All Things Small Web

100% completion! I have scoured the map for collectibles and had a lovely week inside of ruins and have been jumpscared a few times (but not too badly) and got frustrated during combat sequences a few times (if they discover a body the npc's AI just fucking BEELINES for you even if you're hidden) and had a fair few ???? moments during climbing exploration because it wasn't immediately obvious... sometimes jumps do not look jumpable at first glance, the grappling mechanic fails for no discernible reason except Lara is angled oddly, or she won't navigate complex terrain all that well...

The DLC unfortunately returns to the format that I remember Rise using for its tombs, in that they're all designed around timed puzzles so you can run them quickly to get a higher score and then trophies. I sincerely do not care for timed puzzles that require me to double back half a dozen times because I missed activating something by a fraction of a second. I want to explore it's about the aesthetic and vibes. I want to take my time solving a puzzle myself, but not in a repetitive way. I was perhaps two thirds of the way through the first DLC tomb and so frustrated and having so little fun that I had reached the point of "I don't care I just want it to be over" and used a walkthrough to get out. I am hesitant to do any more of them frankly, but trophies.

I was thinking about maybe doing a Deadly Obsession run in NG+, which is the hardest difficulty of the game with no checkpoints and reduced campfires, which can be done reasonably quickly in NG+ if you get all the gear you need and max out your resources before you start the file. The final boss arena changed my mind on this entirely because I can foresee losing hours of my life to running this sequence.

( why I will not be doing that )

Uhhh what else. I liked Lara's feral moment: good is not soft. She has a terrible day after Square dutifully kills their one other female character that fights, and your doe eyed protagonist should have moments of striking fear into those who have chosen to test her. I liked the ending: Lara got to see her parents one last time, I liked the Crimson Fire twist, there was some really good music playing during the tomb at the Mission of San Juan, I got to explore a Spanish galleon, temples galore. I liked an npc commenting on the thrill of discovery he could hear in Lara's voice, of seeing things unseen for thousands of years, and hoping she'd never lose that wonder. I did not like Lara's death cutscenes, which I never ever have, but if you're fast enough you can checkpoint reload before you have to see it and spare yourself watching spike impalement. Honestly the most heinous of these was during an escape sequence in Paititi, if the guard catches you they joyously hack you to pieces in the street whilst Lara screams, and that is way, way too 2013 Tomb Raider for me, which is why I never played it. It's just torture porn. It bothers me that there are cutscenes people had to make for every single location which is just Lara screaming and dying in brutal ways, it's not necessary. Men of the genre don't have this happen to them, your defining woman does not need it either. It also bumps the rating: there's a lot of stabbing going on in the closing hours but you don't see any of it on screen and there's no blood either?? The most gruesome thing was in the opening couple hours with a recently mauled, blood soaked half body asset being thrown at you from a jaguar's maw but most of the time unless it's Lara out of combat deaths, nothing.

Anyway, I give it a solid "it was fine", music was consistently great, it looked beautiful, narrative was not ground breaking but it wasn't a bad story to tell by any stretch. Once I decide what to do re: DLC tombs, it's probably time for Endwalker, where I'll be wishing for Mayan and Incan ruins, and what Dawntrail could have been...