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The newer tomb raider games are the most AAA games I’ve ever seen. Not saying they’re good, or bad, but every other moment is a handcrafted moment. It sort of

The newer tomb raider games are the most AAA games I’ve ever seen. Not saying they’re good, or bad, but every other moment is a handcrafted moment. It sort of works. A lot of it is platforming through crumbling environments. Which is pretty cool. It’s sort of overdone too. SquareEnix felt legendary growing up.

Shadonototra 5y ago
SquareSoft was great, when they merged with Enix to form SquareEnix is when things started to go wrong People mix both SquareSoft's success and Enix and their merge
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  Yeah I’ve looked at the games catalogue before. It doesn’t seem like Enix brings that much to the table. It seems like they got real lucky being there financially for Squaresoft after their massive film losses.
  - astrange 5y ago
    Dragon Quest is more important than any Squaresoft game in Japan and for a while was a better series. They have a kind of weird approach to releasing it in the West where they give everyone British accents (which are totally real but Americans think are made up) and make it kind of kiddy, but even the new ones have a lot of quality. If you ever wondered what a game made by old people would be like, it’s that.
acchow 5y ago
Crumbling environments looks really cool, but they kind of make an entire game around it :P
wetpaws 5y ago
I want to see more Tomb Raider, but I absolutely don't want to see more AAA Tomb Raider. If it is a future of squenix, maybe it would be better for them to stop making games.
kmlx 5y ago
> The newer tomb raider games are the most AAA games I’ve ever seen uncharted, horizon, god of war, last of us etc
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I've never really liked those franchises, even though they do have AAA production value behind them. Uncharted and God of War in particular just feel like button-pressing simulators to me; they feel like 8 hour long cutscenes with a few QTEs and points where you can wiggle your joystick. Maybe I'm just spoiled by gameplay-heavy titles as of late, but a lot of Sony franchises feel like they'd be better as movies instead. That being said, the new Uncharted movie bombed at the box office so I don't know who's at fault here...
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    This Uncharted film seems like it really succeeded at the box office. $120M budget. Even if that gets bumped to $200M with marketing and say a bit more for more rev sharing, Sony will still come out with a profit. It’s at almost $150M in the US and might hit $400M worldwide with almost none of it coming from China or similar regions where their cut of ticket sales are much less. All the non box office revenue kicking in should be decent. The film didn’t do well critically so that isn’t an issue. A recent non box office success example: https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/e2-80-98uncharted-e2-80-99-tops-e2-80-98the-batman-e2-80-99-on-vod-and-nears-24400-million-worldwide/ar-AAWPR4Y https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/e2-80-98uncharted-e2-8... I believe video games movies outside the recent Sonic one[s] are known to not perform well financially so that rep will still be there
    - astrange 5y ago
      Uncharted the game series is as far as I know, an Indiana Jones movie except they made it into a video game by having Nathan Drake kill 100000 mooks constantly. Are the movies the same? Just like an earlier movie but weirdly way more violent?
    - pmichaud 5y ago
crate_barre 5y ago
It was believed Square’s choice to put Final Fantasy on PlayStation killed the Sega Saturn, and dented N64 adoption. But this is console war mythos, not sure if anyone really dug into it. The power of Square once upon a time may have been truly legendary, but who knows for sure?
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Cartridge price played a big part for N64. MSRP for new games was about $60 compared to most PS1 games @ $50. Worse, retailers often marked them up a lot, which didn't seem to happen for PS1 games. I'm pretty sure I paid $80 for Ocarina of Time, while I snagged FFVII for the $50 MSRP. And IIRC price drops were pretty rare, especially for 1st party games. (Still true today). It made me much less willing to take a chance on a games I might not like. These days with Steam I can at least see if I hate the game immediately and return it, so much better from that perspective. Of course I can resell when I'm done, which is less good.
  - bennysomething 5y ago
    One of the ex rare Goldeneye Devs said in an interview that the N64 not having a cd drive lost them that generation. I think he's probably mostly right. Cartridges were not only an anti piracy move, it saved on cost of console manufacturing (the N64 was still sold at a loss). As you point out N64 games were originally a lot more expensive than playstation games. Also Nintendo were really restrictive with who could develop for the N64, remember the whole "dream team" thing? Mean playstation had way more favourable licensing and you didn't need silicon graphics workstations (I think I'm correct in N64 dev requiring them?)
    - robonerd 5y ago
      The N64 controller did Nintendo no favors, particularly with games like Goldeneye. The original playstation controller didn't stand the test of time either, but once the analog sticks were added it became an instant classic.
baby 5y ago
Then you should play uncharted and the last of us. This is peak AAA
- levesque 5y ago
  Am I the only one that can't stand these games? They are so restrictive in their gameplay, so linear! It feels like watching an interactive movie more than playing a game.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Hmm, I like them. The only times in TR that I do not like are the ones in which you have been completely kicking ass, and then inevitably get knocked out during a cutscene. And there’s quite a lot of those.
    - account42 5y ago
      https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CutsceneIncompetence https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CutsceneIncompet...
  - stevenwoo 5y ago
    I think I could not get past this after a couple of cinematic sequences in Uncharted 2. I just wanted to go to youtube and watch the cinematics stitched together uninterrupted. There was this point in game development where a big technical goal was to make the transition from cinematic to gameplay and back seamless. Now that it's a given in games I personally am not wowed anymore. Maybe for each of us the balance of challenging gameplay and rewarding cinematics/feel of accomplishment lies on this spectrum and these type of cinematic heavy games went too far on the spectrum towards interactive movie and just don't appeal to some of us. I am reminded of Dragon's Lair in arcades which was all quicktime events and was appalling to me for the 2-4x the price of other arcade games but other people I went with loved this type of challenge.
  - ravishi 5y ago
    No, you're not the only one. I feel the same. OTOH, my friends who praise these games do so exactly because of that. To which their own.
bitwize 5y ago
The original Tomb Raider was almost Minecraft-esque. It was composed of blocks of different heights and slopes in a 2D grid. This allowed the developers to create all sorts of scenarios from simple tools to put Lara through and really test all her abilities. I played through the first "new" Tomb Raider and it was very much "walk on the path marked walkable, climb the ledges/walls marked climbable, shoot the specially marked doors to create a scripted zipline", etc. Oh, and "waist-height walls mean upcoming combat sequence". Based on that I decided to skip the other two. Uncharted was better able to mask the on-rails nature of its experience, at least.
- Forgeties79 5y ago
  I've been playing the Mass Effect trilogy again and man...I really do appreciate how cinematic the game is while also having very satisfying/dynamic combat. Especially ME3.
  - telman17 5y ago
    I just started my replay of the Legendary Edition with some mods and having a blast. I love that it hits that sweet spot of narrative and gameplay. For a decade old trilogy it definitely holds up.
    - Forgeties79 5y ago
      The QoL improvements to ME1 are a welcome change. Very impressed with how seamless they are/how well they integrate with the gameplay. I'm also impressed with the upscaling/visual improvements. The game looks how I remember it looking, though I know full well it didn't look this good. Still, it wasn't a massive overhaul. Light is a little better, edges have been sanded down, etc.
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  You have pretty much summarized what I liked about the new Tomb Raider: It's kinda linear, so you just go with the flow.

Shadonototra 5y ago

SquareSoft was great, when they merged with Enix to form SquareEnix is when things started to go wrong People mix both SquareSoft's success and Enix and their merge

skinnymuch 5y ago
Yeah I’ve looked at the games catalogue before. It doesn’t seem like Enix brings that much to the table. It seems like they got real lucky being there financially for Squaresoft after their massive film losses.
- astrange 5y ago
  Dragon Quest is more important than any Squaresoft game in Japan and for a while was a better series. They have a kind of weird approach to releasing it in the West where they give everyone British accents (which are totally real but Americans think are made up) and make it kind of kiddy, but even the new ones have a lot of quality. If you ever wondered what a game made by old people would be like, it’s that.

acchow 5y ago

Crumbling environments looks really cool, but they kind of make an entire game around it :P

wetpaws 5y ago

I want to see more Tomb Raider, but I absolutely don't want to see more AAA Tomb Raider. If it is a future of squenix, maybe it would be better for them to stop making games.

kmlx 5y ago

> The newer tomb raider games are the most AAA games I’ve ever seen uncharted, horizon, god of war, last of us etc

smoldesu 5y ago
I've never really liked those franchises, even though they do have AAA production value behind them. Uncharted and God of War in particular just feel like button-pressing simulators to me; they feel like 8 hour long cutscenes with a few QTEs and points where you can wiggle your joystick. Maybe I'm just spoiled by gameplay-heavy titles as of late, but a lot of Sony franchises feel like they'd be better as movies instead. That being said, the new Uncharted movie bombed at the box office so I don't know who's at fault here...
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  This Uncharted film seems like it really succeeded at the box office. $120M budget. Even if that gets bumped to $200M with marketing and say a bit more for more rev sharing, Sony will still come out with a profit. It’s at almost $150M in the US and might hit $400M worldwide with almost none of it coming from China or similar regions where their cut of ticket sales are much less. All the non box office revenue kicking in should be decent. The film didn’t do well critically so that isn’t an issue. A recent non box office success example: https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/e2-80-98uncharted-e2-80-99-tops-e2-80-98the-batman-e2-80-99-on-vod-and-nears-24400-million-worldwide/ar-AAWPR4Y https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/e2-80-98uncharted-e2-8... I believe video games movies outside the recent Sonic one[s] are known to not perform well financially so that rep will still be there
  - astrange 5y ago
    Uncharted the game series is as far as I know, an Indiana Jones movie except they made it into a video game by having Nathan Drake kill 100000 mooks constantly. Are the movies the same? Just like an earlier movie but weirdly way more violent?
  - pmichaud 5y ago

crate_barre 5y ago

It was believed Square’s choice to put Final Fantasy on PlayStation killed the Sega Saturn, and dented N64 adoption. But this is console war mythos, not sure if anyone really dug into it. The power of Square once upon a time may have been truly legendary, but who knows for sure?

ineedasername 5y ago
Cartridge price played a big part for N64. MSRP for new games was about $60 compared to most PS1 games @ $50. Worse, retailers often marked them up a lot, which didn't seem to happen for PS1 games. I'm pretty sure I paid $80 for Ocarina of Time, while I snagged FFVII for the $50 MSRP. And IIRC price drops were pretty rare, especially for 1st party games. (Still true today). It made me much less willing to take a chance on a games I might not like. These days with Steam I can at least see if I hate the game immediately and return it, so much better from that perspective. Of course I can resell when I'm done, which is less good.
- bennysomething 5y ago
  One of the ex rare Goldeneye Devs said in an interview that the N64 not having a cd drive lost them that generation. I think he's probably mostly right. Cartridges were not only an anti piracy move, it saved on cost of console manufacturing (the N64 was still sold at a loss). As you point out N64 games were originally a lot more expensive than playstation games. Also Nintendo were really restrictive with who could develop for the N64, remember the whole "dream team" thing? Mean playstation had way more favourable licensing and you didn't need silicon graphics workstations (I think I'm correct in N64 dev requiring them?)
  - robonerd 5y ago
    The N64 controller did Nintendo no favors, particularly with games like Goldeneye. The original playstation controller didn't stand the test of time either, but once the analog sticks were added it became an instant classic.

baby 5y ago

Then you should play uncharted and the last of us. This is peak AAA

levesque 5y ago
Am I the only one that can't stand these games? They are so restrictive in their gameplay, so linear! It feels like watching an interactive movie more than playing a game.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Hmm, I like them. The only times in TR that I do not like are the ones in which you have been completely kicking ass, and then inevitably get knocked out during a cutscene. And there’s quite a lot of those.
  - account42 5y ago
    https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CutsceneIncompetence https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CutsceneIncompet...
- stevenwoo 5y ago
  I think I could not get past this after a couple of cinematic sequences in Uncharted 2. I just wanted to go to youtube and watch the cinematics stitched together uninterrupted. There was this point in game development where a big technical goal was to make the transition from cinematic to gameplay and back seamless. Now that it's a given in games I personally am not wowed anymore. Maybe for each of us the balance of challenging gameplay and rewarding cinematics/feel of accomplishment lies on this spectrum and these type of cinematic heavy games went too far on the spectrum towards interactive movie and just don't appeal to some of us. I am reminded of Dragon's Lair in arcades which was all quicktime events and was appalling to me for the 2-4x the price of other arcade games but other people I went with loved this type of challenge.
- ravishi 5y ago
  No, you're not the only one. I feel the same. OTOH, my friends who praise these games do so exactly because of that. To which their own.

bitwize 5y ago

The original Tomb Raider was almost Minecraft-esque. It was composed of blocks of different heights and slopes in a 2D grid. This allowed the developers to create all sorts of scenarios from simple tools to put Lara through and really test all her abilities. I played through the first "new" Tomb Raider and it was very much "walk on the path marked walkable, climb the ledges/walls marked climbable, shoot the specially marked doors to create a scripted zipline", etc. Oh, and "waist-height walls mean upcoming combat sequence". Based on that I decided to skip the other two. Uncharted was better able to mask the on-rails nature of its experience, at least.

Forgeties79 5y ago
I've been playing the Mass Effect trilogy again and man...I really do appreciate how cinematic the game is while also having very satisfying/dynamic combat. Especially ME3.
- telman17 5y ago
  I just started my replay of the Legendary Edition with some mods and having a blast. I love that it hits that sweet spot of narrative and gameplay. For a decade old trilogy it definitely holds up.
  - Forgeties79 5y ago
    The QoL improvements to ME1 are a welcome change. Very impressed with how seamless they are/how well they integrate with the gameplay. I'm also impressed with the upscaling/visual improvements. The game looks how I remember it looking, though I know full well it didn't look this good. Still, it wasn't a massive overhaul. Light is a little better, edges have been sanded down, etc.
fxtentacle 5y ago
You have pretty much summarized what I liked about the new Tomb Raider: It's kinda linear, so you just go with the flow.