Review cover Shadow of the Tomb Raider (PlayStation 4)
Official GBAtemp Review

Product Information:

  • Release Date (NA): September 14, 2018
  • Release Date (EU): September 14, 2018
  • Publisher: Square Enix
  • Developer: Eidos Montreal
  • Genres: Action, Adventure
  • Also For: Computer, Xbox One

Game Features:

Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative
The Tomb Raider returns for her latest adventure of exploration and discovery, but is she just a shadow of her former self?

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This being my first look at a Tomb Raider game since playing the original more than ten years ago, everything feels strange from the outset. With a large cinematic scene to bring me into the world, followed by the first piece of gameplay in freeing Lara's leg from a large rock, the game already felt detached from the series I once knew. Even seeing our protagonist swear so freely just felt wrong; I understand games move with the times, but it took me a good moment to adjust to everything before me. It's not to say any of these factors are to the demerit of the game in any way, the introduction did a great job of bringing me into the world and really getting me excited to learn more about this adventure.

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Before getting into the bulk of the gameplay, I found the game's offering of difficulty settings particularly interesting. Instead of providing a standardised experience for each player, or dynamically changing the difficulty to the player's skill, the game chose to approach this issue with three separate settings; one for combat, one for exploration, and one for puzzles. Offering the choice of easy, normal, or hard for each, you're given a little explanation of how the game will play after making your decision. As difficulty goes, I think this is a brilliant implementation. Where I usually find myself disliking direct combat in games, I was able to enjoy the other aspects without them being overly simplified to be brought in line with my lack of shooting expertise. Playing on the overall difficulty Rite of Passage (combat easy, exploration normal, puzzles normal), I thoroughly enjoyed the game at my own pace, and as an added bonus have reason to return to it later to attempt it on a higher difficulty. With knowledge of the game's level design and puzzles already behind me, as well as a New Game+ mode available, the jump between difficulties feels lessened on subsequent playthroughs, further incentivising coming back and stepping it up.

Getting back to the game itself, I have to say it took me by surprise just how pretty everything was. This may be an opinion formed by Shadow of the Tomb Raider being my first PS4 game, my eyes largely used to the less graphically impressive Switch library, but it really caught me off guard. From the rocks to the water, the game had a way of feeling alive and interesting in its environmental design. There were moments I found myself having to take a step back to simply admire what was before me.

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Review image

Gaining control for the first time was an interesting experience. The game felt responsive and satisfying, but I ultimately had no idea what I was doing. The presentation of tutorial information helped in this respect. By making it move with the camera and blend into the foliage in the scene, it did a good job of maintaining a level of immersion whilst not compromising the information provided, as well as being non-intrusive as to allow those who already know what to do to go on with no holdup.

While the game finds strength in its visuals and sense of exploration within deceptively confined spaces, many of my standout moments came from its stealth segments. In these, Lara must hide herself in grass, moss, or just out of sight, avoiding or picking off enemies as she goes. What's interesting about these sections is how much they differ depending on your difficulty setting. With easy combat, and normal difficulty set for everything else, I could use Lara's survival instincts to highlight enemies, and see when one is isolated to be taken out without alerting others. On the higher difficulties where survival instinct is disabled, you begin to find yourself becoming far more vigilant and are forced to rely on other strategies. This more vigilant and skilful approach isn't exactly the kind of thing I personally enjoy, but its inclusion to cater to a much broader range of player is something I really appreciate seeing.

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Maps are often crafted in such a way as to feel open despite being largely confined and linear in nature. Again in relation to the difficulty setting, the areas you explore and how you interact with them change entirely, the linearity standing out in easier settings and lessening as paths are marked less clearly and you aren't able to see directly where to go. Where you know where to go and choose to explore on an easier setting, exploring becomes an integral aspect of the game when Lara is without her survival instincts; where crafting and resource gathering are a secondary concern on an easier setting, they become a focus when you can't save the game without materials. Though I keep talking about the game's difficulty settings here, it's honestly baffling just how different the game can become with such small changes.

Talking more specifically about map design, I was happy to see how little of the game felt alike, especially considering how almost all of it is set in one of a cave, a forest, or a tomb. It does a good job in creating small landmarks to recognise as you progress through the story, making the world really feel complete and unique, instead of the same things thrown into the same environments in a different order.

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Outside of your traditional exploring and tomb raiding, the game is broken up by more obscure gameplay, the unexpected standout of these being the runner sections. Whether escaping disaster or a myriad of enemies throwing themselves and arrows at you, these moments put an emphasis on urgency and scene building. Despite Lara respawning each time I messed up, I felt genuine tension and thrill as I moved through each scripted turn and landed each specified jump. With this tension and urgency, you're pushed to make jumps you find yourself thinking "can I really reach the other side?", and while these jumps thrive in this fast-paced context, they're also used throughout the game to great effect. Constantly satisfying to make, their inclusion outside of these make-or-break sections also serves to reinforce the idea that they are possible, the knowledge you've done it before being what pushes you to hit the button each time after.

This kind of reinforcement also works against the game in some respects. Where you've made a jump once, you know you can make it again. While it's still satisfying to see Lara cross large chasms like this, the same can't be said for her narrowly escaping death in water. The issue in these cases are that there was never really any satisfaction to begin with, instead the payoff being how you narrowly escaped. The knowledge that this escape isn't as narrow as you were first lead to believe is what's reinforced as you continue to experience the same section, ultimately growing overused to the point of losing all impact. Thankfully, it's not so frequent as to be a real concern, but you see it enough to question whether they couldn't come up with another interesting way to end a water section.

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Puzzles in Shadow of the Tomb Raider are an odd thing to discuss, because a lot of the time they didn't feel like puzzles; rather defined actions as means of progression. While this may largely be because of my puzzling prowess, it more likely comes down to my use of the survival instincts. With this ability highlighting objects of interest and things to be interacted with, I always knew where I needed to be and generally what I needed to be doing. Though you could call the missing part a puzzle, it'd be more apt to describe it as connecting the dots. With the feedback and payoff for completing these sections, it's still satisfying to get through them, but as I've found myself saying a number of times, the game would be entirely different on a higher difficulty. Puzzle difficulty changes how Lara gives the player hints when they activate their survival instincts, with the highest difficulty disabling survival instincts altogether as previously mentioned. On normal difficulty, she'd give vague comments, but these were more often than not things that were easy to figure out by looking at the objects of interest on-screen. If you find yourself wanting to be challenged more in these sections but chose an easier difficulty at the start of the game, you do however have to option to simply forgo using the survival instincts, though you obviously won't get any kind of achievement or benefit as you would have by choosing a harder difficulty in the first place.

Though I don't want to say too much about it so as to spoil it, I did rather enjoy the game's plot. With this being my first look into the modern Tomb Raider trilogy, I was surprised to see how easy it was to pick up. The only part I felt somewhat confused about was the game's antagonist, but the events of the game felt enough to flesh out his character and group without relying too heavily on your knowledge of previous games, something I really came to appreciate.

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You get an achievement for petting llamas.

All in all, Shadow of the Tomb Raider surprised me. I can't say I know what I expected going into it, but I can say the journey was a fantastic one. What I played was enough to get me excited about the series once more and explore the previous two titles of the trilogy; and maybe even enough to go back for a second run through without survival instincts to truly experience the game again.

Verdict

What We Liked ...
  • Looks fantastic
  • Great implementation of difficulty
  • Fun alternate gameplay segments
  • Interesting map and puzzle design
What We Didn't Like ...
  • A few repetitive sequences
  • Non-stealth combat feels out of place
8
Gameplay
With fluid controls and a myriad of different play and combat styles, Shadow of the Tomb Raider should have something you feel comfortable playing with.
8
Presentation
The game looks great on the PS4, with large and luscious maps. Considering the limitations of the locations in the game, it's impressive to see such variance in map design.
8
Lasting Appeal
Thanks to its implementation of difficulty, it's easy to see myself coming back for another challenge with New Game+, turning it up to another level. While the story isn't exactly anything spectacular, it also did a good job in gripping me for the time I spent with it, providing ample twists and turns to keep me wanting to play on.
8
out of 10

Overall

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a fantastic game, this much I have no doubt. While I might not be able to compare it to the other games in Lara's modern trilogy, I can say with certainty this game does enough to stand proudly alone. Through great visuals, fun puzzles, and an unexpected degree of replayability, this is a game worth playing for any fan of the series, or anybody just looking for a great journey.
Are the screenshots from the PS4 downgraded or something? The "Axe Climb" one looks like an early PS3 era game :P
Considering how good the previous Tomb Raider game looked on my potato PC, I have to ask.
 
I'm playing it, I'm at 30%
at first, I found it less detailed than Tomb raider 2, specifically the faces (Lara looks younger or less mature in this one than from my memory).
But it's not a very big issue.

So far, I like this one better than the previous one for the progression, this time you feels less stuck to the same place.
the first one was great, the second game had 2 big maps and you always ended back to them before going elsewhere, you were stuck half of the game on the same area, the other half of the game on the second area. the second one also had less optional tombs/crypts to visit.

The previous games had less features (like new ways of killing enemies in this game), but she kept things she learned in older ones (like having 2 ice picks, she started only with 1 in the first game).
I hope you'll enjoy the previous game too :)

I like the new independent difficulty system, I like to play puzzle in hard, while still having the other things in normal. I don't like Lara giving hints every time, I like resolving things by myself.


I want to tell two things about the languages :
- The french translation is sometime very bad, word choice seems to be done without playing the game and some sentences just don't have any senses, sometime even the contrary. ("the bridge is up" instead of "the bridge is destroyed", or "this gear is old" instead of "this camp is old")
- I like the new immersive feature to have people speak their own native language instead of French/english, BUT Lara does not talk their language. It's a failed attempt at immersion, it feels worse because it's weird to talk with someone using a different language and that character understand it naturally as if there were a Mokona with Lara :P

Please, SquareEnix/CrystalDynamic : dub Lara in proper language too. French dubber should speak spanish/quechua, don't use the spanish dubber's voice. They went to the extend to dub people speaking quechua, why not Lara too ?
 
Are the screenshots from the PS4 downgraded or something? The "Axe Climb" one looks like an early PS3 era game :P
Considering how good the previous Tomb Raider game looked on my potato PC, I have to ask.
Yeah I think they were a bit. I made a mistake in only taking a few pictures as I played so there's not that many in the review either. I can grab some with my capture card later today for a better idea of how it looks.
Does this one still have the terrible input lag the other TR games are notorious for?
It's not something I noticed, but having not played the other games it's not something I can say with any real certainty.
 
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Not sure I'm gonna get used to hyper-realistic Lara, or the creative ways to get herself killed. Does she at least raid tombs anymore? :blink:
 
square enix clearly designed "Lara Croft" as an asian woman lol. obviously designed to cater to the japanese or they just dont get white people. In ff7,8,10,12,15 the main dude always just looked just like whitewashed japanese dudes.
 
Review cover
Product Information:
  • Release Date (NA): September 14, 2018
  • Release Date (EU): September 14, 2018
  • Publisher: Square Enix
  • Developer: Eidos Montreal
  • Genres: Action, Adventure
  • Also For: Computer, Xbox One
Game Features:
Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative

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