I get what they were trying to do, but Tomb Raider and realism don't go all that well together. Lara traditionally has a hobby that only a masochistic recluse with a sociopathic streak would pursue. The game may be a good game, but I remain unconvinced that it's a good Tomb Raider game.
I too am wondering what they plan for the eventual sequel, as it really can't be anything like this one anymore. Lara is now essentially Rambo, so the story will have to be re-calibrated accordingly for it to make sense.
Then again, she was kinda Rambo in this one aswell, just more confused about it.
Lara's potential instability is a problem, but not an impossible to solve one for a sequel. Methinks now would be a good time to avert There Are No Therapists. That way Lara could become a bit more stable than she is at the end, but keep her levels in Badass.
I think the "personal documents lying around" thing is ridiculous, but I do like Lara's shipmates, and I thought they had well-written dialog and personalities. We didn't see much of them, true, but I liked what we saw of them.
As for Sam being a Damsel In Distress, I think it's a nice contrast to Lara, who is also intially very scared but able to learn how to survive.
I really disagree about the Pacifist Run, it would have conflicted completely with the central message of the game, which is about doing unpleasant difficult things because the situation forces you to and everyone is relying on you. Lara's first kill is one of the most emotive parts of the game and her combat dialogue really evolves throughout the game along with her character.
Even if we don't look at it from the killing perspective, it's still important for the game that Lara is in constant very real very physical danger and is getting knocked about, because that shows how she endures and survives. A pacifist run involves the character being essentially in control throughout the game, superior to her enemies to that extent that she doesn't even engage, absolutely untouchable. It's not the arc they were going for, but in the sequels when she's stronger and more experienced, I hope it's something they really consider.
The combat was ultimately too much and mostly too unbroken up by a stalling of her character development in the middle section (with odd pacing) and they definitely needed to reduce it and improves it's pacing, but I don't think a pacifist run was the answer
A lot of the personal documents are pretty well placed, barring a few exceptions at least all of them are in a place where that person had been and may conceivably leave them. For example, almost all of the Endurance's logs are found round their campfires or their homebase. One of them (one of Reyes') is even found in the slave mines where they put the women and the infirm, which probably implies that she spent to there, even though not explicitly stated by the game. Combine that with the NPC dialogue about how they got moved when Roth escaped, it's very likely that the document is telling you something about where she came from.
Secondly the documents were also often well reasoned in their purpose. Again, Reyes' documents showed her vunerability that she hid from everyone else. They were last will and testament documents written for the people around her because she doubted her ability to survive the island, confessing all the things in her life that she should have told them and didn't.
Other Endurance member documents were again meant to be last words in the case they died, but a couple didn't make so much sense. (I'm not sure what Whitman was doing)
If you want to read more into the game than the writers probably put in, the documents can even support some fanon interpretation pretty well. Why did Alex take so long getting to the ship? The game never explains it. He was writing his last letter about Lara
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Fantastic game (8.7/10), worried about the legacy it creates
First, I just want to say as a lifelong TR fan and an avid ice climber in Real Life that this is a fantastic, very immersive game. The single most important aspect of a good adventure game is not gameplay nor storyline but immersion. With my gaming PC, the sense of immersion this game creates is basically on par with my heavily modded Skyrim. This is really impressive considering TR manages to do so with only 14 hours compared to +100s you can spend playing Skyrim. I totally feel that I was Lara throughout the entire game - I feel her fear when she is sneaking around in claustrophobic spaces, I feel her pain when she falls and most importantly I feel her will to survive.
Unfortunately, all the good things must end here. There is dissonance between the storyline and gameplay regarding Lara killing another human being - I hate that this game does not allow a Pacifist Run or at least another way to progress without engaging in the scripted firefight. This brings me to my second criticism - the game has too much control over Lara - she sneaks, draws her bow, etc when the game wants you to; as a player I feel that the games takes away my freedom in exchange for showing off their organic animation of Lara.
The weakest part of the game is its supporting casts - they're worse than being forgettable, they're annoying. For example, Sam the Damsel In Distress is like a big middle finger to every single tidbits of Lara's character development and the whole survival theme carried by the game. Since the game focuses so much on Lara, the supporting casts characters are not developed at all. To make thing even worse, half of their characterization come from the very personal documents that are scattered around the island - how is this even possible? this is just lazy storytelling.
Finally the crux of my review, I'm worried that Crystal Dynamics has written themselves to a corner. By the end of the game, partly due to the dissonance between gameplay and story Lara is a superhuman, confident (run you bastards, I'm gonna kill you all) badass on a verge of being a sociopath (going directly to another adventure after the whole ordeal shows she's somehow broken inside). If they're continuing the hyper-realistic theme, the only option for the sequel are either having a Sociopathic Hero protagonist or undo all her growth to make her relatable again