Firstly, I just wanna start this review off by talking about the first game from 2013. The story feels... weird to experience. In the first game, we're introduced to Lara as she's getting ready to do an expedition in the Bermuda Triangle, not BEFORE it happens, but AS it's happening. This is worth bringing up here because I feel that decision from the first game really stunted Lara's growth as a character for me, and sadly this stunted growth affects her here, which is a shame because I feel she could have been written SO much better if we were introduced to her properly. It honestly feels like the story was an afterthought as I found myself not really caring about the struggle she was facing in this game because there wasn't any real previous attachment to the character. Regardless, the gameplay was an improvement overall from the first game. It definitely shows the developers really wanted you to explore the map this time around, as the game encourages you to explore to find documents, murals, and of course tombs, for XP and upgrade, which is a positive thing. The tombs were fun to explore, but 2/3's of the way through the upgrades you find in them don't really matter too much as enemies became so easy to kill towards the end of the game it became pretty mind-numbing. This game took one step forward, but ended up taking two steps back as well, which is a shame as it definitely feels like the developers did manage to improve the experience overall.

This game's mechanics aged like milk, but everything else about it was great. Having to save constantly so I don't have to redo hours of progress was extremely annoying. The Mako's controls suck, the different planets you can visit are bare with a few things you can do and survey here and there, and the combat leaves a bit to be desired, but it was worth doing it for the story alone. The twists and turns, the characters, the choices you have made, whether heroic or ruthless, and the world alone definitely make this a game worth playing.