Thank you to QuentTheSlayer for giving me the final push that made me play through Super Metroid.

The Super Nintendo was probably the ultimate time of refinement for Video Games. So many game series, that are now held up as timeless classics found their definitive formula on Nintendo's second console generation. Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy and of course today's subject: Metroid. Super Metroid is still considered by many to be the peak of the metroidvania genre, and it's admittedly strange to realize that I had never played it. Even as a huge fan of the series, I just always put it off to the side. I'll get around to it eventually. After all: In the same amount of time it would take me to get into Super Metroid, I could just replay Fusion for the 50th time. I haven't played Prime 2 in a hot minute. What's that shiny new Dread game that just came out ? And so on and so on. But then in 2024, I set aside the excuses, committed, and I can now say that I have finally finished Super Metroid.

Its hard to put into words how much of a mindfuck my first playthrough of Super Metroid was. This almost 30-year-old Super Nintendo game has you in a chokehold the moment the title screen appears. The pan across a quiet, dark laboratory. 1994. Nintendo. Presents. Metroid 3. SUPER METROID. Right there, with the bodies of dead scientist strewn across the floor and the baby metroid trapped in a glass tube, the title of the game towers in gigantic, bold letters. It's one of the most striking introductions to a Video Game I have ever seen. A statement, before you even press a single button.

Of course this strong in medias res opening is only possible due to the fact that Super Metroid is the canonical third entry of the series, continuing on from the ending of Metroid 2: Return of Samus. And the game does an excellent job of catching you up to the events of the previous games. In a moody monologue, Samus recounts her fight against Motherbrain in her first adventure, her mission to eradicate the Metroid species for good and her sparing the last baby Metroid at the end. She brings said baby Metroid to the Galactic Research Station Ceres. There, the baby Metroid is supposed to be further studied while Samus is off hunting another bounty. Of course, she barely makes it out the door before receiving the call that Ceres is under attack. Ridley and his space pirates have decimated Ceres in order to capture the last Metroid. It's here where Super Metroid first gives you control over Samus in an action packed and atmospheric opening. She blasts through the invading space pirates and storms into an inevitable confrontation with long time nemesis Ridley. After an early sneak peek at this late game boss fight, Ridley flees with the baby Metroid in his claws. Samus follows in hot pursuit and lands on the planet Zebes. The setting of the original Metroid. This series story telling has always been and would continue to be very subtle, but even this opening stands tall among its peers in terms of how much you can get across just through a quick opening text crawl and pure gameplay. Really, the recap from our badass heroine is the only dialogue you will get across the entire game, and yet it still manages to tell an engaging story as you make your way down through the underground tunnels of Zebes.

Zebes is what all metroidvania maps should aspire to be in my opinion. Isolating, with long, winding corridors and  incredibly distinct environments. This map is so well-designed that I rarely felt lost or directionless even when I wasnt exacly sure what my next step was. The map screen is there, but it does the bare minimum to give you any general information on the environment. Because it doesn't have to tell you more. The drive to explore and the invisible hand of the developers guiding you are enough. Very, very rarely did I find myself lost as to where to go next and the few times that the game had me stumped, I can attribute to my general impatients I have been trained on due to modern video games. If I spend more than 30 minutes figuring out the way forward, then it must be bad game design, right ?. Fuck you, David Jaffe. By paying close attention to the game, you can always intuit where your way forward is. It's a masterstroke of game design.

The other side of gameplay besides navigating the game world, is combat and finding upgrades. Because Samus isnt badass enough already. That was Metroids bread and butter from the very beginning really. Super doesn't hugely change the formula, but still excels in teaching you its mechanics naturally. The game has you collect all the now famous Metroid tools like Super Missiles, the Grapple Beam and so on, while always showing you how to use them with a reward that seems just out of reach, right after you got that shiny new upgrade. Again, all without a single interruption or textbox. If somebody had to nitpick any aspects of the gameplay, it would probably have to do with Samus jump and the way you switch through different weapon modes. Firstly: Samus jump arc is a weird one to get used to for sure, since she gets an unusual amount of air time for a 2D platformer. The standard jump, which can also be altered into a summersault forward, seems very stiff as well. It almost feels like the Castlevania 1 jump arc as if some weirdo happend to turn on low gravity. Weird maybe, but those quirks still very much lend themselves to the often tubelike level design of Zebes and I rarely had any problems with jumping up to ledges or across platforms. The second, more annoying nitpick would probably be how you switch weapons via the select button. It's an awkward solution that had me often fumble around when I wanted a specific weapon equipped, but it's not a dealbreaker either, just something I wished was a bit better by default. Oh, and there is a run button. Never forget that you have a run button. It had me stuck for a bit and you will thank me later, fellow non-manual readers. Those minor flaws aside, the gameplay is incredibly rewarding to master and once you do master it, the real meta game of Super Metroid begins. Sequence Breaking.

Again: It's an aspect of the genre that Metroid is already famous for and its the game that popularized it, but Super Metroid does it on a whole other level. This game has one technique in particular, one you unknowingly have access to from the very beginning, that is designed to break the game's intended progression. It's a tricky one to execute, and the game will teach it to you in an organic way at some point. Once you fully master it, you might as well throw all preconceived notions out the window that this game was ever linear to begin with. Already deep into my second playthrough, I feel the effects of playing at a higher level. Upgrades and bosses, that seemed so far away in the beginning, can now be acquired basically as early or as late as you want to. The genius decision of teaching you this high level play during your first trip through Zebes does wonders for replayability. Pay attention and the game will infinitely reward you for it. You might of course go to areas you're not equipped for yet, but if you persevere, you get the best abilities incredibly early. Risk vs Reward, entirely on the player's own terms. Genius.

I honestly didn't expect to sing this game's praises so much, and I still haven't talked about the incredible sprite work or the god tier soundtrack. Two aspects I can not find a single flaw in, and talking about them would have me repeating myself again with only superlatives. The game is one of the most gorgeous games I have ever seen, it's like a immaculate painting. The soundtrack gives me goosebumps just thinking about it, and taking the elevator down the Brinstar for the first time is already one of my top 5 magic moments of all time. There you go.

Saving my credibility for reviewing video games, whatever that is even worth, I should probably still mention my one big rage-quit moment. As no game is perfect, but Super Metroid is damn close. Maridia. Maridia fucking sucks and seems to be the one area where the developers couldn't hold back the urge anymore to design a cryptic hell maze. Not only is getting to Maridia a bullshit ordeal all on its own, actually navigating this oversized fish tank with all its invisible walls is a confusing slog. And god help you if managed to come here without the gravity suit, like i did. Now, try to figure out how to get back to dry land while Samus jogs across the ocean floor in slowmotion. Or hope your most recent save isn't too far away. Hey, there is this giant purple tube you can go up and down through, that is clearly showing you an entirely different area in the middle. Well forget that. Ain't going there yet, no matter how hard the game implies it. Finish off the underwater journey with two really sub-par bosses. Please just end me.

Alright. Despite the grueling stretch through the sludge waters of Maridia, despite every bone in my body telling me that now this supposed all-time classic has finally fallen to the rose-tinted nostalgia glasses of fanboys across the globe, it shinesparked back up like a phoenix and stuck the landing. More than that, it destroyed the landing pad and drilled itself deep into my heart to become one of my favorite games of all time. I already know this will get more than one playthrough in the near future, because Super Metroid fucking rules. Go play Super Metroid you cowards!

This game is so difficult to get into. The controls are clunky - you move and turn with the analogue sticks, you strafe with the bumpers, and you look up and down with the triggers. It takes a full 10 seconds to rotate 360 degrees, and the game has quite a learning curve.

If you can get through that though, you'll find an absolute masterpiece. A lot of what made From Software's later titles like Dark Souls so compelling are already here - the atmosphere, the interconnected level design, the seriously depressing quests. It's a slow and deliberate game and that works perfectly for it.

Honestly, this game is going in my all time favourites. Playing it inspired me to learn Godot and finally start making games of my own.

It would be easy to get the impression that I enjoy games being challenging considering my adoration for games like Dark Souls, Celeste or Rain World. My actual stance on the matter is that there is nothing inherently good about a game being difficult, but instead that a game's difficulty should be designed purposefully in a way that compliments all the other elements of that game. If a game is going to be difficult (or indeed easy), it should be so for a reason.

The reason the US release of Castlevania III was made so nightmarishly challenging was one of business. Nintendo didn't want people to be able to beat Castlevania III in the course of a weekend because then they could just rent it instead of buying it, so when the game was brought across to the West its difficulty was ratcheted up a huge amount from what was seen in the original Japanese version. The end result is something that, in its later levels, starts to feel actively malicious, that genuinely doesn't want you to ever actually complete it.

It's so sad too because the game is contextually a minor technological marvel, it feels like Castlevania III is visually pushing the NES to breaking point and just generally aesthetically the game is one of a very small handful of NES games that actually holds up nowadays. It's also just an incredibly creative game, and whilst some of its gimmicks and experimentation really don't stick the landing (the falling block tower...) it's still just so exciting to see all the ideas Castlevania III wants to bring to the table. And yet the difficulty feels so arbitrarily egregious, tainted by business cutting out checkpoints and pushing all the numbers it can against you in the pursuit of more money, and the end result is something that is on some level quite literally trying to waste your time.

(Edit for the Hard Mode Update at the bottom of the review)

When it comes to Survival Horror, we seem to be in another golden age right now. The Puppet Combo games, Signalis and Alisa are only a couple of the popular titles to come out of the indie space in the last few years. All of them already highly regarded and entirly unique in their own right. And now 2024 has seemingly given us a fresh classic to add to that list with SFB Games newly released title Crow Country.

Crow Country puts you in the shoes of Mara Forest: sassy teenager and special agent on her way to the abandoned Crow Country amusement park. Upon arriving at the park, it quickly becomes apparent that this isn't exactly the safest place to be, as it tends to be the case in any horror story. Of course Mara still presses on in order to find the park's missing owner, the mysterious Edward Crow, while uncovering its dark backstory. If you played more than one horror game, then this setup will sound very familiar to you, in particular if you played Silent Hill 3. At the very least the setting and the attitude of its protagonist seem more than a little inspired by Heather and her horror trip on the PS2. It's good then that Crow Country isnt just a flat copy but manages to easily carve out its own identity. Survival Horror has always had a silly side to it, with its weird puzzles, contrived story lines and absurd unlockable items. In particular, Crow Country's spiritual big brother Silent Hill is famous for its cheeky secrets upon completing a first play through. There is still an unnerving atmosphere to the environments and you'll meet all kinds of sketchy characters, but the overall ton is closer to parody than anything. It really feels like a fun treasure hunt through a haunted theme park for about 80% of the game while the rest of its serious twists and revelations are reserved for the end. It all workes quite nicely in my opinion and I quickly learned to love Mara along the rest of the cast. Those who have played the game would probably now mention how predictable its main plot twist is, but I didn't mind it. The game itself seems to treat it more like a throw away gag anyway, making it fairly obvious from the very beginning. There is of course a whole other, better twist to the story, for those who are curious enough to piece together the clues. Thats all im going to say on that, without spoiling anything.

Speaking of curiousity, I think what got most people so curious about Crow Country is its look. Me included when I first played the demo during a Steam Next Fest. The style mixes the color choices of a Silent Hill, with the general chibi charm that made the original Final Fantasy 7 so memorable. What was used back on the PS1 out of necessity because developers still had to figure out hardware limitations, is used here as a stylistic choice. All the characters have this blocky look to them, clearly showing the connecting points between their limbs and coming off relativly simple in design. It not only works great as a charming throwback to PS1 era graphics but is also used to make each character distinct and recognisable. In a line-up of silhouettes, you would instantly be able to tell everyone apart based on poses and distinctive features. Enemies follow a similar design philosophies by being these very distinct but grotesque blobs and shambling, bloody corpses. They look like someone or something turned a human inside out. Its great. The environments are equally impressive, not lacking in detail at all compared to traditionally pre-rendered backgrounds. It doesn't matter if you're standing at the looming gate of the amusement parks entrance or try to get through a spooky hedge maze, there isn't a miss here. And the coolest part is the ability to fully spin the camera around, at almost all times during the game. You can always peer at the game at wich ever angle you prefer and everything looks like a diorama, a cute little playset of sorts. That is something I havent seen in any game before and im in love with it. And the ability to spin the camera around isn't just used as a gimmick either, it's cleverly given a gameplay purpose aswell.

When it comes to the gameplay, Crow Country is as traditional as a survival horror game can get, albeit with a heavy emphasis on puzzles. That is where the majority of the focus lies and where the ability to spin the camera is often used to suss out clues and secrets. To be perfectly clear: This game won't assault you with mind-bending brain teasers. Rather, SFB Games have made the very wise decision of handing out clever puzzles, that may have you stumped for a few minutes but never interrupt the flow of gameplay in the long run. Something a lot of puzzles focused games do wrong in my opinion, where you end up frustrated and just want to get the puzzles over with so you can move on to the next part. There is always have an easily understandable hook to it, never does it withold vital information, and you will always get a satisfying reward at the end. Its only one part of an effort to make Crow Country a very accessible game to everyone.

On the topic of accessibility: I have seen some people bemoan the lack of difficulty and the argument that this makes it a lesser game somehow, but I don't see the problem in making a genre accessible to new comers. Not when everything else is so rock solid. This is, in the best possible way, babies first survival horror game. The bones of combat and decision-making are still here, but without the looming threat of getting soft locked or getting stuck on bullshit puzzles. There is a limited hint system that will more or less guide you if you're stuck on the critical path, you can optionally turn on an extra life system, so you don't have to go back to your last save upon death. There is even an exploration mode if you don't care for combat.

Was it way too easy for someone who has played so many survival horror games ? Yeah, sure it was very easy, and ultimately it did hamper my enjoyment a tiny bit, which sparked a debate with myself as to what my final rating should even be. Do I take points away from Crow Country because of the lack of difficulty or not. In the end, I came to the conclusion that you can't always throw people into the deep end when it comes to new genres. There is a place for entry level survival horror, and I'm happy to welcome every new fan who might get into the genre through games like this. Besides, the developers have already posted a roadmap with various fixes and an additional hard mode. Once that comes out, ill update my review and bump up the rating, probably. Anyway, go play Crow Country, it's a cool little game about spooky crows.

(Hard Mode Update: So SFB actually managed to drop the new update pretty shortly after release, and I'm happy to say that this adds just about everything I wanted to see. After initially dismissing the hard mode as a bit of a nothingburger update, this luckily bumps the difficulty up to a significant degree. About halfway through the game, I found myself in the big old Survival Horror ammo shuffle. No trash can diving and vending machine kicking for you anymore young lady. Resources are now actually limited and enemies are way more aggressive. Having played through the game twice already, I had new moments of surprise where I had to stop and assess my current situation. I found myself considering the clever use of traps much more, and removing the ability to run whenever you're close to death adds a lot of tension to exploration. The game frequently threw me for a loop as I had to pay much closer attention to enemie placement and traps when doing trips back and forth across the map. Knowing where some of the secrets were hidden became a big advantage. When enemies are so much faster than before, every extra magnum bullet and weapon upgrade does seem like a godsend. If I had to nitpick one tiny thing, it's the fact that I would have liked to have seen more survival staples added, like limited saves and item boxes. It's not a huge dealbreaker and the rating system has been changed to punish frequent saves, but as it stands now the game doesn't really suffer from their absence. Together with the new unlockable item for beating Hard Mode, which can now be enabled in the main menu once you unlocked it (Thank you, why the fuck wasn't that there from the beginning ?), I now consider Crow Country the full survival horror package. Now, both perfect for horror game newcomers and veterans alike. Definitely one of the best games I played in 2024 so far, and one I'm will be happy to return to in the near future. Score gets bumped up of course, good job SFB games. More developers should listen to feedback from fans like this).

people talk about this game like it's some groundbreaking, breathtaking, wonderful pinnacle of video games and i really wish i understood that. this game feels really nice to move around in, its visuals are really appealing and its score is pretty cute. but there's not much of a real narrative (or writing at all), no memorable characters, no cool side-quests, no dungeons, a pitiful lack of enemy variety + almost no bosses, and nothing that made exploring feel worthwhile. most of it feels like filler check-list fluff (towers, shrines, koroks). the world is well-designed but there's not much substance inside of it beyond its sandbox elements. i genuinely feel like, insane for not liking this the way people talk about it but i just do not see it personally. it's just okay!

So, just like with many NES sequels at the time, for some reason, Konami thought that, for the next Castlevania game, they needed to make it completely different from the original. However, unlike Mario or Zelda, who managed to get away with this (somewhat), this series doesn't get that lucky.

Yeah, it may not be an unpopular opinion, but this game isn't really that good at all, and it has a TON of problems. Sure, I don't think it's a terrible game, and it isn't as bad as others make it out to be, but it certainly has not held up all that well.

The story is pretty dumb, but you can accept it quickly when not thinking about it, the graphics are pretty good still, the music is yet again a banger, the control is just about the same as the original, so nothing to say there, and the replay value is actually pretty good, with the different endings you can get.

The main problems with the game all stems from the gameplay. It is a creative way to differentiate from the original game, and as proven by future titles, it does work, but it is executed very poorly in this entry, with elements such as the day and night cycle being very annoying and inconvenient, the level design being pretty terrible, grammar errors everywhere you look, a confusing menu and item system, losing all your hearts upon getting a game over, and some of the most PATHETIC boss fights in video game history. Seriously, the bosses range from being pathetically easy with the right item, to where you can just straight up ignore them by walking past them.

The biggest problem with the game, however, is the matter of progression. It is definitely a guide game, 100%, because some of the things you are required to do to progress through the game, and even collect everything to 100% the game, you would NEVER be able to figure out on your own. Some instances of this would be with all of the invisible gaps in platforms that plague the entire game, having to kneel by a body of water with a crystal equipped to... make the screen go down a bit, needing to buy and throw a stake at the orb at the end of each level, and possibly the most infamous part, going to a dead end, equipping a crystal, and kneeling down for a couple seconds, resulting in a tornado coming and taking you to the next area... seriously, how would ANYONE figure that out on their own?

Overall, I appreciate the attempt at changing up the gameplay, and there are some good elements about it, but it is plagued with WAY too many problems for me to say that it is good by any means. Thankfully, future games will take what this game started and fix it.

Game #21

Reaching the end of a trilogy is always exciting to me. Ideally, it's the conclusion of all the previous lessons learned and the moment everything gets tied together into one satisfying bundle. The PS1 is probably the console I think of the most when it comes to looking back at trilogies by single developers, simply because it had so many different ones during its life-span. Crash, Spyro, Resident Evil and even to some extent Final Fantasy. I think there is something special about seeing a game series in different stages of refinement, clearly being able to observe how a developer's ideas evolve over time. And yes, of course Tomb Raider went through that aswell. With the continued smash hit of TR2, Lara Croft was now without question video game royalty and Core Design was yet again given no breaks in pumping out another sequel for publisher Eidos Interactive. Setting aside the undoubtedly horrid working conditions at Core Design during the development process, I find it once again incredible how TR3 released only a year after its predecessor. And after my new-found love for this franchise was only reinforced by how much I enjoyed TR2, I was excited to jump into Lara's third adventure.

Sadly, as you can already guess from the rating, this turned out to be a massive disappointment. As the hours passed and the downward spiral of bad level design began, I became more and more miserable having to put up with everything Tomb Raider 3 was throwing at me. I was worn down and finally broken when I reached the end. I don't want this to be a rant about how much I hate this game. I still do, but there are so many fantastic qualities here that I can not even stoop so low as to call this a lazy sequel. Core Design really cared. It's just that all the visible care and love gets utterly crushed under the weight of unfair difficulty and a lack of polish, most likely due to razor tight deadlines along with an overworked staff. So let me go through the positives first before I start falling down the rabbit hole that has become my absolute hatred for this game.

Tomb Raider 3 has the best locations in the series so far. There is an incredible leap in art design at display here. Be it the opening trek through the jungles of India, the massive canyons in Nevada or looking out over the rooftops of Nighttime London. Levels feel lived in, in a way Tomb Raider 2 was still struggling with. The updated engine makes everything look so much less blocky, which the designers take full advantage off. I love the lighting, the colors and the great texture work. The atmosphere is so good, and I wish more games would take what Core Design accomplished here as an example. Really, in terms of atmosphere, TR3 doesn't miss even once. I love just standing in these maps and soaking it all in, ready to be pulled along into more adventures. It helps of course that the soundtrack is amazing aswell. There is a tone of ambiance to each location, of course classic series leitmotifs return and new tracks have been added that round everything out. It doesn't matter if it's discovering ancient ruins or if you find yourself face to face with horrifying creatures. It always fits, and I'm in love with the overall sound of TR3.

When it comes to the story, we find our favorite adventurer once again on the trail of a mysterious artifact. While on a treasure hunt deep in the jungles of India, she encounters a scientist named Dr Willard. He is looking for the missing pieces of a meteor that crashed down on earth millions of years ago, is responsible for having whipped out the Dinosaurs and starting the chain reaction of modern evolution. Supposedly these pieces also contain mysterious powers, once even being worshiped by Polynesian trips for their god like properties. And that's all we need to trot across the Globe. It's a dumb story even for the schlocky standards of classic Tomb Raider, but I still very much enjoyed it. The increased focus on cutscenes and Lara having more fun interactions with different characters helps the story flow much better than it did previously. This finally feels like a continues narrative and not just a semi connected sequence of video game stages. There is of course the obvious issue in how Lara has now been fully reduced to nothing more then what can only be described as a full on sociopath. More than ever before, she is an absolute bitch that cares about no one but herself and is willing to kill anybody that just so much as glances at her wrong. I'm still somewhat fine with her because the point was always to have an uncompromising action heroine, but previous games at least gave her some shred of humanity. The absolute girl boss attitude I fell in love is still present, but there is certainly a discussion to be had about crossing the line from girl boss to unlikeable cunt. This crosses that line way to often. TR2 is also guilty of this to a lesser extent, but toed the line in keeping her likeable much better in my opinion.

When it comes to combat, I'm happy to say that Core massively overhauled their approach to how you fight enemies. The fundamental controls are the same, but enemie encounters are spread out way smarter. Gone are the days of spawning goons right on top of the player.  There are often spots you can jump to that give Lara a clear advantage, and even late game foes can be taken down with just a bit of effort and only the standard handguns. And that's basically all I wanted to see, and I'm glad they at least took the time to improve an aspect of the series that desperately needed a revision. Croft Manor now has been expanded with a shooting range as well. This version of Croft Manor is for sure the best one. Many secrets to find and all the tutorials you could ever need. Lara's home is practically its own giant level now. Once again I fully recommend you play around in the tutorial not only because it's a lot of fun but because it will also helps in familiarizing you with the expanded move set. Lara can now crawl, grab on to certain ceilings in order to use them as monkey bars, and is able to use a short dash that can be ended on a quick roll forward. These added options are mostly used to great effect, but I will admit that the dash stays fairly underutilized. There are only very few spots where it's actually needed, and even then I find those challenges more annoying than anything else.

And that's about all the positives I can think of. For all the love I can express for TR3, it just wouldn't be honest if I omitted all my frustrations and all the reasons why I ultimately came away with the conclusion that this is simply a very bad video game.

Starting off with the basic structure: You're now allowed to pick between locations in between the opening chapter and the finale. What sounds cool on paper, turns out to be a nightmare in reality. The three places you can pick from: Nevada, the South Pacific Islands and London vary so wildly in complexity and challenge that you're most likely going to fuck yourself over if you happen to choose wrong. Pro-tip: Always start with Nevada. I didn't, and it screwed me over hard by the final stretch. Nevada contains the easiest and most enjoyable set of levels, and most importantly: There is a similar bit to TR1 and 2 where all your items will be taken away from you, as Lara is once again captured by armed guards. Unlike previous games there is a high chance you will not get most of your inventory back, meaning that if you happen to pick Nevada last, you might lose hours of collected guns, ammo and med packs. At that point, you are just stuck desperately searching for scraps during the final 4 segments of Antarctica. It's a horrible design decision that I despise with a passion, and they should have either ditched the level select entirely or put actual effort in balancing each locations difficulty. And while the South Pacific Islands are a mostly tolerable set of levels, London is where the game fully backflips into of pit of rusty spicks.

London is a confusing labyrinth of dark hallways that loop around in the most unintuitive ways. I got lost so many times just backtracking, not knowing what my goal even was, and finding crucial progression items in spots that made me scream in agony. Of course, one of the keys needed to progress in on top of a mining drill you just escaped from in order to not get crushed to death. It's not like every sane human being would see the section now occupied by the giant death drill as blocked off for good. Add to that weird angled jumps that shouldn't work, but sometimes just do, and hard to make out wall texture that are supposse to signal climbable surfaces. Trust me, you will run past those surfaces for a couple of hours before looking up a guide and then promptly feeling the primal urge to buy a gun along with a time machine in order to pay Core Designs studio a friendly visit back in the late 90s. All that misery and I haven't even mentioned the vehicle sections yet. Oh, the fucking vehicles. TR2 had the exact same issue, but the meaningful difference is again that this was limited to only 2 sections. We had a boat, that controlled fine, and a snowmobile that controlled like shit. TR3 on the other hand has at least one vehicle for each location. There is an ATV, a kayak, a weird underwater robot, a Donkey Kong style minecart ride and another boat. I don't know which one is the worst for me, but it has to be a tie between the kayak and the minecart. Paddling the kayak through the rapids of the south pacific rain forest is pure luck, as you can't really control it and are at the mercy of the game's geometry in order for Lara to not straight up smash into a pile of rocks and drown. The minecart on the other hand will make you randomly fly off the tracks if you happen to pull the break at the wrong time, that is if you even know where to fucking go in the nightmare labyrinth known as the RX Tech Mines. Either way, the conclusion is always: try to get somewhere, die, reload, repeat that step about 50 times per stage until you get that one lucky try that lets you progress.

I hate Tomb Raider 3. I can't recommend it to anyone ever. The final boss was a giant spider mutant that makes you run around in a circle for 40 minutes so you can pick up some shinny rocks. Watch the game end with Lara shooting a totally innocent Helicopter pilot in the face and a shot of her ass while the credits play. Fuck this game, I need to game something good next.