It succeeds everything that was expected of a great Encharted clone and a by-numbers origin story, but not much else.
The game throws you straight onto the exotic island after Lara and her crew on board a ship crashes and is stranded upon an unknown land. After a few hours of moving to the next objective, learning the ropes and watching a tonne of exposition, some involving the abuse of poor Lara by the dreaded island, you become involved with the mysteries of the occult magic that keeps you on the island, and its gang of loyal followers who presumably were once stranded survivors like yourself. There are sure a lot of them, most of whom Lara gets to annihilate using an array of fantastic designed weapons that you get to switch and customise on the spot. A lot of the first hours deals with her growth into a real survivor, although the situations she goes through are far from realistic (why are there crates everywhere) and feel like a let down when you compare it to how this concept has been dealt with in other mediums. Think "Castaway" or "Lost".
That;s okay because the game looks amazing and controls intuitively. You will jump, climb, shimmy and grapple your way through dangerous looking obstacles with an ease and pace of an Olympic athlete. Things explode and crash about around you as well. There are moments of quite beauty to be had as well that break up all action, and with some simple stealth weapons can lead to some enjoyable moments of planned tension. You can stop and look around to find the many collectables, some that are vanity, some that are useful. You upgrade weapons with "scraps" which you get from crates and boxes, and finding them is part of the fun.
Once the game gets to its end, things play out much more predictably than I would have liked. Characters that you supposedly care about are placed in danger and you have to save them all, how that ends seems just as by-the-book. The character development, the plot points and the themes seem uninspired once the shine wears off from the technical achievements and thrill of the ride achieved with its great pacing of the quiet and loud moments. That's okay, It gets right a lot of things that matter. And how many games are like the Encharted series anyway?