I recently finished playing shadow the two minute and let’s talk about it. This game is the ending to the modern Tomb Raider trilogy, the survivor trilogy. And the continuation of this is a Netflix TV show that’s coming up this year.
And so having played 2 minute 2013 and runs the 2 minute this very year, comparing this to shadow the 2 minute, I am actually disappointed by this game. I had very high expectations for a shadow of the Tomb Raider 2 minute 2013. I thought was a great game. And then rise of the Tomb Raider took 2013 and actually made it even better. So then looking at shadow out of ready to take a rise and make that even better. And I just didn’t really think that happened. I have to go in the opposite direction and say that this might be the worst game in the whole trilogy, the third game. It’s very saddening for me to say this because I really don’t want to, but this game should be a lot better than it actually is. And the fact that it isn’t, it’s just, I don’t like that. So to talk about what I do not like about this game, for one, I think it has to do with a lot of the chain that is made from rise of the tomb minor.
This game quite noticeably has the least amount of combat encounters in the whole trilogy. You had more fight scenes in the both the first game and the second game. And while it is true that before a whole trilogy, the combat in the Tomb Raider series has never been that great, it was never bad. And the reason I’m being very critical about the combat in this game is that the skill tree that you have, so much of it focuses on combat. So your skill tree, you’re focusing a lot on upgrading your combat, but the combat isn’t really there that much. When talking more about the com balance, I should talk about the action set pieces. This game by far has the weakest action set pieces in the whole trilogy. Most of the action set pieces in this game is just Laura running in a straight line and climbing whatever in front of her. In compared to the first game, there is one scene where you’re gonna parachute flying through a force and you have to avoid trees. There’s another scene where you’re gonna collapsing structure and you have to pretty much run away as everything around you is burning. And the second game, there’s a scene where you are fighting a helicopter and another scene where you’re using a catapult to fight people in front of you. So going from flying through trees and firing. Kyle Poltuna, running in a straight line. This is just a significant downgrade. And then the last thing I’ll be disappointed about in this game is going to be the story. I think the whole trilogy, this is the weakest story in it. There are some aspects about the story that I did like, and I’ll get into that. But for a large part of it, they’re just, I don’t really care that much. And to add on that, there are just so many contrivances that in the plot that just really takes it out for me. The prime example for me that there is one sequence in the game where Laura has to worry a disguise in order to enter enemy territory. And as she’s in enemy territory, she is talking to the people. And Laura, she speaks in a British accent in Spanish territory. How come the enemy’s Trinity does not recognize that there’s Spanish people, there’s a British person wearing their uniform that just kind of takes me out of it. And then there’s the ending. I don’t like the ending very much. Basically, like the final action. See, she makes it an ally and the ally just very undercooked and it just kind of goes from there. And these negatives, they really do affect my perception of the game cuz they’re very important to the overall experience. But at the same time, the door thing that this game did improve on compared to its predecessors, the biggest improvement that I think shadow the 2 m did compared to its predecessors has to be the puzzles and the tombs in general. I think here the tombs and the puzzles, they’re at their best.
It is very obvious that the reason why there are less combat encounters in this game is so they can focus more on the puzzle aspects. And at that point, I do think they succeed. My only issue that so much of the rewards is focused on the combat. So just, it’s just contrary ideas right there.
And when talking about the puzzles, I think the sidequests in these games are at their best. By far, this easily has the best side quest in the whole trilogy. And the first game we have no side quest.
And then the second game, while the sidequists are introduced, I would say none of them are actually that great, mainly because the people that we’re talking to and helping, we really don’t know them. We know about the plays, but with the people, we don’t really care for them. But in this game, we actually do get to know the people a lot more and therefore, we do the cyclist. It’s a lot more intimate, a lot more personal.
And looking at a gameplay aspect, one of the biggest critics that I had for rise of the true matter was that near the end of the game, getting upgrades, it became a lot more grindy. When you want to upgrade your weapons at the highest level, you need very specific materials that are very much rare, not random. It’s hard to find, but rare. It’s very hard to respond. And in this game, they actually improved on it by very much. This game is not grindy at all. Throughout the map in this game, there are markets, and in those markets you can buy the materials that you need to upgrade your weapons. If you need a specific type of hiring material to upgrade your weapons, you can straight up buy it from the market. And that just makes the upgrading process to be a lot easier and a lot less tedious. This is the only game in the whole trilogy where before I did the final level, I was able to buy every single weapon and have all them upgraded to their max because that process is a lot simpler and a lot less tedious. So the biggest improvement that I would say shadow the 2 m made over rise the 2 m and 2 May 2013 outside of the cycles really had to do the quality of life changes. The quality of life change that they made is really great. And now lastly, let’s talk about the story. Well, I think this is the weakest story in the whole trilogy. There are some strong points for it. The first one I really want to bring up is the usage of Jonah. Jonah is the only character other than Laura, the main character, the whole franchise, who’s appeared in every single game in the Tomb Raider trilogy. He’s there at 2 m 2013 rises the 2 m and he is in shadow the 2 meter. And in this game, this is the one where he is involved in the most, the first two tomb major gameplay. Jonah was there for the story. For the most part. He was really just a background character in rather the two minute. Jordan is not even there for like 50% of the story. But in this game, Jonah really felt like he would do the righteous in this story. He tried to help Lauren every single way he can, given his expertise. So it’s very nice to see that Laura’s closest friend actually helping it out very consistently throughout the whole game. And the other thing that I like about this story is that this is the game where we see Lara be most personal with her parents. This is the first game where we actually see Laura’s mom, her relationship with her mom and her dad. And it’s just really nice to see. And those are pretty much my overall thoughts on shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Now just to be very clear, I do not think this game is bad because it very much isn’t. On my first playthrough, I completely about 90% of the game and I do see myself in the future hundred percent complaining of this game. But I can’t help but say that I am disappointed in this game because I had very high expectations for this. I want this to be the best game in the whole trilogy. And after finishing this game, I think this might be the weakest game in the whole trilogy. This game has the best side quest. It has the best puzzles in the whole trilogy. And if you wanna upgrade your weapons, this game is the best at doing that. But the tradeoff is that most of your progression goes through being a better fighter in the game, where it has the least amount of combating counters in the whole trilogy. And also the action set pieces is the weakest here. It not only helps the story is also the weakest. Also, something I never really mentioned is that the climbing this game for some reason felt the worst. I had a better time climbing in 2 m 2013 and rise of the 2 m I don’t know what happened, but it felt like the climbing regress in shadow. So my overall verdict is that even though I am disappointed in this game, it is still a good game by all means. It is a 2 major game. It is still great. I’m gonna get this game at 7 out of ten.