Terminator 2D: No Fate Review

I was expecting this to be a traditional but solid movie tie in game. I knew going into the game that it wasn't going to reinvent the wheel. Much like Terminator Resistance, it's a game very much for people into the IP. If you aren't the chances of you enjoying this drastically lowers.

One big problem I had and that is the limited continues. I strongly dislike limited continues in any game but this game goes full on arcade game where if you die with all your lives gone, it's back to the very start. Going in, I thought it was back to the start of the level but no it's the whole game. That pissed me off learning about this. If you are used to this style of game design then play on easy mode since there is infinite continues. I did wish you had normal difficulty with infinite continues but it's better than me dropping the game.

The positives are that the game very faithfully recreates the movie all to the iconic theme, the shot of the Terminator unit in the fire all the way down to it's logo. Seeing the last one got me nostalgic seeing the blu ray menu of the movie. It's sad they didn't get Arnie's likeness but it's nothing too game breaking. The additions of the Future War sections did add some reasonable adaptation expansion being able to play as John Connor.

No Fate is mostly Metal Slug with it being 2D shooter sections with platforming. There will be shake ups like an auto scrolling, 2D beat em up and Mark of the Ninja stealth. There are also scripted sequences too. The only one I disliked with the 2D beat em up section since the T-800 moves very slow and the boss bookending the level moves fast and can hit you fast.

The Metal Slug sections were the most fun since that style of gameplay is timeless due to it combining platforming and shooting, two things in games I like. The damage animations and weapon sounds are on point too.

A selling point of No Fate is the different routes. I'd say just do the main game and Terminator kills Dyson. Doing the latter has one awesome sequence that the Terminator 1 fan in me was losing his mind over which is the level where T2 Sarah Connor starts shooting up a police station like how the T-800 did in that very movie. It was a nice themeatic bait and switch fitting the very movie this game is based on.

Getting to play as the T-800 going to down with the minigun was also great and awesome power fantasy moment since you now get to play out an abridged version of that scene in this game.

There is a very challenging boss fight with two Terminators that is the hardest part of the game. With infinite continues, I died a lot here. This is due to fighting two opponents and with less pipe bombs to cheese the fight so got to dodge projectile and avoid getting close and losing health. You fight the robot spider again who isn't nearly as hard. That wrapped up my time with the game. There is the Sarah kills Dyson route but there didn't seem to be differences I noticed. I would've gotten disappointed and annoyed doing mostly the same stuff again getting a slightly different sequence of events.

Overall, the price point and length will no doubt bother many but it's well worth it at sale price. The game is pretty much a genre throwback and never tries to be anything more than that.

Far Cry 6 Review

This was a title that always intrigued me. Mainly because it was the game that even people who stuck around with Far Cry after 4 don't like. Those who still enjoyed the Ubisoft open world formula aren't big on this title. There is also the fact that Far Cry used to release games annually or bi annually from Far Cry 3 up until Far Cry 6. This whole thing couldn't help but make me think, "how sub par is it" or "can there at least some enjoyment I can get out of this?" I decided to go through the series proper after my replay of FC3 and it got me more and more curious. After playing the game for about 33 hours, I can see why the series has been on a lengthy hiatus after this game's release. I wanted to say it's at least an okay game with enjoyable moments like Far Cry 5 and New Dawn but instead FC6 just test my patience the more I pressed on. I can't deny there are some interesting moments here and there which is why I finished the game but I also groaned a lot when playing the game in the moment.

The story might be something I'm more on the positive side about all though that depends. The game has an interesting spin on the premise of, "let's overthrow an evil tryannical dictator" story. It acknowledges that even by overthrowing the antagonist Anton Castillo, that alone won't fix everything and the real rebuilding has only begun. There is also stuff like how even some of the members of the various groups you meet throughout the game even admitted for voting for Anton which gives him more nuance as a villain. There is also some rather shocking moments like how McKay even mentions what Canada did to Indigenous people as an example to help Dani see reason. Anton himself tries to teach his son the way to rule with Dieago questioning and being confused by a lot of it. Anton didn't even want to have children at first but slowly started had an idea of having one.

Anton is one of the series' better villains considering Pagan Min was interesting at the start and at the end of his game. Joseph Seed was basically a 3D chess master who gets anywhere by cheating. Anton at has more story about revealed through the course of the game and doesn't cheat. He's the best since Vaas.

This is where things get on the negative side because all of this stuff I said, these moments are few and far between compared to what most of the game actually is. Most of the game is spent gather a bunch of resistance fighters to join your cause and that is what the game's plot is. You are basically doing all the work for Clara and she takes all the credit for what you do in the game. It was hard not to get annoyed that I'm just doing something for someone else. The scenes with Anton also get further and furthur apart. You could either do the "Dead Drops" mission either very early or late in the game and it's one of the first and few times Dani and him meet. It will either be very early or late into the game depending on when you do it.

To add one piece of positivity Dani is at least more entertaining than the Deputy from FC5 and has a fun enough personality to watch in the moment.

This leads to gameplay and this is where the game grinds my gears. On paper, it's the same FC gameplay that is introduced in 3. There are some changes now that are for the worst. The first big issue is that the most useful and powerful gun you get in the game is given to you right at the start. That is the MS16. Give it some armor pirecing rounds, a russian supressor and an ACOG sight and you can tackle many of the game's enemy encounters with ease.

On action difficulty, this weapon can break stealth in half the same way the tranq gun in a lot of the Metal Gear Solid sequels. Headshots are very satisfying to pull off which is a massive point to FC6's favor. The AI is much worse than past games. It will be a miracle if they will even be able to gang up and overwhelm you. It doesn't help that enemy locations are now red blots on the mini map so no need for tagging and looking for vantage points. 

To top all this you get a special move weapon called a "supremo" and the one you start with sends multiple rockets that can destroy much sturdier targets including helicoptors and tanks. The issues from wether or not the rockets hom in or are fired at in an arc. The former seems to happen when it feels like it. The insanely long recharge time also makes it inconvienent to use. I would buy a rocket launcher for my 3rd weapon slot but you now need to find blue prints to purchase it at a black market. Making it inconvient.

After a point, I lowered to story difficulty and started hip firing enemies with a custom LMG because I was just bored.

The reason for this is because the world is too damn big. Much of the missions of the game is either CoD campaign style scripted missions or doing it an outpost neither of which will be that long and then it's back to trekking from one side of the map to the other. The missions themselves can be very samey. The big issue is how much time spent traversing large stretches of land. Every place you have to takes ages to get to.

What doesn't help that security checkpoints deflats car tires and anti air cannons shoots down helicoptors and since missions is how you progress through the story, I wanted to get to them already adding even more to the tedious treks through the open world.

Overall, if the world was much smaller, it'd okay to find ways to mess with the broken AI and ponder on it's interesting story ideas but it's impossible due to the bloated open world.

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes Review

The first remake of a Metal Gear Solid game that makes me ask "why" when viewing it upon reflection . MGS The Twin Snakes was and still is an exclusive to Nintendo and MGS' player base by 2004 was on Playstation. MGS3 would come out on PS2 the same year. Portable Ops and Peace Walker would come out on Playstation Portable and of course MGS4 would be exclusive to PS3. The idea of a remake on a Nintendo system when the original game for the longest time wasn't even on Nintendo is also head scratching. That is going to be a recocurring theme of this entire game. I decided to emulate TS out of sheer curosity since it often gets bashed for breaking the original game's difficulty and of course the rather infamously reimagined cutscenes featuring action sequences seemingly inspired by the Matrix.

The best way of describing TS is this: what if you made MGS on Playstation and retroactively turn into Metal Gear Solid 2 and make it even more Hollywood? That is pretty much the whole game in a nutshell. TS' is so committed to this that I can't help but admire the game for that.

Have MGS and give everything a higher graphical fiedlity with the "power" of the Gamecube. Also have first person aiming, hanging mode, tranq gun, rolling, MGS2 guard AI, and Snake's 3 hit combo from that very game. The music is also more in line with MGS2 with different sneaking songs for each area with bits and pieces of the original game's motifs.

The story is interesting in that it's mostly the same story as MGS. With re recorded voice acting and cutscenes having transitions and having more Hollywood cinematrograhpy than before. If I can give this over Snake Eater Delta is at least there was some effort at creating a new experience where that game is just an Unreal Engine 5 paint job with detracting gameplay additions.

Since it's story of MGS. It has it's qualities and detriments. The former being the interesting villains, characters, and bizarre interwoven conspiracy ridden plot with backstabbing and betrayal. I didn't mind the voice acting too much here and some being an improvement like Mei Ling for example. The infamous Matrix cutscenes I just kind of laugh at more than anything since the series has made it's name off absurdity.

It also has it's detriments like a lot of Solid Snake's moment to moment dialogue of asking questions that are obviously spelled out to him or finding ask a question that end with him saying, "huh?" It can be really distracting consider it almost seems like it takes a few seconds for the information that is told for him to process. There is also the part where Snake accidentally activates Rex which I like in theory but can feel cheap especially when it can be beaten with just stinger missiles.

The gameplay is where things get bizarre. Yes, the much derided first person aiming does break the auto aim heavy fights but not all of MGS' boss fights were focused on that. If you play on emulator, it takes a little while until the game will actually let you hit Psycho Mantis. The fights with soldiers on the elevators are broken due to the the guards having MGS2 enemy health, no I frames with first person mode and Snake's health.

The last part is where TS' problems lie. MGS1 is a very unevenly paced game to the point where the more it goes on it's more of a boss rush game broken up by set pieces and small stealth levels than an actual stealth game. The tranq gun does break stealth sections but it's counter acted by guards having larger sightlines of MGS2 and hearing in MGS's smaller maps. The Nuclear Warhead Storage building is the hardest stealth room since it has everything I mentioned but can't use the tranq gun so you have to actually sneak around meaning you got to hear with guards investigating where Snake is much faster. Getting caught is an instant fail where it takes ages for the game over screen to pop up. The only challenging stealth area is this room. Everything else is bizarrely harder due to MGS2 guard AI in MGS' smaller maps but easier due to the game encouraging tranq gun even more.

Snake's health is where the difficulty gets broken in half. In the original game, his health started small but with every boss defeat, it slowly grew larger. In TS' Snake right at the start can take a lot of damage. MGS' challenge came from bosses but now it takes quite a lot of hits for many of the bosses to even get you to a game over screen. Combine that with roll from MGS2 and even evading attacks also becomes easier combined with the added health.

With the exception of Vulcan Raven, the bosses are pushovers in TS. Raven being the hardest due to the only boss requiring stealth and only surprise attacks like stinger, nikita, C4 and claymore being reliable enough to hurt him. It's the only boss where just shooting and being a tank won't be enough to win which makes him stand out even more so. This boss is the same as the original so it can't be a point given to TS.

Overall, TS is one big "why" but it is an interesting one to ponder on.

Bulletstorm: Duke of Switch Edition Review

Bulletstorm was a game I've played and beaten 3 times over the years. I never thought much of it but I appreciate aspects about it's design a lot more on this latest playthrough. The thing that really holds it back is how many modern shooter conventions it has despite having elements of the shooters of yester year at the time of it's release. It can be even more bizarre considering this was made by the developers of Painkiller. What also pours salt into the wound is that they also made a parody game mocking Call of Duty known as "Duty Calls" that was promoting the release of Bulletstorm...and it has mostly everything that it mocked the Modern Warfare CoDs for having. It is very easy to call Bulletstorm, "power armor is for pussies the video game". Unlike Duke Nukem Forever, there are a number of aspects of Bulletstorm that can be endearing so much so that for the most part I can look past them. It is hard not to think that parody when playing it in the moment however.

There is a surprising amount of story considering how much People Can Fly mocked CoD for having but it is mostly just...okay. One improvement over Painkiller is that the story by comparison is easier to follow and it doesn't take itself as seriously and leans into how absurd everything is. Grayson Hunt is at least more flamboyant and over the top by comparison to Daniel embracing the crazy side of People Can Fly's games. He does play off the other characters well and Steve Blum is just going full on over the top ham mode here which is a delight. The fact that Grayson does eventually come to realize how his reckless actions is what caused the events of the game does ground him a good deal.

The whole premise of getting off a crazy resort planet does a decent job at rationalizing all the crazy traps and insane ways of killing enemies the game has.

One thing that does let the story down is the character of Sarrano. I have never liked this character. He is a villain sure but he is often "go away" heat than geniune heel heat. The only time I ever liked him was when he quickly dealt with a giant monster by timing the self destruct on his pod to kill the giant monster that was antagonizing the Grayson prior. Other than that, he is just insufferable in that the way he talks and presents himself, you got to wonder how he was ever able to trick of fool anyone into thinking he had any good intentions. He makes multiple racist remarks towards Ishii and even when he is revealed to behind all the dirty black ops hits, he just acts like, so unapolgetically amoral about it. He could be a parody of the manipulative villain but it's not a very interesting one.

Gameplay is where yes, I bring up that People Can Fly mocked CoD but all the hallmarks of the latter is here despite the inital parody. Linear levels that only go in one direction? Check. Bloody screen effect at critical health that tells you to go into cover? Check. Set pieces and scripted sequences? Check. Scripted first person cutscenes? Check. Going into slo mo to shoot the main villain? Check. Mandatory sniping sequences or parts where you have to use one weapon? Check all though not just a CoD thing. Weapon limits? Check. Sprint button? Check. Sections where it will have a mechanic that appears once? Check.

It is very easy to call out People Can Fly for being hypocritical. With all that said, the moment to moment combat of Bulletstorm is really enjoyable in spite of it all.

That said combat encourages you to kill enemies creatively and effeciently. Like kick enemies into spikes(very Dark Messiah surprisingly), lighting them on fire, kicking them off platforms and using the leash along with the kick. Both create a decent amount of air time for the player to get a quick head shot, light on fire or even shoot them in the crotch. You can also a robust slide ability which can be used for kills too and create air time for enemies.

What really ties everything together wonderfully is how the skills are used for upgrades or to buy ammo so when you are at an upgrade station. It becoems a choice of, "should I buy alt fire upgrades, buy ammo, or buy some more alt fire uses". The more creatively and efficently enemies are killed the more points you can spend.

While the game has regen health, one mechanic that counters this is the slide since it can dart you across the map so fast that it's easy to get out of the enemy's line of sight.

It's not without issues. Some arenas box you in that the slide won't be effective to get out of enemy sightlines for health to regen. The leash makes it hard to grab which enemies you want. The kaiju monster section is terrible due his lasers can also be pointed at you and might cause accidental damage to you as well as it being projectile. The sniper should've been hitscan since guiding bullets just makes these dull sections longer.

The flare gun alt fire can have OP AOE.

Overall, Bullestorm more now even though I dislike modern FPS coventions in it

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart Review

This franchise is one of if not my favorite game series of all time. I enjoyed every game that got released for it. There are some I enjoy a lot more than others but even the much derided spin offs I enjoyed to varying degrees. The 2016 came out and the movie didn't turn out to be the mega blockbuster Sony expected but surprisingly Insomniac announced a new game in the series that went back to the original continuity of the series through Rift Apart. I didn't want to buy a new console but every PS console I got was for a Ratchet game.  I did get a PS5 sooner than I expected especially back when they were rare. I played Rift Apart back in 2021 and I loved it. I decided to buy a physical and play it again but more so on higher difficulties. I still really enjoy the game even there are some glaring issues I notice more on this recent playthrough.

The story is a weird one. I enjoy it but it's a good story that is just two steps away from being great. Two major issues I have is with the begginning. Before it was weird that Clank would build the Dimensionator again after everything in the Future games but it was interesting that from Into the Nexus all the way to Rift Apart, there was a lengthy period of peace time. I did wish they tied into the boredom aspect more into Clank's character. He was worried that without enemies to fight him and Ratchet would start to drift so he creates the Dimensionator as a favor to maintain the friendship with Ratchet. As it is, it can come off as a weird excuse plot to have the dimension gameplay and to start the story. 

Another issue is that Emperor Nefarious is a decent villain but I always do wonder why he never *pops* at me. I now know why, it's mainly because that despite him very competent, he never gets an epic on screen worf effect. I did like how he feels empty when he takes over his dimension and he needed Dr. Nefarious to motivate him to take over more terrority but you never seen to something really cool. Compare that to Dragon Ball's Cell where he gets what he wants but likes to have a challenge, he does have multiple on screen victories that are won clean. I mainly wished Emperor Nefarious had moments like this. 

Other than that, there's lots the story does well. The new characters like Rivet and Kit I enjoy especially the latter. How Ratchet and Clank have to motivate them both to look past their initial insecurites. I also like Gary and during the puzzle sections, while the player is solving the them, he slowly drips feeds the Rivet and Clank advice on handling the current situation they are in. I also like how Kit was once a former warbot who chose to exile herself due to fearing her destructive cabalities. Rivet is also someone who isn't used to making geniune bonds. Yes, these are stories done before but it's presented well here.

The gameplay is in terms of combat in a lot of ways is the best the series has ever been. Yes, the gadgets have been downplayed but combat is so fast and frenetic that I don't really mind. Platforming also has some new mechanics added this time around like how your phantom dash can be used both as a way to evade enemy attacks. You also have a slingshot hook now as well as the dimenension thethers. The platforming now has a lot more specticle to it than before but with everything that I mentioned it can feel exhilarating in the comment to chain wall runs, slingshot over to another part of the map then dimension warp somewhere else.

Combat is also the best the series has ever been. Yes, it's obviously borrowing from games like Doom Eternal and to a lesser extent "boomer shooters" but that's the thing. Ratchet's shooting prior to this game was already this to begin with. With finite health, enemies firing primarily projectile weapons with not a single hitscanner, and being able to hold all your guns. It's why in a lot of ways the series has endured for so long. This kind of combat you can't really find in many other 3D platforming contemporaries and during the 7th gen where it was mainly realistic shooters with hitscanners, Ratchet still stayed true to this style of combat. 

The enemy count is much higher than past games, there is a quick select shortcut for weapons. Now the series embraces it's boomer shooter DNA and have many shootouts be large arena fights. Gunplay is also the best every felt with enemies have expressive damage animations and weapon sounds being nice and punchy. You still got the addicting level up and raratanium system here. 

One big issue I notice now is how enemies can often attack you from behind and get a cheap hit in at times being no indicator or audio cue that they are nearby you. In past games, enemies often attacked from the from the front where you have line of sight on them but not often from behind when they did, they died in a single hit. 

The game can also be unpolished at random points. It can feel jarring since most of the time it is very much the opposite. 

Playing on Resistance Leader can be enjoyable since it ups enemy aggression and doubles the projectiles they fire at you. It can make getting by combat encounters very intense and by the skin of my teeth. However there will be random moments where you are low on ammo and the pickups are too small to kill the waves with. This at it's worst during the final boss partnered with how the game can randomly get glitchy with Emperor Nefarious getting stuck into geometry and to finish him off you need to kill hordes of enemies but will be so low on health and ammo to actually finish them all off and do the finishing blow. 

I also wished the game pulled a R&C 2002 where it gets harder later with deadlier enemies since combat is better here since combat here is much much better but you could only do in RA by raising the difficulty. 

Overall, despite some glaring flaws I still really enjoy RA.

Zone of the Enders HD(Playstation 3) Review

Zone of the Enders is one of the weirdest anomolies of a game I have ever played. I've beaten it twice over the year and this is my 3rd playthrough and each time I get through it, I always feel very lukewarm on it. Here's the weirdest part: ZOE as a franchise I have good amount of fondness for. The Second Runner is the better game in all respects with the exception of music but that's personal preferance. ZOE2's opening FMV song is amazing however. I like the spin off OVA and anime series that released along side the game. I like the musical motifs, some of the characters and it's world building. You could argue that it's derivative but there aspects of ZOE that makes it's own especially when acknowleding the larger franchise. This initial game that started everything is considered average even at the time of release with of course being an excuse for Metal Gear fans to play the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo. What annoys me so much is that ZOE didn't have to be like this. It has so much going for it more than a lot of average games I played. If more time and money was given to the game, it could've been at least a good game or not solely relying on the MGS2 demo as a "just here for Godzilla".

The best way of describing the first ZOE is that it's an essay with an okay introduction paragraph, a solid concluding paragraph that suddenly gets cut off and a body of incoherent and messy jot notes.

This perfectly describes the game's story. The way it opens can be a reminiscent of a Gundam anime particularly the original series where the opposing force attacks a space colony and now the civillian reluctantly becomes the protagonist pilots a mech to survive and gets involved in a war he never wanted to be apart of. There's differences no White Base or family dynamic of any kind and the closest to an equivalent to allies that actually help the protagonist Leo Stenbuck are an onboard AI on the mech Jehuty known as Ada and maybe childhood friend Celvice. It's been said many times that Leo is unlikable and whiny but what I find confusing is where his pacifist idealism or his whole attitude even comes from. He's angry at Viola for killing his "friends" but they sold him out so much of his backstory is told about or hinted at but never fully shown, parts of it is but not enough to form a bigger picture.

Then the middle half of the game is nothing but padding with barely much character development or plot progression. As a whole ZOE's story can feel like some weird attempt at an anime series compliation movie where the first maybe second episode are in then it skips over so much, everything feels rushed and it cuts to the ending episode and it expects you to be emotionally invested. The conversation between Leo and Ada towards the end feels emotional but the music does most the heavy lifting but it is completely unearned when ignoring that. Leo, Ada and Celvice barely even had any kind of dynamic at all, not enough to create any kind of investment

There is however one saving grace the story has and that is the character of Viola. She's the thing that prevents the story from being complete garbage. She doesn't have much screen time but she does a lot with what she is given. She starts the events of the game by causing Leo to ride Jehuty, constantly gets in his way and tests his morals of not taking a life then shoots Celvice to show how not killing your enemies could lead to greater trouble and her motivation of wanting a worthy challenge and constantly being at odds with Nohman gave her such a memorable presence. Her death scene when she starts monologing feels earned due to everything she has done prior and this time the music and the writing complement each other. As a player, she earned my respect through her actions. Also nicely sets up the Idolo OVA too. Whenever Viola was on screen, I almost thought the story was actually good. That is a mark of a good villain.

The gameplay is a case of, "man the game is fun at a surface level and that's it". The combat animations look very flashy and stylish especially for controlling a mech. The controls also feel fluid and responsive especially when combined with the animations. Combat can look and feel like you are controlling a fast moving character in a fighting shonen anime than in a lot of mecha shows. You can also transition between shooting and melee combat seemlessly. In spite of the fact that melee strikes are plasma and you are not hitting flesh, melee attacks when landing hits can still feel very impactful and weighty.

There are 3 enemy types. Mummyheads and Cyclops being the most tough. Cylcops' can be attacked from behind and Mummyheads have a deadly laser beam. This attack kept me on my toes since it can really chip away at health can hit you at long distances. There is a decent wind up and sound cue when the laser fires so it's balanced

The bosses are decent and kept me on my toes since they do a lot of damage and have enough challenge and specticle to them.

That's the game. 3 bosses and enemy types. There's barely much of one. A good portion of this short campaign is trying to get past a shield to get to the mountains to then get past the insta kill super laser of the boss who guards the area. You backtrack to previous locations to finally get past the other side of the "hub area" and when you do, the game is almost done.

Overall, that's ZOE. I like the franchise but this initial game is a polished prototype.

Tomb Raider Anniversary(Playstation 5) Review

Tomb Raider Anniversary has finally come to modern Playstation consoles through PS Premium. I've been wanting to replay it since Legend released a while ago on the service and replayed it because of that. I also beat Underworld on PS3 over a year ago along with beating the first 2 games Core Design games. Unfortunately the series under them goes drastically downhill after TR2 and even that game had a good number of awkward stains on it. Underworld is also considerably worse than both Legend and this game. Legend itself was just on the so okay it's average side. TR as a mainstream franchise is about as consistent in quality as Devil May Cry and 3D Ninja Gaiden.  With the aforementioned Premium, I've been wanting an excuse to replay Anniversary since I beat it on emulator years ago. I did drop the game years prior but I wasn't as game design savvy back then compared to first beating it on PCSX2.

As a whole TR:A is one of the better games in the series even if it is hard to overlook the fact that it's using TR 1996's levels as a basis for everything and are reimgainings of those levels than completely new levels. Crystal did do a good job at modernizing the 96 game for the most part. It does highlight just how amazing that original game's level design is. Just by using what Core Design did in that particular game as a foundation, it easily has some of the best level design in a Crystal Dynamics developed TR game. It's level design so well done that it carries so much of the game and elevates it to being the most memorable title in Crystal's "trilogy" prior to Survivor.

Before I start describing the level design, I'll touch the story and well...it's serviceable at best and terrible during certain scenes. It is easy to bash the story of Anniversary being a filler arc in the grand scheme of the Legend "trilogy" and it pretty much is. Minus the part where Natla comes back in Underworld rewritten to be Lara's Lex Luthor. Ignoring that while the original 90s game barely had much of a plot at to the point where it might as well be an excuse plot in arcade game stretched out over 10 hours. There is more context by comparison to the original. There is long stretches gameplay but the end of a lot of bookend levels do have major story beat and plot revelation. It's not all too dissimilar in stories you'd find in Indiana Jones are stories like it but the more added context was nice and gave levels a reason to connect to each other like an action movie plot connecting fights and actions sequences together. 

Where the story drops the ball is with the human villains Lara goes up against in that they are nothing more than jobbers but are they? Later in the story Lara kills Larson and it's supposed to her first kill even though the story never acknowledged she was apprehensive towards taking human life beforehand. The other villains have show up have a few scenes and then die. The way Jerome and Kin die is almost something straight out a pacifist protagonist story where the hero won't kill the villain but die by some other means. 

They all have "boss fights" with QTEs which is Crystal saying, "yeah we know those bosses sucked in the original game". 

The aforementioned level design is fantastic and the biggest highlight of the game. It has my favorite kind of level design where there is a small puzzles within a larger puzzle. For a game that came out in the 7th gen, levels are open without needing hand holding or player guidance of any kind so the integrity of the original is kept but with new code of paint. 

What I really love about the level design is how they are designed and the camera is spaced out enough that the player will always a clear sight line of where to progress through the level. The end goal will always be visibly shown to you at the start or when progress furthur into the level. You have to press switches, find keys, swimming,  timed climbing challenges or solves puzzles within rooms adjacent to the much larger area where the level exit is.

There is one major caveat to all this and that is unfortuately TR Legend's automated climbing. The original game's rules where consistent in that jumps were about judging distances, positioning yourself and timing the interact button to reach the platform. Anniversary is automated which Crystal is aware since there are good number of quick reaction climbing challenges unlike Legend. Unforuntately this leads to a lot of buggy platforming where there are ledges and parts and of the environment Lara SHOULD grab but the game might grab on to but maybe she won't? Or she will? It really turns into awkward guessing games since in Legend, the level design are magnetic handholds, point Lara there press x and she will grab it. Since Anniversary has TR1 levels and it's more open nature means that there will be more ambigious moments where Lara's magnet hand will latch on to the hand hold or she will fall to her death? It can be hard to tell. There are times where even with the timing and the stars aligning, Lara just won't grab the handhold. 

There is also other issues where the grapple hook prompt won't pop up to know you should use it. This isn't too common. 

The buggy and unpolished nature of climbing can really test one's patience.

Combat is better than the original but still not as serviceable as I would like. It still keeps the sparse enemy encounters and with Legend's updated combat it should be leaps and bound better. You now have the shoot dodge from Max Payne all though contextual here. Survival hinges on how good you are with it. If you are combat is a breeze, if you aren't it becomes an infuriating ballet of getting staggered endlessly. There's lots of medkits and health refills on checkpoints to counter act this. 

The actual boss fights are decent puzzle bosses now.

Overall, TR:A is a solid modernization of  TR 1996.