Pros: - Story. I know I've said the same about Legend, but Underworld just expanded on it by brilliantly weaving both the stories of Legend and Anniversary and putting a conclusive end to the trilogy, including what happened to both Lara's parents, Avalon, and more - Platforming. The devs added many new movements that Lara can now do, like standing on ledges and horizontal poles, and also wall jump! As a result, they were able to add more puzzles and intricate level designs into the game, pushing the limits of what the player was initially made to accept from the previous games in regards to what Lara was thought to be capable of - The perfect amount of puzzles mixed with just the right dosage of complexity. Knowing that the devs had previously worked on Anniversary a year prior, I'm glad that they made use of that experience to ramp up the difficulties of the puzzles in Underworld seeing that Legend didn't have much of those - Combat. Not much was improved, but the things that the devs had improved, were really significant although few in amount. The two major improvements worthy of mention and praise here are the fact that Lara can now shoot while climbing (mostly) and aim at two different targets at the same time with her dual pistols. That's cool and exactly how it should have always been - Soundtracks - Visuals. Much better looking than Legend and Anniversary, and you can clearly see how Lara has aged based on her model alone Cons: - The camera. Not gonna expand on this since this has been an issue since Legend - (NITPICK) I already got used to this, but at first, I was kinda put off by Lara's movement speed. I feel like her jogging speed in this game is a bit faster than in the previous games, and it could get pretty annoying when you couldn't help prevent Lara from falling off ledges while standing on small platforms simply because her movements are simply too quick A great example on how to end a trilogy. Exceptional story and gameplay :)
Pros: - Story. Compared to Anniversary, I like the story in Legend better - Dialogues. With Lara gaining new friends in Legend, there's bound to be more dialogues between Lara and her colleagues. This also provided an opportunity for Lara to show the player her quick-wittedness through her remarks whenever she's conversing with the other characters in the game. One thing I wish could be reduced is the exclamations her friends shout out whenever Lara does a stunt. The "Woohoo! Yeah" parts. Not all of them, but make them less frequent please - Combat Decent: - Soundtracks - Motorbike levels. I find the controls to be pretty responsive when it comes to these levels, but it can get pretty overwhelming at times when the enemies just kept on coming. And the placement of the medkits are always random each run, meaning after you die, there's a chance you won't encounter the same medkits at the same spot you last saw them. Heck, you can even make a roguelike game out of this segment of the game lol - Cutscenes. It's an "either you hate it or love it" relationship. On one hand I like their quality, but at the same time, there's just too many of it Cons: - The camera, just like in Anniversary (meaning the devs still hadn't fixed the obnoxious camera controls). Like sometimes you just have to hope that there's a ledge across Lara because you can't move the camera in that direction to make sure - Lack of puzzles - Crashes in the Kazakhstan level (or even in the other levels after that, I'm not too sure). The game would crash and exit you to your desktop, not until you disable the new generation content option in the display settings. Sure you might not like the brighter look of the game now (since I believe the new generation content adds more shadows into the game, making the graphics darker and more gritty), but if that's what you need to do to get the game running, then so be it I still love this game though despite everything :)
Pros: - The number of puzzles, and the complexity of the puzzles - The quick time events. Now, I've heard that many dislike the quick time events replacing the old boss levels from the original game, but I find them pretty enjoyable here as they make the encounters more realistic (bosses won't withstand hundreds of shots before dying). And I also appreciate that the devs decided to make the final two bosses stay as an actual boss fight rather than a quick time event (except for the finishing part) - Soundtracks Decent: - Story Cons: - I hate how you need to be really precise with the jumping or else Lara won't be able to grab on the ledge that she's trying to jump to. I've never played the original game, but it can get really annoying when you had to die several times before getting it right. There was even a time when I began to question myself whether the reason I couldn't make the jump is because that was not the path I was supposed to be taking, but turned out I was supposed to get there after a few more tries. It's annoying - The camera. In tight spaces, it can get pretty obnoxious trying to look around Lara for any possible ledges that she can use as for some reason the movement of the camera just became restricted - Save game bug (Autosave damaged) where you won't be able to load the game from your previous save. This happened to me once, and upon looking for a fix, I found out that this bug would happen when you try to play a cutscene from the main menu. A fix for this that worked for me was to head over to the save file folder location of the game and rename one of your manual TRASave files into an autosave.TRASave. Open the game back and you should be able to continue your game like before Despite the autosave bug, restricted camera, and imprecise grabs, overall I still enjoy my experience playing this game. I guess what saved the game for me was the complex puzzles and cutscenes (including the quick time events).
Pros: - Great graphics, love the sceneries especially - The controls feel responsive - Great action sequences - Quite a lot of collectibles to collect and tombs to explore - The AI can be quite smart at times. There was this one moment in a bunker where some of the enemies would go out of their way to flank me through the rooms that I've already explored, by going in a different pathway from their side that seemed to connect to those same rooms that wasn't initially made available to me until I've defeated them to finally discover that path Decent: - Story - Soundtracks Cons: - The puzzles are quite easy to solve, with only the harder ones being present nearing the end of the game. Even then, those harder puzzles are still solvable without having to look for a guide on the internet - If you love taking your time to explore and collect the different collectibles in the game, know that as you progress through the story, you'll sense a disconnect between the contents you've discovered simply through reading the notes left by the NPCs (some you've met, some not) and what Lara seems to know as she slowly grasps the whole situation throughout her journey. This only gets more apparent nearing, again, the end of the game. As a result, you'd just end up getting frustrated at Lara. It's like, "Lara, didn't you read the notes you've collected? You should've known about this already." Personally, I think it is just bad planning by the devs as they tried to incorporate notes-collecting as part of the game's many features with the pacing of its story - Stealth. Not sure whether I'm just bad at it, but I feel like the game doesn't provide much room for stealth gameplay to be viable. Often the enemies are just too close to one another in/on a small room or platform with not much cover for Lara to move undetected. As a result, most of the silent kills are the ones you take with your bow and arrows, as closing in for a melee kill is just not possible at times Overall, I like it :)
