Signed up for the site and read the review. She never seems to be into the game from the start as if something else set her off and she took it out on the game instead. She complains about the story which while not great isn't anywhere as bad as what she's hinting at and she doesn't like the Lara character despite the fact that she's been the same for all three games. She says that the upgrading is useless based on the structure of the game and that there's only a handful of combat encounters but most of them rely heavily on stealth context based melee kills. She then says that when you string up an enemy in a tree or use fire arrows, it's few and far between until you get to do that again. She says that the platforming and climbing is haphazard with Lara often failing to register ledges or jumps for no apparent reason with the grapple rope only initializing 50% of the time often leading to death. She says the game is a bloated, frustrating, irrational experience that feels like three parts of a game haphazardly stacked together.
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She never mentioned anything about the DLC in her review. She does like the tombs and crypts but comes across as maybe not finishing the game since she never clearly says that she did and seems to be turned off by the lack of combat encounters where as the first two games had a high combat encounter. I wouldn't be surprised if the exploration problems is on her by possibly having the difficulty on hard even though she never mentions this which is weird because it's of the game's excellent additions before you even start the game.
It's obvious that she didn't like or enjoy the game but to me, it seems weird because she gave Rise a 9/10 and Shadow doubles down on what Rise was but with less focus on combat and more focus on exploration and puzzles. Don't know why she would mention the DLC fixing the game in a tweet when the DLC has nothing to do with the main story of the base game. The DLC is cosmetic items, more tombs and minor side quests that have nothing to do with the main story so I don't know why she said that in a tweet as it makes no sense whatsoever especially when im guessing the DLC is on the disc and just needs to be unlocked.
Regardless, her review does seem out of place with the others I have read or watched. She simply didn't like or enjoy the game but despite her complaints, I don't see those complaints being worth a 4/10. To me, a 4/10 is below average but these are scores for games like Immortal Unchained and just games you know aren't that good. I would like to know if she finished the game's story, what her completion percentage and hours played was as well as what difficulty she was playing on for all three aspects of the game.
Either way, I have my copy already pre-ordered and will pick it up on Friday. Expectation wise, im expecting an easy 9/10 for me personally because I loved ROTTR and Shadow seems to double down on everything but with less combat encounters.
