Shadow of the Tomb Raider Reviews
Shadow of the Tomb Raider offers up a powerful finale to Lara Croft's origin trilogy.
A greater focus on raiding tombs, and massively improved stealth combat, make this one of Lara Croft's best modern adventures.
Slick and overly downbeat, Lara's latest sees the reboot trilogy end just as it began.
The final and strongest entry in the rebooted trilogy, this adventure sticks to Lara's strengths while embracing its dark side.
It's only a small step forward from the last game but this is the most successful attempt so far to modernise Tomb Raider, even if the storytelling still has problems.
It delivers bombastic action alongside an engaging collecting and crafting loop. Sadly, the same can't be said for Lara Croft and the overall narrative
Raiding ancient tombs and exploring dense environments is still outstanding in Lara's latest, but the mechanics of the reboot series are getting as rough and unpredictable as the terrain.
Eventually, Shadow of the Tomb Raider succumbs to the darkness, repeating many of the series' usual mistakes, but along the way it shines a thrilling and refreshing light.
Many come to Tomb Raider games for adventure and escape, to visit beautiful places and solve befuddling puzzles. There's plenty of that in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, too. It all depends on how much, or how little, you want to dig and how much you want to play as Lara Croft.
Despite a new developer at its helm, Shadow of the Tomb Raider ends up feeling like more of the same. The new additions to stealth are great; the bow continues to be one of the best in all of video games. Then guns enter combat and the self-reflective story falls flat, making Shadow sometimes a chore to get through. The puzzles in those tombs are pretty spectacular though. I guess she really is the Tomb Raider now.
Coincidentally, Shadow of the Tomb Raider looks content living in the shadow of the other Tomb Raider games, which is good enough in most respects. It's just at its best when it crawls out of that shadow and ventures into uncharted territory.
That's why the narrative payoff falls short. Lara has always played the roles of savior and protector and researcher and badass -- almost entirely because those are parts she has been thrust into. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a perfectly good game, but it feels as though it never figures out a way to address the most compelling aspect of this arc: Lara's personal growth. What path does she want to carve? What does she want her legacy to be? Maybe she'd be happiest spending her life raiding tombs -- all of the danger with none of the world-ending stakes. The glass half-full analysis is that she's a regular chip off the ol' block; glass half-empty, she never really escaped her father's shadow.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider delivers a great new adventure. However, the closure of the trilogy does not stand its ground with enough courage in order to try and provide remarcable new elements, which in the end leaves us with a bittersweet feeling.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Building on the foundations of Rise of the Tomb Raider, there's more depth to the actual tomb raiding, more flexibility in the combat, and the city of Paititi is a hub that you can easily get lost in as you explore it and the surrounding jungle. So, while Shadow of the Tomb Raider's story lacks some of the meaning and impact that it sets out to, this is another action packed romp for fans of the series.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider improves every element of the previous games. Tomb design, jungle setting and the natural disasters complete the definitive Lara Croft adventure. Sometimes it feels to similar to Rise of the Tomb Raider, not only gameplay wise but even locations, characters and enemies.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
While combat could still use some fine-tuning, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a master class in turn-of-the-century-esque exploration awe, and I hope this serves as a springboard for Lara into the next generation of gaming technology.
As a final blowoff to the Trinity saga, I couldn't help but walk away feeling that the resolution to the story and to Lara Croft's character could have been so much better. But in terms of a pure "Tomb Raider" game, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is everything a bold explorer could ask for, giving players a vast jungle to explore and daring them to master it.
For all the savvy tweaks to combat and exploration, Shadow of the Tomb Raider unfortunately feels like an extremely long expansion pack, now with killer fish and face mud.
An evolution of the two previous games that is as fun as they were but a bit more varied an tombraider-ly in the classis sense of the word. It has some flaws, but even with that is a great game.
Review in Spanish | Read full review