I was thinking about how the lack of challenge in the game is often chalked up to the reboot being an origin story. My feeling is that if your story makes for bad gameplay you probably shouldn't tell that story as a game.
The Core Tomb Raider games tackled the origin concept rather well on multiple occasions. Last Revelation begins with a tutorial level set when Lara was 16 where she explores Ankor Wat with her mentor, Von Croy, who teaches her the moves she will use in the main game. Lara is adventurous and smart and goes on adventures and gets into danger because she wants to. Chronicles features a story set slightly before this trip where she explored an island infested with demons in Ireland. These both happened before the plane crash where she was forced to survive in the Himalayas. These segments don't take up an entire game, but even if they did, the Lara in these games was actually skilled so the game would be good. And rather than constantly trying to live up to her father or find her missing mother, Classic Lara's parents were pure aristocrats who disowned her after she abandoned aristocracy to pursue adventure.
Could have fashioned this game as a reboot of the Himalayan plane crash incident. CD tackled the idea, kinda, albiet with mommy issues tossed in. But instead of crashing in the Himalayas, Lara is taking a trip near Asia when her ship gets caught up in a storm and she gets shipwrecked, ALONE, on Yamatai. She already has a background in the skills she needs to survive due to her upbringing and rather than being full of self doubt she is confident in her abilities from the start.
The big problem with Tomb Raider 2013 is that she never actually becomes a tomb raider, and the plot makes it hard to believe she would want to become a tomb raider after experiencing what she experienced. It's like if they made another Batman reboot where by the end Bruce Wayne still isn't Batman and the story didn't set him up to become Batman. Maybe it would make a good movie. But would it make a good game? A game called Batman where you play as a kid who never becomes Batman? He just runs around with a gun brutally killing generic thugs in Gotham while constantly doubting himself.
This was probably the worst thing to come out of a publication:
IGN - How to tell if you'll love Tomb Raider
Note that Tomb Raider is not listed as something a person who will love the reboot loves.
They got the part about the gruesome kills, insane cults, and QTEs of RE4 and the intense shootouts and highly scripted set pieces straight out of a film parts right. The entire comparison to Metroid is completely false. There is no freedom and the world doesn't open up as your items improve. Off the top of my head there are 3 examples in the entire game where you encounter a path you cannot take until you get a gear upgrade and you can only go down paths between areas once. Afterwards you can only get from area to area by teleporting. Treasure hunting and ruin climbing? Not really.
Ironically, George Wood, the guy who said that Lara should get breast cancer in her next game to spice up the story in his review of Tomb Raider 2 on his public access video game television show, had this to say in his review of Tomb Raider 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJBYQXufTjA
"The series returns to its roots this time around by emphasizing exploration over action. There's still enough action for everybody, but we actually prefer the small periods where the critters have taken a leave of absence. As we've said in the past, the real draw of Tomb Raider is not Lara Croft. The real star is the level design. Lara would have nothing to do but inflate herself if it wasn't for the extremely long, intricate, expansive, and amazing natural level; they're simply a wonder."
The Core Tomb Raider games tackled the origin concept rather well on multiple occasions. Last Revelation begins with a tutorial level set when Lara was 16 where she explores Ankor Wat with her mentor, Von Croy, who teaches her the moves she will use in the main game. Lara is adventurous and smart and goes on adventures and gets into danger because she wants to. Chronicles features a story set slightly before this trip where she explored an island infested with demons in Ireland. These both happened before the plane crash where she was forced to survive in the Himalayas. These segments don't take up an entire game, but even if they did, the Lara in these games was actually skilled so the game would be good. And rather than constantly trying to live up to her father or find her missing mother, Classic Lara's parents were pure aristocrats who disowned her after she abandoned aristocracy to pursue adventure.
Could have fashioned this game as a reboot of the Himalayan plane crash incident. CD tackled the idea, kinda, albiet with mommy issues tossed in. But instead of crashing in the Himalayas, Lara is taking a trip near Asia when her ship gets caught up in a storm and she gets shipwrecked, ALONE, on Yamatai. She already has a background in the skills she needs to survive due to her upbringing and rather than being full of self doubt she is confident in her abilities from the start.
The big problem with Tomb Raider 2013 is that she never actually becomes a tomb raider, and the plot makes it hard to believe she would want to become a tomb raider after experiencing what she experienced. It's like if they made another Batman reboot where by the end Bruce Wayne still isn't Batman and the story didn't set him up to become Batman. Maybe it would make a good movie. But would it make a good game? A game called Batman where you play as a kid who never becomes Batman? He just runs around with a gun brutally killing generic thugs in Gotham while constantly doubting himself.
This was probably the worst thing to come out of a publication:
IGN - How to tell if you'll love Tomb Raider
Note that Tomb Raider is not listed as something a person who will love the reboot loves.
They got the part about the gruesome kills, insane cults, and QTEs of RE4 and the intense shootouts and highly scripted set pieces straight out of a film parts right. The entire comparison to Metroid is completely false. There is no freedom and the world doesn't open up as your items improve. Off the top of my head there are 3 examples in the entire game where you encounter a path you cannot take until you get a gear upgrade and you can only go down paths between areas once. Afterwards you can only get from area to area by teleporting. Treasure hunting and ruin climbing? Not really.
Ironically, George Wood, the guy who said that Lara should get breast cancer in her next game to spice up the story in his review of Tomb Raider 2 on his public access video game television show, had this to say in his review of Tomb Raider 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJBYQXufTjA
"The series returns to its roots this time around by emphasizing exploration over action. There's still enough action for everybody, but we actually prefer the small periods where the critters have taken a leave of absence. As we've said in the past, the real draw of Tomb Raider is not Lara Croft. The real star is the level design. Lara would have nothing to do but inflate herself if it wasn't for the extremely long, intricate, expansive, and amazing natural level; they're simply a wonder."