Reasonably enjoyable, but disappointing.
- Excessive quippy dialogue that becomes annoying fast.
- Unnecessary padding that goes nowhere.
- Serviceable, but flawed, combat.
- Some nice visuals and cool moments.
- A story that tries to cram in too much.
- A decent game, but a soft 7 to its predecessor's hard 9.

As someone who absolutely loved this game upon release, replaying it has been extremely underwhelming, and I feel my experience with it has been made a lot worse by replaying the first two games right before it.

Columbia is fine. It's beautiful to look at, but it's nowhere near as interesting or atmospheric as Rapture and you can't really explore it all that much. The first thing I did when Booker landed on Columbia was press on the touchpad to bring up the map, only to be met with a list of whatever my objectives were at the time (which was unnecessary, since the game leads you straight to where you need to go anyways). There are optional paths here and there, but my favorite thing about the first game had clearly taken a backseat in this one. Couple that with occasionally awful dialogue (the decision to make the protagonist of the first game silent was clearly Irrational Games playing to their strengths), social commentary that is surface-level at best and slightly problematic at worst, and an ending sequence that feels like it hasn’t been fully thought through, and you end up with a game that 13 year old me (I know, I know) thought was a masterpiece and 22 year me thinks is a whelming piece of media.

I don’t know. I mean, I still think it’s a good game and I had fun playing it, but it’s all a little underwhelming.

note: i played this game fully in co op with a friend in amateur, we were not good at the game & i played as sheva

i think this review would be easier to make if i had played other resident evil games because id have something to go off, but since i havent i guess ill just review it as a standalone game. i went in with higher expectations than i should have tbh. i thought resident evil is such a big series it should be solid. my friend and i had such a hard time figuring out why this game gets the praise it does.
first lets talk about gameplay. thank god i previously played tlou or i would be hopeless in this game. it throws so much shit at you that you just dont know how to prepare for and for no actual purpose. theres no option for auto aim which is fine if the combat was good at all. the menuing is awful and clunky. (i played on ps4) you either press the arrow keys and 3/10 times it equips the weapon you want (sometimes it gets stuck at equipping ammo which is useless and sometimes it does not even let you equip what you want) orrrr you can press triangle to open your whole ass inventory to switch weapons. its not smooth at all. speaking of not smooth, who decided the only options for running would be holding L3 (carpal tunnel waiting to happen) or holding down X (extremely inconvenient and something no one is used to anymore)? seriously who mapped these buttons and made it unchangeable? id like to have a word. also with how hard this game is even in amateur id expect them to at least give you the ability to walk/ run around while aiming the gun. the difficulty really wasnt the issue 3 chapters in. it was that the controls were so uncooperative. why cant i easily switch from the stun rod (the ONLY melee weapon, might i add) to my gun quickly? i know i can technically use the arrow keys but those dont work half the time. but yea, why does this game hate melee so much, like jeez.
i just wanna say before i get any further, this is the only re game ive finished or gotten anywhere in, so if im making a complaint thats a classic re thing and not specifically a 5 thing, my bad, i have no idea. its still a complaint tho.
next i wanna talk about the story, well, if there was an interesting one. spoiler alert: there wasnt. my friend and i tried so hard to understand but we just couldnt. they had some cool concepts, like jill and wesker were cool characters, but they didnt spend nearly enough time or effort expanding on them. also, a journey that is focused on two characters is the perfect opportunity for them to bond and have some kind of connection, but chris and sheva NEVER talked. i dont know a single thing about sheva. at the very end, chris is nicer to her but i didnt see any development happen. the end credits happen like 2 minutes after the boss battle, with barely any time to conclude anything. the story had a cool concept, but one of the shittiest executions ive seen in a hot minute.
my other complaint was that i didnt really understand the purpose or meaning behind some enemies, but the little i know about re in general is that thats a common theme. so ill leave that alone.
im giving 3 stars because i had a good time laughing and having fun with my friend. the coop wasnt amazing though. you cant leave in the middle of a chapter or you have to start it all over again, if you go afk at the menu screen for literally two minutes you get timed out and have to restart the chapter, and you cant reject when people join your game. the last chapter was hell. we couldnt leave until we finished it or wed have to do it all over again.
but yea, overall, i recommend it if you wanna get some laughs in and have a good time playing a game with a friend that isnt versus or anything. i dont regret playing it, but i do wish it was better

The best game in the new Tomb Raider trilogy by far.
The story is the most concise and believable and there is some real flair of earnestness and genuinity around this game that its sequels are sorely lacking.

The only problems are the very prevalent ludonarrative dissonance and how this game does absolutely nothing that is truly great.

Everything is just "good".

But "good", it is.