#also apparently jonah is not a very liked character in the tomb raider which makes me sad

[myymi]

the au curse hit me hard, marie 😔

does it surprise anyone that i made tails lara

someone take the tomb raider games away from me before i make another au that makes 0 sense

[codeforsomethinggay]

can i ask why you didn't like rise of the tomb raider? not arguing, just curious! (if you don't mind, cause i'm interested in your opinion)

I don’t mind at all! Actually, thanks for asking, because I love to rant ;).

i think my biggest issue with Rise comes from an inherent difference in what i was expecting and wanting from a tr 2013 sequel, and what the Rise people actually wanted to make. I think the people behind Rise wanted to make a classic tomb raider game, but Modern and open world (which, just personally, are strikes 1 and 2 for me, since i don’t particularly care for classic tomb raider or open world games). What I (and I think most of the fandom) was wanting and expecting was … well, an actual sequel for tr 2013. 

And yeah, mechanically, Rise succeeds in that. The platforming and playstyle is essentially the same with a few fun new tricks (tho I would argue that the controls are a little screwy and the ai finicky in this one (i was stuck on one platforming puzzle for around 40 minutes because lara just wouldn’t grab the exact part of a platform the game apparently wanted her to, though i can’t say if this is more a problem between xbox/playstation, as this remains the only xbox game i’ve played)) and the light crafting system and sandbox of tr 2013 is hugely expanded (again, a personal pet peeve, but also a strange decision for a tomb raider game and kind of a transparent attempt at modernization bandwagoning. hell, apparently even god of war is crafting/open world now). Combat is improved. I don’t really have an  issue with any of that. The play is by far the best thing about Rise. And that’s really my problem.

It just doesn’t feel like an actual continuation of the story told and characters molded in tr 2013. And a huge fucking part of that is that of the four survivors of the Endurance, only two appear in this game. And one of those two is Jonah. Now, I like Jonah. If Reyes and especially Sam actually had any sort of presence in Rise, I would appreciate his presence as well. But, and really this is the biggest thing, they don’t. The first game was, frankly, just as much about Sam as it was Lara. The official, canon comics make it very clear Sam’s story isn’t close to finished. Yet, Rise mentions Sam a total of one (1) time, and that single mention doesn’t even jive with comics canon (which it really should, as the comics are really doing the heavy lifting story and character wise). And Jonah just straight up does not have the narrative or emotional connection to Lara that both Reyes and Sam do. 

Anyway, Jonah aside, the other survivor of that horrific trauma is Lara. But, honestly, you wouldn’t know it. The teaser those gifs came from showed us what we thought was a deeply traumatized, suffering, ill woman who doesn’t know what to do or how to be after she Survived. Not long after this perception was largely known and accepted, someone on the Rise team (and i can’t remember exactly who) straight up said they were surprised at this interpretation, and that the teaser was supposed to show how impatient Lara was to Get Back Out There and Discover. And I guess that’s the crux of the problem. That latter interpretation is the one present in Rise. Despite this pretty explicitly going against both tr 2013 and the comics. And despite the fact that that interpretation is fucking boring. It’s boring, disappointing, and just so fucking common. 

Actually, now that I read all that back, I think the Rise team and I had at least one problem in common: the comics. As I said, I think the story and character is far more present in the comics than the actual game itself. And this is also my problem with games like dragon age: inquisition and final fantasy 15 and blizzard: You cannot (or should not, I suppose, since they definitely do) rely on outside media that most of the players are not going to consume to make sense of (or, in the case of Rise, straight up tell) the story for you! Jonah’s arc exists just in the comics (again, unlike Reyes and Sam, who went through actual arcs in the original game). Lara’s emotions and tr 2013 personality and relationships exist just in the comics. Trinity, the main bad guys, are really only introduced in the comics. Sam pretty much just exists in the comics. The big problem I have here is that Rise relies on the comics for things like investment in Jonah’s character, Lara’s character development, and explaining Trinity. And then the game completely disregards the comics when it comes to Sam and overarching plot. 

The comics and game just don’t know how to coexist. The game doesn’t want to tell the story the comics are telling, and the comic has to contort itself to serve the game. I mean, the arc leading up to Rise was all about Himiko taking over Sam and Lara being there for her! And then, out of fucking nowhere, to justify why Lara would go on this ~adventure without Sam, they throw Sam in jail and have Lara ~realize she was just using Sam as an excuse to not go.Really, the plot of Rise should have been the some of the Ana + trinity stuff combined with the Choice and Sacrifice (trinity experiments on Sam, bring Himiko out, Himiko goes on a rampage throughout europe and collects followers). arc in the comic. Now that is a game I would have loved. A direct follow up to tr 2013 that wasn’t a retread, involves the original big bad with the new one, an interesting concept, a continuation of the comics that doesn’t make having read them necessary, and giving both Lara and the audience immediate emotional investment. Ah, but now I’m getting into what should have happened instead of what did.

Anyway, some smaller things: Jacob. Everything about him. The typical, boring messiah. The fact that he’s an ancient Syrian but is still white (like, his daughter is a fucking redhead). The fact that Lara cares more about him than the woman who is essentially her stepmother, and the audience is expected to as well.Which brings me to Ana! What a waste of a charcter. And the fact that she was killed post credits? Jesus.Plus Sofia, whose name I actually had to look up she’s such a nonentity. The treatment of men and woman in Rise is … bad. Especially following a game that has the tagline “a survivor is born” in which 3/4s of those survivors are women.

In the end, how I ultimately feel about Rise will depend on if we actually get an end to the trilogy, and how it’s handled. If we don’t or it’s handled poorly, I could end up seriously hating Rise for for being a poor ending/starting a downward spiral; or i could end up really appreciating it more! If we do get a final game and it’s satisfying, I’ll probably just resent Rise for wasting a game in a trilogy, and for making the lead so ooc and obscenely, disgustingly selfish.

…Sooo that was long and like, hopefully not preachy lol. Thanks for asking/sorry for this essay. 

[i-m-not-a-penguin]

Just finished playing SoTTR, here are some of my thoughts that I don’t feel like sharing elsewhere than the anti-tag, lol

I gotta say while I don’t think it’s good some parts are an improvment over the other games. The locations are more interesting imo, there’s less fighting (thank god, no fighting sequences very two minutes), also less sequences where you have to run while everything falls apart (i had fun with those because I played some Mission Impossible music along), also less of Lara getting herself hurt or falling down, idk how to call it but you know those endless times in TR 2014 and RoTTR where she hurt herself, or the floor gave way etc. Also there’s overall less screaming (still some annoying parts where she’s like “Oh shit, oh shit” like it’s the first time it ever happens to her). I would need to replay the main quest to assess whether there were cinematic cuts every two minutes like the last two games, I think there were though.

Thank god we didn’t get the “army of immortal getting ready to kill people and Lara has to sneak past while they march on”. RoTTR was a copy-paste of TR 2013.

However as expected the story is garbage, honestly there is little consistency between the three games which is supposed to be part of a trilogy, there’s also little to no character development (the only thing Laraboot suceeded in doing is become more “vulgar” (”fuck you”*) and a true killing machine; and also apparently decide to not be a tomb raider - what? Pls stop using “IT’S AN ORIGIN STORY”, that’s not a valid argument anymore actually it never was). 

The side missions are positively boring, you just follow what’s marked on your map, talk to people or go get some stuff. Also being able to talk to people in villages, I don’t get the point of it except for “loooooook we appreciate and acknowledge other cultures” (I play to explore tombs of -mostly- dead civilisations, DEAD. And here we have Lara who wants to “spend more time amongst the living).

Why did Jonah become a recurrent character? I don’t dislike him BUT WHAT IS THE POINT?

The enviromnents, why are they so freaking dull? Whenever Lara goes wow I’m like “what? It’s not pretty”, idk if it’s a problem of colour, lighting or depth, but they cannot seem to make awe-looking enviroments... I mean check Uncharted for comparison (fiy I’m not an Uncharted fan)

PS: The Uncharted was strong in this one in certain parts.

Also I was expecting more traps in this game, there were a few of them that where nice (one of the tomb especially with fire and rotating pillars), but was disapointed. I was hoping for more time where you would have to jump around to avoid traps, but no you can trigger traps with an obvious as fuck rope (ofc you don’t need to trigger it and can avoid it with the slow-mo sequence but meh).

ALSO PLS STOP DEATH THE CUTSCENES, THEIR ONLY POINT IS “SHOCK-VALUE” OR LOOK OUR GAME IS 18++++++++

I did have fun once or twice but overall the story was boring and so was the gameplay, not a lot of innovation compared to the previous games, and even certain things were missing (climbing arrow for example).

You know, at first I thought TR 2013 was the less worse of Them, and while I still think it is in some aspect (doesn’t have USELESS SIDE MISSIONS), I think SoTTR is actually somewhat of an improvment. But still, the puzzles are mostly easy, the story is terrible, laraboot sucks, enviromnents look meh... each of these games do not deserve the title of Tomb Raider. Idk what the future plans are but I pray to god that there will not be another game in the future, leave Lara alone, you’ve done enough damage already. I want these games to be forgotten in oblivion

*I personally swear a lot but hearing “Lara Croft” swear feels like blasphemy