Underworld features some of the highest highs and lowest lows of the entire Tomb Raider series. There are moments and levels that work really well: The Thailand level is gorgeous, fighting the (rare) human enemies is fun, and I even enjoyed most of the story.

It's just that almost everything that's great about Underworld is dragged down one way or the other. Yes, the characters are interesting and having three female antagonists needs to be some kind of record, but they barely get any screentime. Yes, Lara's moveset has been dramatically expanded and is one of the most complex in the entire series, but that doesn't matter when climbing feels so janky. Yes, the motion capture animations look great, but their implementation is terrible with some even missing animation frames and animations not flowing well into each other. And yes, I said the combat system is fun, but you spend most of the game fighting small spiders and bats, as well as giant spiders that were somehow vibing under Lara's mansion.

The level design is also really confusing, leading to tons of players not even completing the game's first half because they get stuck at a lengthy puzzle that also makes heavy use of Lara's janky to control bike (if you doubt my word, feel free to look at the comment section of guides for that particular section on YouTube). Legend was a very linear title, but at least that meant that you didn't need to guide players a lot. Underworld's levels desperately need some way of letting players know where to go next, and no, the existing map and hint system is terrible and is not what I'm asking for.

I've already mentioned problems with animations above, but the game is really buggy in general. The PC version requires a locked frame rate, otherwise the physics just break. The Series X version doesn't have that specific problem, but inherits all the other bugs. It also looks pretty bad, lacking improvements like HDR or FPS Boost that other backwards compatible titles received.

Underworld is a fascinating game, a look at where the series might have gone if Square didn't go down the reboot route. It's the last title to be developed in a (mostly) pre-Uncharted world. Unfortunately, being fascinating doesn't make it a good game. The weird climbing controls prevent me from recommending Underworld to anyone that hasn't already played a significant chunk of the other Tomb Raider or Uncharted games.