This was a solid spinoff title. I remember playing this a few years ago and I couldn't get into but playing it again on Nintendo Switch, it was an enjoyable time.
This is one of the better twin stick shooters that I have played all though not a shooter 100% of the time. The game does a good job at mixing up platforming, shooting, and puzzle solving in a way that the game never becomes one note and dull.The game is short and the main challenge seems to come from trying to 100% it. It might be a short game, it was short but also sweet and it never overstayed it's welcome.
There's a shootout with okay enemy variety one minute, then some traps, then some puzzles where you need to pull switches and then some platforming challeneges, it's nothing mind blowing but at the same time, as far as being a random game I wanted to beat super quickly, it gets the job done.
All though the enemy variety is just decent, I do like how some enemies like the moving skeleton monsters need to be hit with explosive weapons in order to kill them, before you get the rocket launcher late game they can be quite the challenge to consistently kill since the grenade launcher can be a bit unreliable to aim and shoot.
Enemies with shields can also be have their shields removed moved if you shoot them with explosive weapons.
The platforming even starts to get harder with more challenging to dodge traps like instant kill flames, fireballs and spike traps and moving platforms. Platforming is pretty basic overall, but it does a decent job at breaking up the pace of puzzle solving and combat.
There is some okay situational depth towards the end where you have to kill multiple enemies while also avoiding moving firetraps.
The spear mechanic as an additional ledge is surprisingly malleable and consistent, it can work on most surfaces and Lara is able to use them as a foothold to grab a far off ledge.
There are some issues however, shootouts can be a little too punishing on normal difficulty considering enemies can wipe out your health bar in 3-4 hits. The dodging hitboxes with the lack of invinciblity frames means it is easy to get hit while you are trying to dodge out of the way. You could try to dodge an attack but an enemy will land a hit on you seconds after you dodge, it's also easy to get hit while the animation is finishing.
The game also sends in a lot of enemies that can kill you in a few hits and this was probably meant to be easier during coop.
What does prevent this from being super frustrating is the super forgiving checkpoint system, if they were really spaced out, then this game would've been super frustrating but instead the game counterbalances the combat that can be a little on the difficult side when playing solo on normal and makes it doable, many coop games don't do this and I am glad this did. Which helps puts it above many games of it's type for me because of how forgiving solo play is.
This also helps with a problem the Switch version has were it will crash on occasion but thankfully, this is one of those games where your checkpoints in the levels are also your save points meaning that you don't have to restart the level from the begginning when the game does crash, this shouldn't even happen in any game but I am glad, Guardian of Light didn't do what games before, at the time and even now do where they are unstable but the level checkpoints for some reasons are your save points. I wouldn't be able to beat the game at all if it weren't Guardian of Light doing this.
Overall, I am not super attached to Tomb Raider or the character of Lara Croft but this game turned out to be a solid adventure. I am not sure why I drooped it years ago but now that I have better appreciation for level design in games than I did before, I was able to enjoy this game much more.
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