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Shadow of the Tomb Raider release date has arrived and thanks to Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix, the Croft Manor Brasil had the opportunity to access the game early. Stay in the manor with us and check out our review!
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the last chapter of the Lara Croft’s origin story trilogy. Offering an adventure that honors the previous titles, the game gives the player a complete and balanced experience. Full of action scenes and with such a compelling script, Shadow of the Tomb Raider will make you laugh, be touched and will make you witness the incredible personality of the new Lara Croft, who is more classical than ever before. There’s no need of mastering most of the game skills or wait for it’s end so you can feel powerfull, because you already feel like that ever since the very beginning of Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Save the world from a Maia apocalipse and join Lara Croft while she becomes the Tomb Raider that she’s meant to be!
After the Rise of the Tomb Raider events, our favorite archeologist follows fighting Trinity to take revenge on her father. Being compulsive and under inside conflict, Croft doesn’t see the way her actions affects her surroundings. This obsession makes her commit a huge mistake: set up a Maia apocalipse. She then will need to run against the time to avoid a bigger tragedy. To do so, she’ll need to master the rainforest, overcome deadly tombs and face her darkest hour.
Join Lara Croft to face the challenges that will forge her into the Tomb Raider that she’s meant to be!
Without further ado, let’s go to the review!
The soundtrack is one of the most important things on movies, tv shows and games, ‘cause it’s trough it that the production presents specific emotions of each scene to the viwer or player. Shadow of the Tomb Raider brings, no doubt, one of the best soundtracks of the saga – and the best one of the current trilogy!
Opposed to it’s predecessor – Rise of the Tomb Raider – that left a lot to be desired due to the fact it had really similar tracks during almost the hole game, Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s soundtrack is really particular in each scene.
Original animals and environment sounds, dialogs and musics were recorded in Mexico and in Peru. Hips of the tracks counts on local cultural instruments on its arrange, wich made SOTTR’s soundtrack even more immersive and authentic.
(WHISTLE YUCATEC: A cerimonial whistle used for human sacrifices. The sound that this skull shaped instrument emits can be compared to the dying and aflicts screams. It’s said that its strident sound opens a way on the underground to the recently deceased. The death whistle is salso used as a war instrument, your sound scares the enemies' hearts.)
Besides, in a great quantity of times the music is mixed with the environment and vice versa. That way the player gets involved by the game in a natural and inevitable way that’s amazing.
Last but not least, the chosen instrument to represent Lara Croft is the violin. Its sound is softly insert so bring the emotions of Lara to the player in diferent moments of the role.
The musicians team wanted to make the player feel completely immersed on the game, and they did it!
Lara Croft goes after an artifact of her interest and ends up saving the day. Some reviwers are questioning the fact of the pillar of the Tomb Raider games’ script being usually the same. This base, for sure, remained. And maybe it’ll keep remaining while Tomb Raider is Tomb Raider. After all, we’re talking about the sequence of a franchice, aren’t we?! What changes between one and another title is the context Lara Croft is inserted in and the development of the plot itself.
With that being told, Shadow of the Tomb Raider do not bring more of the same. Quite the opposite: it carries a compelling, surprising and full of turning points plot.
The new title of the franchise stands out in relation to the previous ones because it has better introduced and deepened its characters. On this title, the player is not limited by meeting Lara Croft better. The secondary characters are also well writtened and introduced – both the allies and the antagonists.
The informations of the diverse characters of SOTTR are everywhere: in dialogs on the playable parts, on cutscenes and on documents that can be found on the environment. The more the player explore the game, the more he/she’ll meet Lara Croft and everyone that surrounds her in her darkest hour!
Even that all the other characters have been well explored, there was one particular important character that had an unsatisfying participation on the game. His name is Rourke. This can be simply a name for you now. But as soon as you get in touch with the full story, you’ll understand our discontentment.
Shadow is free of this cliche. There are no heroes and there are no villains. There are only antagonists. Each character – or group – present on this title acts moved by personal interests and convictions. Lara Croft has diverse antagonists and allies in diferente moments of the game.
Yet, our archeologist do has a main antagonist. This antagonist, just like any other character of this game, is well explored and presented. The player can understand his motivation, that’s as good as Lara’s, to do what he does. That being told, without knowing wich one is acting more correctly – or wrongly – and wich cause is more noble, the player gets him/herself in internal conflict throughout the story, just like the game protagonist.
Assuming the spot of Lara’s main allie is Jonah Maiava.This character is better introduced on this tittle. Jonah acts as Lara’s sensible/ractional side and spends a good part of the time trying to make his friend get real, even if sometimes he needs to scream with her to do so. He’s a fundamental piece on Lara’s adventure since he’s there for her when the world seems to be failling apart around her. The lead writter, Jill Murray, said that her idea by exploring the relation between these two is to break the taboo that a man and a woman can not have a great friendship without second intentions. And she achieved her goal! Lara and Jonah lives a bromance, in a sincere and lovely friendship relation.
Ending of stories are usually watershed for diferente people. In our point of view, the Shadow of the Tomb Raider end was perfectly written. However, its presentation left a bit to be desired.
Do you know that feeling that the end of the story was a bit too fast and superficial? So...maybe a greater and more epic sequence of scenes – presenting the same facts – would be more dignified of the ending of the Lara Croft’s origin story trilogy.
That is, the end – definetely – wasn’t bad, nor affected the game performance. But, due to the high level of the work as a hole, it could have been better presented.
It’s hard to exalt positively the plot the way it deserves without spoiling. So we’ll limit ourselves to: despite there were some very few weak points on it and an inportant character neglected, all the rest of this plot is spectacular.
Full of turning points and small expectations breaches, it’s really hard to play Shadow of the Tomb Raider without getting impressed every single moment.
Definetely, the cutscenes do not let us down! Just like the plot as a hole, the scenes are unpredictable. That said, each cutscene seems to be in Shadow to shock the player. Emotion is something that’s not missing in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and its scenes brings those emotions very well!
Due to the context around her, our protagonist seemed a bit too emotionally stable on the previous title of the trilogy. In Shadow, on the other hand, Lara surprises the player in tons of moments through her reactions. Shadow of the Tomb Raider goes from great laughs to screaming and crying in diverse moments.
Many relaxed passages are present, but there are also many outstanding, deep and reflexible moments in Shadow of the Tomb Raider as well.
Unfortunatelly, returning to the point that’s already been approached on the previous topic, its needed to emphasize that, in our opinion, the end wasn’t presented as epic the way it deserved to. We could say that this is the only weak point of the cutscenes of this great game.
The quantity of cutscenes is very well balanced on this franchise title. Besides that, they carry interesting dialogs and stunning graphics. Once again, the player get him/herself completely compelled by the plot while is constantly surprised!
One of the highly praised elements – and that deserves to be featured on this review – of the new Tomb raider is the possibility of setting the dificulties separately for combat, puzzles and exploration. This possibility turns the Shadow of the Tomb Raider gameplay experience more customizable, pleasing diferent profiles.
For the classical titles of the franchise lovers plus all the ones who likes to put their minds under challenges, it’s highly recommended to set the puzzles and explorations mode on hard. With those settings, the way and interactive objects indications will be completely removed from the experience. That case, the player needs to act own him/herself. Plus, the survival instinct is gone on the hard mode.
There are a lot of collectables on Shadow. The News, comparing to the previous titles is that now the players can choose to read the documents and analyse the relics at the exact time they collect it, later – or never. Besides, the collectibles now have really usefull contents that are directly connected to the game plot. So the CMBR tip is: read as much as you can, because this is going to make the difference for you to understand the unroll and the ending of SOTTR.
For the happiness of the franchise fans, the combat is less present in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Focusing on stealth, the combat can be more or less challenging in acording with your profile and the dificulty options chosen by you.
Another interesting element is that the human enemies were reduced here. The player will have to fight with jaguars and another unused creatures that you’ll know as soon as you play the game.
The gameplay flow cannot be unmentioned. During our experience with the game, Lara seemed to be lighter than in Rise of the Tomb Raider and have always responded very well to the commands. On the same way, the environment also corresponded very nicely to the player’s interactions.
Moreover, in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the player has total control on Lara under the water, being able to completely explore the water environments and hide from predators. The rapelling is also highly used on this title.
After all, Shadow of the Tomb Raider seems to have returned to its origins. As we mentioned previously, the quantity of combat sequences is reduced this time. The title, on the other hand, brings more intense moments os exploration and more tombs with interesting puzzles and more collectibles that worths to be checked out by everyone.
Since we are talking about the same generation of it’s precursor, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is prettier than Rise of the Tomb Raider, but it doesn’t have huge graphical innovations. And that makes total sense.
Though, differently from the previous title – and for the joy of the fans – Shadow bets in more alive and greener environments. Even that we played a beta version of the game, its graphics showed themselves, in general, beautiful on Ps4.
Yet, a graphic difference was noticed between Playstation 4 and Xbox One. The game presented itself better on the second console, even without entering on the merit of the Xbox One X.
It woths to be mentioned that the players that acquire Shadow of the Tomb Raider for Pc will have their game constaintly graphycally updated. So for the ones who have powerfull machines, playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider on PC can be the best option.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an unpredictable, emotional and full of turning points game that carries such an immersive and remarkable soundtrack as its background. Its amazing story presents itself through stunning graphics and is given trough a flow, pleasent, fun and customizable gameplay. The title finishes, that way, the Lara Croft’s origin story trilogy with a flourish.
This game is a must play one for fans – both new and old – of the franchise! Just as much as to all the ones that enjoy challenging themselves in adventures with characters as great as Lara Croft.
Buy your copy for PS4, Xbox One or PC and save the world from a Maia apocalipse!
By: LobsterCroft and VinyCalheiros
Translation from Brazilian Portuguese by: LobsterCroft
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