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Old 16-02-19, 08:36   #11
Melonie Tomb Raider
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HATER!! Jk
TR13 was the perfect ending for Lara’s origin story. It should have stopped there.
The alternate ending shows us that right up until the game went gold that they were planning on merging the end of shadow into the start of TR1 but changed there minds within two months of release. The duals behind her in that scene also make me wonder wether she was originally supposed to get them in the game


Imo in a perfect world, TR2013 would have happened but EVERY member of the Endurance should have died, and nix Sam being a damsel in distress, she should have been badass too and she should have died from the ritual. Having everyone die and Lara be the sole survivor would have paralleled the original plane crash backstory of Lara being the sole survivor, but kind of better and more impactful in a way. That would be enough to flip a switch in Lara and turn her into the reckless Tomb Raider we know her to be.
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Old 16-02-19, 08:51   #12
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Imo in a perfect world, TR2013 would have happened but EVERY member of the Endurance should have died, and nix Sam being a damsel in distress, she should have been badass too and she should have died from the ritual. Having everyone die and Lara be the sole survivor would have paralleled the original plane crash backstory of Lara being the sole survivor, but kind of better and more impactful in a way. That would be enough to flip a switch in Lara and turn her into the reckless Tomb Raider we know her to be.
Amen to that!
I liked their original concept of Sam dying, seeing as how Lara and her were best friends it would have been so much more impactful than Lara rescuing her. Reyes should have died in the fire pit below their prison cell thing and Jonah should have died in the final fight.
Then we could have had a time jump of a few years with Lara going on her own adventure because she wants to. I actually liked all the mythology behind Rise, I just wish it had nothing to do with her father or the remnants. It should have had more to do with the press calling her crazy
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Old 16-02-19, 08:58   #13
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^^ YESSS!
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Old 16-02-19, 09:50   #14
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Shadow : smaller Paititi with no outfit restriction, or a proper one like Breath of Wild for the Gerudo Village. The apocalypse would be better shown. At the end she would infiltrate the Vatican hideout of Trinity.
But isn't contrary to the spirit of the game when she said it's not a vengeance ? I don't know now the more I think of it the less I wonder if this could have been a good idea to finish the game with a pure slaughter of every member of Trinity. Maybe on a DLC but not as a climatic ending.
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Old 16-02-19, 09:52   #15
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TR2013 was all there needed to be to build this character into Lara Croft. The game also ended with the duals and that's how the 2nd game would begin. With Lara already Lara. Personally for this trilogy, I would have made Lara pick up duals at the refinery instead of that rifle. Would have made that scene even better than it is now.
I actually disagree on the first part.

Where Lara was at the end of the 2013 game, it was definitely a lot stronger than she started at the beginning of the game. It was a great place for that game to finish, but it was just the beginning of her transformation into the Lara we know and love to me.

I liked that how it was for that ending. She was starting to show a love of adventure and it was the most independent this Lara has been across all three games.

The problem for me was that her character development not only ended there, it actually regressed for Rise and she hasn't had one bit of sustained character development since. What should have happened going into Rise, yes she should have not only kept the dual pistols but her personality should also have continued to develop along the lines of classic Lara - starting to develop a detachment from society and other characters, developing a real confidence and sense of witty humour like the older character had etc.

By the time it comes to Shadow, Jonah should have actually been killed as a plot device. The one that really pushes this Lara over the edge and gives her that derailment that leads her to shun people and love her own company, the way the classic character did.

Where gameplay is concerned, I've talked about this at length. 2013 was too shooter-y and action-oriented, and all three games were too linear and easy, although Shadow was better. I think if all three games had used gameplay like Shadow and done what I said earlier with the story, then it would have been a great (probably still not perfect, but much better) trilogy.

Last edited by Yeauxleaux; 16-02-19 at 09:57.
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Old 16-02-19, 11:32   #16
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It's sad but my take on the trilogy is that I'm glad it's over. It's been a rollercoaster in many ways but I don't think it's been as successful in delivering what it set out to achieve for me as it has been for others. Not to mention it was massively overbloated and overplayed. I don't really think it needed to be a trilogy at all.

Way back in 2010 when we were first told the series was being rebooted and to forget everything you knew so far I was really excited because I personally thought the series needed a fresh stars. Legend offered a good story and Underworld offered good gameplay, for 50% of the experience, but by the time the LAU trilogy ended I feel the formula had very quickly become stale and CD didn't really seem to know how to handle the series with every installment being very different from each other and I personally feel the story for Underworld wrote that trilogy and that itteration of Lara into a corner in more than one way.

Thre reboot all the way up to release was very promising. We had a young Lara who to me would be a reimagening of teen Lara not adult Lara but the games would bridge the gap and this seemed to be the message given by the development team too. I loved the stripping away of old elements and retelling them in new ways. As a reboot, I think the first game worked well - you still had a young Lara who had, in some vague way, been separated from the expectations of her parents and was doing things because she wanted adventure. At the beginning of the reboot, the only person Lara was trying to prove anything to was Lara and I loved that after all the mummy and daddy rubbish from LAU which was easily the worst part of that entire trilogy.

Throughout the experience we saw all the things classic Lara had - separation from her parents, a mentor character who facilitates her desire for adventure, a curious nature without any real regard for her safety and a major life changing event at the age of 21 which sends her over the edge from being an adventurous young woman to someone who enjoyes extreme adventure. All the signs were there to make this a new take on Lara in an interesting way.

Unfortunately, as the reboot progressed it was fraught with poor story choices and poor character design due to the constant chopping and changing story elements to facilitate gameplay as Rhianna Pratchett has since admitted.

Still despite this the reboot was still well put together and on the way to showing a story about Lara who would be hardened out of the choices she had made, the danger she had put people into and the resulting hard choices she would have to make in order to survive. I thought it was all building up magnificently until the finale when Lara didn't have to kill Sam, the obvious original ending, and the whole process of learning to make sacrifices and an event which would trully harden her to death was completely swiped away at the last minute.

Ever since then the reboot era has left a poor taste in my mouth because I feel the excellent foundations layed out in the reboot for 90% of the time have slowly and steadily been wiped away for less interesting motivations.

Considering CD/SE/EM took three entire games to define who Lara is as the Tomb Raider there is still massive disagreement amongst fans as to who Lara is, why she does what she does and what her defining moment actually was. I feel personally by the end of the Shadow of the Tomb Raider Lara as a character is no further along than she was at the end of the reboot. I argue actually that Lara was a more interesting character at the beginning of the reboot than she is now.

In conclusion, I feel this era has been needlessly spread out, Lara has not been as well progressed as she shoudl have done and, in fact, has gone backwards and the stories haven't been stellar. Gameplay has, however, improved greatly but only to the point where it was at it's best in Underworld... so is that really progress.

I'm glad the reboot era is over and I think SE and whoever ends up developing the next game, and I hope this is not Crystal Dynamics, needs to take a long hard look at what did not consistently work this time round and really carve out a Tomb Raider game with it's own identity and a consistent Lara with consistent motivation for the next game.

Soft reboot, please.

Last edited by jajay119; 16-02-19 at 11:36.
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Old 16-02-19, 11:48   #17
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We needed to actually see Lara interact in a well written way, the only character with anything apporaching this is Jacob and even then I feel it would be more interesting if he didn't interact with this goody-two-shoes Lara.

This trilogy had an awful obession with the fad of collectable documents despite it actively hurting the story.

Show. Don't tell.

In Jojo's bizare adventure, a not-too-serious show, we see the cast of characters interact alot and part 3/4 are particularly good for this, the fact we SEE these characters bond, drift apart at times and grow as people is what makes us care for them, I actually cried during a certain death scene in part 3 because I got to like that character in their interactions with others.

We get TOLD how the endurence crew are buddies in documents in 2013 and we barely interact with most of them and Roth is pretty much just "YER A CROFT", so I didn't care for any of them and infact was actually glad Roth died because I didn't have to listen to him anymore.

Same with the backstories too, too much reliance on documents even when SHOWING us the thing would be more impactful or even at times down-right nonsensical why this stuff isn't written down and Lara isn't reacting to it.
There's simply no way to care for a character we don't even spend 5 minutes with.

Last edited by Samz; 16-02-19 at 11:56.
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Old 16-02-19, 12:22   #18
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It's like having a really creative kid who draws on your walls. Like... they need a canvas or something so they can stop making a mess out of my walls. They love it, but maybe like... buy them their own piece of drywall or something?
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Old 16-02-19, 12:25   #19
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My take on the trilogy?

It started ok.
Then it got progressively afraid of putting the casuals' IQ to the test and replaced that with a flashy big world with nothing in it.

I'd say it got ruined by stealth, the "quantity over quality" approach and an endless string of compromises for the sake of the casual audience.
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Old 16-02-19, 12:30   #20
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The problem for me was that her character development not only ended there, it actually regressed for Rise and she hasn't had one bit of sustained character development since. What should have happened going into Rise, yes she should have not only kept the dual pistols but her personality should also have continued to develop along the lines of classic Lara - starting to develop a detachment from society and other characters, developing a real confidence and sense of witty humour like the older character had

Agree
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