Review: Rise of the Tomb Raider

the well-known Lara Croft went through a few good times in the last franchise, launched in 2013. Alone on an island, the young and inexperienced archaeologist was forced to become an adventurer in search of survival. Now in Rise of the Tomb Raider, Lara has more experience and her journey is aimed at acquiring a valuable artifact – the source of eternal life. But does the game promise? Find out in my full game review!

This time, Rise of the Tomb Raider it unites all the good features that the first game had and makes them even better (in fact), in addition to bringing new improvements to a semi-open world filled with secrets, relics, action and beautiful landscapes. In the same way, the narrative reveals to us a Lara Croft that demonstrates her deepest motivations, determined to honor the legacy of her father, also an archaeologist.

Lara Croft is very interested in the Divine Source, a relic that supposedly brings immortality and was investigated by his father, Richard Croft. The problem is that she is not alone. The organization Trinity, who acts as an antagonist, constantly tracks his steps and wants to do everything to get the artifact before Lara Croft.

The game's script is very well written, presents certain twists and turns and does a good job of adding Lara in several adventures, highlighting her evolution from her first adventure to the point where she is now, an experienced explorer, with new ambitions and, of course, skills. It is worth remembering that the game is dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese.

However, it takes a while to please gamers, but it was well applied in that the emotions experienced by the protagonist, which are well conveyed by the voice.

The journey passes through Syria and go to icy mountains of siberia, Lara is more mobile than ever, equipped with new tools and utensils – using a rope in conjunction with her ax, she can perform improbable jumps. With the bow, you can attach strings from one point to another to create a zipline. With the arrows, you can create “platforms” to climb a wall.

Exploration of the game world is idealized in an almost completely free way, as some sections are unlocked as the main story advances. When arriving in a new area, the player can take his time investigating every corner of the scenario and progress with the campaign whenever he wants. It is in these situations that one of the best sensations of Rise of the Tomb Raider flourishes – the discovery of tombs, ruins and crypts.

The traditional “challenge tombs”, as they are called, are the real point of the game, offering complex puzzles and rewards that unlock fantastic abilities for Lara Croft, rescuing the essence and solidifying the Tomb Raider formula again. Confronted with the forces of the Trinity, Lara is far from a helpless woman. Armed not only with a bow and arrow, but also with pistols, shotguns and machine guns, she can create ammo and explosives at any time.

This makes confrontations lethal and fast for both sides. Playing on the “Veteran Pathfinder” difficulty, which would be something equivalent to “Hard”, just a few shots are enough for the protagonist to be in danger of death – and the enemies are good at aiming. I mean, none of the lack of accuracy of stormtroopers in Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Despite this, the combat is not very engaging, as there are no notable enemies that require a different strategy, which makes the mechanics similar to those of any other third-person shooter. The possibility of stealth kills is somewhat enticing, but at the end of the day, there's not much reward in silently taking down an entire field of enemies other than personal satisfaction.

The player even gains some extra experience points, but it's nothing significant. In certain areas, it is practically impossible to go unnoticed because the enemies are very close, which makes it impossible to kill without being eventually detected.

Another point in relation to the combat system is the need to press a button to collect the spoils of dead enemies. On a battlefield where you end up with more than ten soldiers, going through each of them individually by pressing the X button becomes something tedious.

In the game, there are skills unlocked that increase the chance of automatically picking up items on kill (it's not even a sure guarantee), but the question that arises from gamers is: why not just go over to pick up the items and, suddenly , include more interesting skills to acquire?

The fact that combat is, most of the time, generic, would not be a problem if not there were so many modules present. The campaign takes Lara Croft to fantastical and beautiful places, but the relationship between clashes and tomb exploration weighs much more in favor of the shootings. Perhaps some "tombs" could be included during the campaign, or at least with puzzles of equivalent complexity.

To the landscapes are stunning, the game's graphics are fantastic, except for some overlapping problems (the well-known clipping) and the drop in the frame rate in certain cutscenes, which is rare. By the way, Rise of the Tomb Raider would greatly benefit from a “photo mode”, to facilitate the capture of its stunning scenarios, a very interesting feature.

Finally, it is worth mentioning the attention to detail in all environments, whether in forests, caves, mountains or valleys, each corner has some object, skeletons, relics, jewelry, murals, drawings on the walls, among others. Even so, it is worth highlighting the transition between cutscenes and gameplay, which is done smoothly and makes the experience more fluid and cinematic.

And you, what do you think of Rise of the Tomb Raider?