So the moment I reached Paititi, I literally spent days there just wandering the streets, interacting with every interactable NPC, farming every single glowing thing in Survival Instincts lol, soaking in the pretty graphics. The next objectives, no matter how urgent the game claims, were never urgent. I think in this case, the problem is self-imposed by me lol. Some are more puzzle-heavy, some has Yaaxil/Trinity you need to fight, some are climbing-heavy, but all of them feel epic and huge. They all feel like they're designed and developed by different teams, which is great. But in Shadow, all of the challenge tombs are unique. I like how the most memorable "tomb" for me in Rise was the Orrery's puzzle, which is not even a challenge tomb. Otherwise, most people would just go guns blazin' which defeats the purpose of acquiring those skills. I also like how in Porvenir, they forced you to use specific mechanics like the tree-hanging maneuver, fear/poison arrows, frag nades, molotovs, etc. That said, Shadow's combat opportunities are there, just more concentrated in certain areas. You'd think that San Juan is the final hub (like TR13's coastal area or Rise's Kitezh) but it feels like the developers rushed it out, 'cause that place is tiny in comparison to even the Peruvian Jungle or Kuwaq Yaku. And the rest of the game just takes place in these hubs like Kuwaq Yaku and Paititi, which are great but because they're populated, it lacked the sense of aloneness/danger of the hubs in TR13/Rise. Because of this, when we reach Kuwaq Yaku, it still feels somewhat like you're in the beginning of the story, even though it's closer to the middle. Shadow's map is unbalanced where Cozumel was an intro map, but later on, the Peruvian Jungle still feels like a dragged-out tutorial hub. TR13 is a rollercoaster as mentioned, and Rise's combat opportunities are spread out evenly throughout the whole story. It's just that the pacing in Shadow is kinda bad. While I agree that the Survivor games have less combat compared to other shooters, the three are pretty much comparable. I also find it weird that people always say Shadow has less combat. The only issue with this is, even with the Hard combat difficulty I'm in, I'm never really short of ammo, as I can always buy them, so it lacks the sense of ammo anxiety while fighting. Before the point of no return, I've already had enough gold to buy all available outfits and weapons from the merchants, and upgraded them all to max too. Jaguar hide and black powder were bottlenecks, but your maxed out herbs and wood and cloth and feathers can be sold for gold to buy said hide and powder. You can always farm salvage in Kuwaq Yaku's lake. Shadow is great because for resource management freaks like me, I can never be short of anything. The key here is that there is no cap on salvage in TR13, and it kinda triggers the OCD of not able to pick up stuff in Rise because you're "maxed out." At least I can sell 'em in Shadow. Meanwhile, I'm always maxed on wood and herbs lol.Īt the end of TR13, all my weapons were already upgraded with a surplus of salvage. So now, even after the story ended, and all collectibles collected, I'm still grinding around a few minutes daily, to revisit the areas where a few Trinity soldiers would still spawn (Siberian Wilderness, the Gulag, the main Siberian wood mill, plus the centers of Abandoned Mines, Acropolis, and the Flooded Archives) to get just a handful of salvage, per day. If I play on Hard, there'd be even less salvage to find. But I still need hundreds of salvage to max all my weapon upgrades. I mean, I've collected all collectibles to 100%, upgraded all my skills, collected all weapon parts already. For OCD completionists like me, I can never collect enough salvage to upgrade all my weapons to max. My only issue with Rise is how unbalanced the resources are. Rise feels like a middle ground between the two. Its biomes are the most diverse too, from rainforest, to snowy mountain, to coastal, you name it. TR13's "too much action" is one of the reasons why I like it, for its action-movie rollercoaster ride. I mean I like them all, but Shadow the most. Subreddit Banner edited for r/TombRaider by u/JadedDarkness
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