Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

The world is beautiful as hell. Unfortunately, that's where most of my compliments for this game end. hadow feels like the devs sat down and went, "Okay, what if we just add EVERYTHING?" And then they actually ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ did. There are so many systems and mechanics in this game that I barely interacted with because most of them just don't feel necessary. The whole game feels bloated for the sake of being bloated. The skill tree is probably the best example. If you've played the previous games, you've already seen a lot of these skills. The difference is that they actually made sense before because there was way more combat. Shadow doesn't have nearly as much combat. So I'm spending points unlocking cool abilities, upgrading weapons and crafting ♥♥♥♥... only to occasionally shoot a few guys and then go right back to crawling through caves, solving puzzles and staring at ancient ruins. I basically upgraded my weapons so I could be a slightly more dangerous archaeologist. The weapon upgrading and crafting have the same problem. There's just not enough combat for any of it to feel important. Half the time I forgot I even had upgraded weapons. The Amazon setting is another thing that disappointed me. This place is supposed to be this massive, dangerous jungle, but the wildlife feels weirdly limited. You get jaguars, piranhas, eels and a few other things, but considering how insanely diverse the Amazon actually is, I expected way more. It just doesn't feel as alive as it should. Then there's the side content. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. There's so much of it. Side quests, tombs, crypts, challenges, collectibles, merchants, outfits, skills, upgrades... the game just keeps throwing more ♥♥♥♥ at you. And the problem is that a lot of it isn't even that interesting. The side quests especially feel like they were made from the same NPC dialogue template. "Please Lara, I need your help." "Sure." "Thank you Lara." And there you go. Here's some XP or an outfit or some random reward you'll probably forget about five minutes later. There's so much content here, but a lot of it feels like filler rather than something I actually wanted to do. And then there's the story. For the final game in a trilogy, I honestly expected more. A lot of it feels way too similar to Rise, and sometimes it genuinely feels like I'm playing the same story again with a different coat of paint. Shadow never really manages to establish its own identity, which is especially disappointing considering this is supposed to be the conclusion to Lara's trilogy. By the time I reached the end, I wasn't exactly blown away. I was mostly sitting there thinking: "That's it?" And that's probably the biggest shame about the game. Because underneath all the unnecessary systems, filler content and bloated mechanics, there's actually a really good Tomb Raider game here. I still enjoyed it overall, and there are some genuinely great moments, but I don't think it comes close to Rise.