enough with the melodrama. Fighting some "big bad" at the end usually feels anti-climactic - at this point she stopped the spirit of an ancient Japanese Deity, byzantine immortals, and literally stopped the apocalypse of the sun lmao. I hope in the next installment she just learns how to chill.