Now Playing: Rise of the Tomb Raider

So first off, got to say I'm glad to have stayed in the dark about a lot related to this, and even the PS4 release. I heard of some of the modes, and the VR extras coming with it, but never for a second did I expect them to actually treat the anniversary edition special like it should be. I don't know why, but companies rarely really do anything relevant for their iconic game's anniversaries. Heck, Metroid just got one of it's most hated games released around the marker with Nintendo just briefly mentioning it, and dropping that. Insomniac did something similar for R&C. However when Tomb Raider's 20th anniversary first-time PS4 release came in the mail, I saw it was a nice jacket-sleeve case, then a neat little leather look (just in looks) for the case itself, which opens with... a built-in art book? Yeah, that's really weird, but really awesome. It's a tiny little art book that mixes dev artwork, with some fanart, all properly credited and a huge portion of it pre-dating the recent reboot's style. It's not the biggest deal ever, but it's just the perfect little touch that's ideal to me for someone celebrating something like this. Don't give us some lame PSN avatar, or attach the "anniversary" to some lame spin-off you were going to make regardless of the year, but actually give people a tangible and real little trinket that fans can appreciate and feel a slight sense of nostalgia with. That's the kind of thing that gets you remembering and respecting a classic or aging franchise, and even if you're just some guy who just blindly picked up the game, it's still a nice little addition. So just like with the Witcher 3, I've gotta give credit where the finer touches and fan-care is given. It's stuff like that, which just puts a smile on your face even before the game starts.

So what about the game itself? Well early on, things are looking pretty good. It almost went all Uncharted 4 on me and started using flashbacks after the very beginning, but things are quickly getting back on track with a single main story. The moments from then that are flashbacks, are merely interesting story devices to show the past with her father, something I'm really glad they're exploring. They also tie this in interestingly, with Lara's surrounding friends and the mundane world. Lara's mother, and the reocurring friend of Jonah, think she's kind of crazy and they just want to have a normal life. Her father went insane with the same path she's following, and honestly I'm still not sure we know whatever happened to him and if the Trinity group got to him. Oh yeah, let's talk about that! The only weird thing on that note of the story, is that this has next to nothing in common with the old game in tone aside from the more gritty drama vibe. That's probably what they were actually going for considering it's more in line with Lara being interested in tomb raiding (and the tone those adventures usually take), but it's just kinda weird.

So... Templar?

It feels like they just came out of the first game developing things from the ground up, then suddenly the second game has all of this new lore that's all old news to the pre-existing character of Lara and her mother. No more island queen or sun cult, now it's an old underground mercenary group that dates back to ancient history, who want to control the world through tracking old powerful artifacts. It's essentially Nazi occult specialists + AC Templars + ancient conspiracy type case (the ending twist might be aliens... I dunno yet), whereas the old game was just "Lara, this island is insane. Why'd you crash here of all places?". I like it all so far, especially if they keep a paranormal tone in as all TR games have had, but it's just a strange move to pull. Then again it's not the first time, considering TR's first reboot decided to have a remake of the first game and tie that in with the new reboot's story, and then have a sequel to the reboot with the first game's new cannon considered in and... okay yeah that's way weirder.

Now purely speaking of gameplay, it's going well and doing mostly what I would expect. The game has innovations in odd but sensible places, such as a crafting system being used instead of a one-way upgrade guns with scrap deal. You'll actually need wood and mushrooms to create something like a toxic arrow, instead of just a magic scrap upgrade. They also thankfully fixed the dumb and distracting colored captions. Now you have the option for it, or standard subtitles. I can't speak for everyone, but every serious gamer I've known or seen has kept subtitles on in them games, but some teams just make them sloppy and TR'13 was one of them. One really surprising tweak, is the health and difficulty. You can now heal yourself by crafting, and on difficulties beyond normal, there will be times where you can't regenerate your health or may even be completely dependent on craft materials. That's kinda awesome, not to mention a true difficulty curve that already has me wanting to replay the game on a new setting. I still do have the complaint about how slow the game starts up, and also how painfully hand-holding the HUD and survival mode is, but I guess that's just going to come with most of these AAA adventure games. Hopefully in the future they have some HUD adjustments you can make to help fix this. You'd think devs would learn from Dark Souls by now that not everybody likes this crap.

So, everything seems really good. If there's anything left I haven't mentioned, it's either because I haven't played enough (like the extras), or I've already mentioned how much I like it from the older entry. I really am happy to be on another adventure here, and it's more fun so far than some of the dragging through Uncharted's latest (but with less impressive of characters. Eh, that's alright, I didn't buy it for a movie). Rise of the Tomb Raider ain't likely GOTY material, but it's a lot of fun, and I'm glad it's finally out on PS4. I think I'm only just getting started, so I'm looking forward to seeing where things go from here.