A remaster of Tomb Raider
A remaster of the original Tomb Raider, including The Unfinished Business expansion as well as the ability to toggle between original and remastered graphics.
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While thoroughly antiquated by Tomb Raider: Anniversary, I think this should be looked at as its own unique, damn good experience. Firstly, this is one of the best trophy lists I've ever had the pleasure of playing through - I mean the thing is just STACKED - a wonderful balance of tough-as-nails, funny, grindy, demanding, and honest to God fun. Second, I've seen many decry this for its commitment to the original gameplay style - which I understand if you aren't used to - but not only am I glad they didn't just retread Anniversary again, I'm also shocked at how well it actually holds up for a 1996 game?? Yeah there's jank (the bonking off of walls is one of the worst features ever implemented into a video game) but with this sort of thing you know what you're getting into - honestly it really isn't that bad when you aren't whiffing random jumps, in fact I find it to be rather satisfying when you get the hang of it. Easy to see why this franchise blew up considering it managed to get a lot of its charm right on the first go - the relaxing atmosphere, smart puzzles, globetrotting locales, legendary music, a touch of creepiness, and that in-the-zone feeling of you vs. the environment all make this such an idiosyncratic product (like the others). Gets the brain juices flowing, I dig it. Way better than Tomb Raider: Underworld. Atlantis' art design here is just superb.
O jogo é muito bom e desafiante, mas também é irritante. Algumas áreas não fazem sentido algum. A aventura é legal, em função das áreas que passamos, mas a história é bem fraquinha. A iluminação do remaster é zoada, muito escura em algumas partes.
This review contains spoilers
For personal reference more than anything else.
First time playing this remaster, second time playing this game after the first, a couple of years ago on PC. Played through the base game, did not do Unfinished Business.
One of my biggest fears going back to something I really liked on the first time is that I'll dislike it on a return and won't understand why I liked it in the first place. In between the first time I played this and this time I did come back to it and played a few levels and found that I was still into it, so when it came to getting this new collection thing I was far more ready to do so.
I struggle a fair bit with some older games as I dislike how some of them play and tank controls is something that I always felt like I hated, it came to a little surprise after playing Resident Evil 4 recently to find out that that game actually had tank controls and didn't even feel remotely as bad as the ones I'm used to but it still didn't really feel like it fit the game. Tomb Raider is different though as the very particular movement style works wonders with the platforming present in a lot of the game, no matter how many times I do it, getting to the edge of a platform, taking a step back and then doing a running jump from there always feels fun and satisfying. Even when I feel confident enough to just continue running from wherever I am and jump like that it still feels great.
When I've played this in the past I usually just think about that and being able to do backflips while shooting at enemies when it comes to the controls, but this time I noticed that outside of those moments I wasn't quite as keen on the controls. Generally navigating Lara is fine but there were multiple points where something that should have been quite simple was more of a headache then it needed to be.
In one of the levels there's a part where 5 switches are all next to each other and you have to pull certain ones down to open various doors in the room, the simple act of moving from one switch to another feels really awkward though as Lara can't just move left or right and then stop and pull a switch, the options instead seemed to be,
1. Steer Lara left or right, move forwards in that direction, stop at a switch, steer her towards the switch and then pull it.
2. Sidestep left or right until at chosen switch and then pull it.
3. Sidejump (?) left or right, sidestep closer to the switch as the sidejump was either an overshot or an undershot and then pull the switch.
Each of these options made what is essentially a puzzle where the difficulty comes from memorisation (and in one case guesswork) instead a tedious affair doing the bit of the puzzle that should be kind of mindless and simple. This, along with the other instances of movement affecting something when it shouldn't, isn't the biggest problem ever but when choosing to do tank controls it did end up being a issue for me.
The controls in this version could either be the tank ones or the modern ones and while I mostly played with the tank ones as that's what I'm used to at this point I did have a fiddle with the modern ones and switched to them a couple of times throughout the game to compare how a certain section would feel. I did come to a conclusion that despite my issues with the tank controls I still found them to be my preferred option as the modern ones feel weird. The initial problem is that Lara's (admittedly kind of) stiff jump is fine when the rest of her movement is like that but when she moves quite freely it feels kind of wrong and like it should have been changed so the jump matches the movement more. Another problem I had was the various things that Lara can do like being able to back off a platform but grab the ledge on the way down which feels quite simple to do with the tank controls but the modern ones are strangely overcomplicated and (from what I could tell) not even communicated how to do them in the game itself. I found a small instruction guide thing from the Developers or Publisher online that explained it and a couple of other things and there also seemed to be a Reddit post where someone explained how to do basically everything. Considering this is a completely different system that might take some getting used to, I felt as though it would have been beneficial to have it actually in the game rather than just online with only a simple 'here's what each button does' in the menu of the game. (I will say that there is a chance that a full explanation was in the game but I couldn't find it and going off of the fact that other people online also seemed to be quite confused, I think that there's a high chance it probably wasn't there.)
Combat is like the movement where when it feels good, it feels really good but the rest of the time it just feels awkward. When not in a big open space where Lara can properly move around, trying to keep an enemy on the screen let alone actually in her line of fire was quite painful as a lot of the enemies either keep running or hopping around at a really quick speed and when it was on the screen it would usually just push Lara against a wall which was quite difficult to shoot from or get out of. The modern controls help with a lot of this but then the problems then arise when it comes to actually shooting the thing as I couldn't seem to shoot while moving backwards (outside of a couple of accidental moments) which made the whole thing kind of pointless for me. When I was playing though, I realised just how little I care about the combat and figured that I probably wouldn't mind if there wasn't any to begin with, although it does provide a nice change of pace from the platforming and puzzles so I don't really know in all honesty.
When reading up on this collection before it came out I saw that the developers at one point stated that playtesters sometimes couldn't tell whether or not they were playing with the updated visuals and that this was somehow a good thing I was kind of confused but after playing, it made a whole lot of sense. Changing how the graphics looked at many points throughout the game resulted in a shock a lot of the time as the newer visuals looked so much like the older ones yet still so different and graphically better, there were points where I couldn't tell what something was with the old graphics but the new ones made it abundantly clear.
Its not a complete improvement though as the newer visuals look really dark a lot of the time and while I could have probably adjusted the brightness, I was predominantly playing with the original graphics and they were at a perfect level of brightness for basically everything outside of a couple of very brief moments where I couldn't see an item or something properly. I also just think I like the original visuals more because the art design looks nicer to me and some things were kind of goofy looking which I was a big fan of whereas with the updated graphics they looked good but more like something I'd be able to find in any other game.
The plot was (arguably) there and I didn't have much interest in it but by the end I was just watching the cutscenes and thinking 'what the fuck' to a lot of what was going on. There was one section where Lara jumped from a motorbike to a boat and the way she's positioned at one point made her look like she was a cryptid or something which was very funny. Speaking of Lara, she doesn't really talk much so I didn't have much of an opinion on her personality but I did experience a similar thing like I did with Faith Connors where as I was playing as her and doing all the things she could do, I thought she was very cool. I had also forgotten her "No" when you try to place the wrong item in a slot so that was a nice surprise and continued to be funny to me any time I got something wrong.
As for the levels the only one I felt that I disliked was Natla's Mines as it didn't seem like it was going to fucking end after a while and the level itself just wasn't very fun to play through. The rest of them I had a really good time with though even if I was getting more and more done with the game as it went on (I think I wouldn't mind if this game was shorter as it kinda felt like it overstayed its welcome). Some levels had really neat concepts as well like the one where you go to the various Greek God's rooms or the one that is a mostly open space and you need to put the Ankhs into the Sphinx.
Some scattered thoughts:
• I really like the addition of the boss health bar but I really wish it was in the older graphics as well as the newer ones.
• The game made me jump at multiple points which lead to a kind of fun scramble to quickly try and attack whatever had just popped out at me.
• From Palace Midas onwards I needed to consult a guide at least once a level which I think was just because of my poor navigational skills so I can't really fault the game for that.
• Boss fights were weirdly easy and all died incredibly quickly which was a bit of a surprise but I did enjoy them to an extent and I also quite liked the puzzle boss with Lara's Doppelganger (even if its not much of a puzzle) who was even freakier with the newer graphics as she looked more human then she did before.
• The music is incredibly good and I love multiple tracks from the game, especially the main theme that plays on the main menu.
• The silence of the game was also something I loved about it though as it provided a nice atmosphere and just felt so chill (mostly in the first half of the game) when I was just wandering around the areas or doing the platforming.
Overall I really enjoyed replaying this, its such a great game and I just felt so at home playing it despite only first playing it a couple of years ago. Its both a difficult yet calming game and I'm so glad that it got a remaster like this, as I never thought it would happen and they'd just re-release Anniversary or something. Still though, a truly special game.
First time playing this remaster, second time playing this game after the first, a couple of years ago on PC. Played through the base game, did not do Unfinished Business.
One of my biggest fears going back to something I really liked on the first time is that I'll dislike it on a return and won't understand why I liked it in the first place. In between the first time I played this and this time I did come back to it and played a few levels and found that I was still into it, so when it came to getting this new collection thing I was far more ready to do so.
I struggle a fair bit with some older games as I dislike how some of them play and tank controls is something that I always felt like I hated, it came to a little surprise after playing Resident Evil 4 recently to find out that that game actually had tank controls and didn't even feel remotely as bad as the ones I'm used to but it still didn't really feel like it fit the game. Tomb Raider is different though as the very particular movement style works wonders with the platforming present in a lot of the game, no matter how many times I do it, getting to the edge of a platform, taking a step back and then doing a running jump from there always feels fun and satisfying. Even when I feel confident enough to just continue running from wherever I am and jump like that it still feels great.
When I've played this in the past I usually just think about that and being able to do backflips while shooting at enemies when it comes to the controls, but this time I noticed that outside of those moments I wasn't quite as keen on the controls. Generally navigating Lara is fine but there were multiple points where something that should have been quite simple was more of a headache then it needed to be.
In one of the levels there's a part where 5 switches are all next to each other and you have to pull certain ones down to open various doors in the room, the simple act of moving from one switch to another feels really awkward though as Lara can't just move left or right and then stop and pull a switch, the options instead seemed to be,
1. Steer Lara left or right, move forwards in that direction, stop at a switch, steer her towards the switch and then pull it.
2. Sidestep left or right until at chosen switch and then pull it.
3. Sidejump (?) left or right, sidestep closer to the switch as the sidejump was either an overshot or an undershot and then pull the switch.
Each of these options made what is essentially a puzzle where the difficulty comes from memorisation (and in one case guesswork) instead a tedious affair doing the bit of the puzzle that should be kind of mindless and simple. This, along with the other instances of movement affecting something when it shouldn't, isn't the biggest problem ever but when choosing to do tank controls it did end up being a issue for me.
The controls in this version could either be the tank ones or the modern ones and while I mostly played with the tank ones as that's what I'm used to at this point I did have a fiddle with the modern ones and switched to them a couple of times throughout the game to compare how a certain section would feel. I did come to a conclusion that despite my issues with the tank controls I still found them to be my preferred option as the modern ones feel weird. The initial problem is that Lara's (admittedly kind of) stiff jump is fine when the rest of her movement is like that but when she moves quite freely it feels kind of wrong and like it should have been changed so the jump matches the movement more. Another problem I had was the various things that Lara can do like being able to back off a platform but grab the ledge on the way down which feels quite simple to do with the tank controls but the modern ones are strangely overcomplicated and (from what I could tell) not even communicated how to do them in the game itself. I found a small instruction guide thing from the Developers or Publisher online that explained it and a couple of other things and there also seemed to be a Reddit post where someone explained how to do basically everything. Considering this is a completely different system that might take some getting used to, I felt as though it would have been beneficial to have it actually in the game rather than just online with only a simple 'here's what each button does' in the menu of the game. (I will say that there is a chance that a full explanation was in the game but I couldn't find it and going off of the fact that other people online also seemed to be quite confused, I think that there's a high chance it probably wasn't there.)
Combat is like the movement where when it feels good, it feels really good but the rest of the time it just feels awkward. When not in a big open space where Lara can properly move around, trying to keep an enemy on the screen let alone actually in her line of fire was quite painful as a lot of the enemies either keep running or hopping around at a really quick speed and when it was on the screen it would usually just push Lara against a wall which was quite difficult to shoot from or get out of. The modern controls help with a lot of this but then the problems then arise when it comes to actually shooting the thing as I couldn't seem to shoot while moving backwards (outside of a couple of accidental moments) which made the whole thing kind of pointless for me. When I was playing though, I realised just how little I care about the combat and figured that I probably wouldn't mind if there wasn't any to begin with, although it does provide a nice change of pace from the platforming and puzzles so I don't really know in all honesty.
When reading up on this collection before it came out I saw that the developers at one point stated that playtesters sometimes couldn't tell whether or not they were playing with the updated visuals and that this was somehow a good thing I was kind of confused but after playing, it made a whole lot of sense. Changing how the graphics looked at many points throughout the game resulted in a shock a lot of the time as the newer visuals looked so much like the older ones yet still so different and graphically better, there were points where I couldn't tell what something was with the old graphics but the new ones made it abundantly clear.
Its not a complete improvement though as the newer visuals look really dark a lot of the time and while I could have probably adjusted the brightness, I was predominantly playing with the original graphics and they were at a perfect level of brightness for basically everything outside of a couple of very brief moments where I couldn't see an item or something properly. I also just think I like the original visuals more because the art design looks nicer to me and some things were kind of goofy looking which I was a big fan of whereas with the updated graphics they looked good but more like something I'd be able to find in any other game.
The plot was (arguably) there and I didn't have much interest in it but by the end I was just watching the cutscenes and thinking 'what the fuck' to a lot of what was going on. There was one section where Lara jumped from a motorbike to a boat and the way she's positioned at one point made her look like she was a cryptid or something which was very funny. Speaking of Lara, she doesn't really talk much so I didn't have much of an opinion on her personality but I did experience a similar thing like I did with Faith Connors where as I was playing as her and doing all the things she could do, I thought she was very cool. I had also forgotten her "No" when you try to place the wrong item in a slot so that was a nice surprise and continued to be funny to me any time I got something wrong.
As for the levels the only one I felt that I disliked was Natla's Mines as it didn't seem like it was going to fucking end after a while and the level itself just wasn't very fun to play through. The rest of them I had a really good time with though even if I was getting more and more done with the game as it went on (I think I wouldn't mind if this game was shorter as it kinda felt like it overstayed its welcome). Some levels had really neat concepts as well like the one where you go to the various Greek God's rooms or the one that is a mostly open space and you need to put the Ankhs into the Sphinx.
Some scattered thoughts:
• I really like the addition of the boss health bar but I really wish it was in the older graphics as well as the newer ones.
• The game made me jump at multiple points which lead to a kind of fun scramble to quickly try and attack whatever had just popped out at me.
• From Palace Midas onwards I needed to consult a guide at least once a level which I think was just because of my poor navigational skills so I can't really fault the game for that.
• Boss fights were weirdly easy and all died incredibly quickly which was a bit of a surprise but I did enjoy them to an extent and I also quite liked the puzzle boss with Lara's Doppelganger (even if its not much of a puzzle) who was even freakier with the newer graphics as she looked more human then she did before.
• The music is incredibly good and I love multiple tracks from the game, especially the main theme that plays on the main menu.
• The silence of the game was also something I loved about it though as it provided a nice atmosphere and just felt so chill (mostly in the first half of the game) when I was just wandering around the areas or doing the platforming.
Overall I really enjoyed replaying this, its such a great game and I just felt so at home playing it despite only first playing it a couple of years ago. Its both a difficult yet calming game and I'm so glad that it got a remaster like this, as I never thought it would happen and they'd just re-release Anniversary or something. Still though, a truly special game.
I'll have some more concrete thoughts on the remasters as a whole once I've completed all three but I have some stray thoughts on them each individually.
Tomb Raider (1996) is my least played of the original Core games. It came out first when I was too young to even know about it and by the time I considered myself a die-hard fan of the series and tracked down a copy, the games had progressed to the point where I found the first one quite boring and plain by comparison. Giving it a proper go now, I can see why it immediately became a smash hit.
The sense of scale and isolation in this game is unmatched. The majority of the game is just Lara, alone and exploring these grand locations. Egypt in particular has some really jaw dropping moments where Lara feels tiny and insignificant in the presence of ancient history. It really is something special and the subsequent games never really reached those same heights. There's combat sure, but it's definitely a secondary component; the sections of the games where you have to fight enemies feel well thought out. The devs knew that the real strength of this game was the traversal and the combat sections are fun little interludes to mix things up a bit. It's wild that Tomb Raider 2 would lean so heavily into combat to the point of absurdity.
I unironically love the threadbare plot and characters. The story is not this games focus but it serves as a decent framework to tie all these locations together. But the FMV cutscenes are still pretty exciting! I love Natla's inexplicable Texan accent and the fact that she has not one but two rootin' tootin' cowboy types serving as her personal henchmen. It's gas.
I really like Shelly Blond's performance as Lara. She gives Lara a charming and good natured personality, one we'd never get with her in these games again. Notably in this game too, every human enemy Lara kills is in self defence... an interesting thing to keep in mind as the series moves forward.
And the music! You go through so much of the game with nothing but ambient noise. Maybe you've been struggling to figure out what to do next or are stuck on a particulary hard section... and then those little musical cues kick-in to let you know you're on the right track and the dopamine hits real good.
Ah look I could go on but I'm not very good at keeping all my thoughts cohesive. My main take away is that this game really is an early 3D masterpiece. I'm glad it's available on modern hardware, warts and all, for more people to enjoy.
Tomb Raider (1996) is my least played of the original Core games. It came out first when I was too young to even know about it and by the time I considered myself a die-hard fan of the series and tracked down a copy, the games had progressed to the point where I found the first one quite boring and plain by comparison. Giving it a proper go now, I can see why it immediately became a smash hit.
The sense of scale and isolation in this game is unmatched. The majority of the game is just Lara, alone and exploring these grand locations. Egypt in particular has some really jaw dropping moments where Lara feels tiny and insignificant in the presence of ancient history. It really is something special and the subsequent games never really reached those same heights. There's combat sure, but it's definitely a secondary component; the sections of the games where you have to fight enemies feel well thought out. The devs knew that the real strength of this game was the traversal and the combat sections are fun little interludes to mix things up a bit. It's wild that Tomb Raider 2 would lean so heavily into combat to the point of absurdity.
I unironically love the threadbare plot and characters. The story is not this games focus but it serves as a decent framework to tie all these locations together. But the FMV cutscenes are still pretty exciting! I love Natla's inexplicable Texan accent and the fact that she has not one but two rootin' tootin' cowboy types serving as her personal henchmen. It's gas.
I really like Shelly Blond's performance as Lara. She gives Lara a charming and good natured personality, one we'd never get with her in these games again. Notably in this game too, every human enemy Lara kills is in self defence... an interesting thing to keep in mind as the series moves forward.
And the music! You go through so much of the game with nothing but ambient noise. Maybe you've been struggling to figure out what to do next or are stuck on a particulary hard section... and then those little musical cues kick-in to let you know you're on the right track and the dopamine hits real good.
Ah look I could go on but I'm not very good at keeping all my thoughts cohesive. My main take away is that this game really is an early 3D masterpiece. I'm glad it's available on modern hardware, warts and all, for more people to enjoy.
this log/review is talking about the game as a remaster. the game itself is a 5/5 and one of my absolute favorites, if you want to see some of my deeper thoughts on the level design or whatever you can see my ongoing classic TR level ranking list here.
i cannot stress what a dream come true this and the rest of the remaster project was for me upon announcement. legiterally thought i'd be giving myself aneurysms modding these games to get them and their expansions up and running in a satisfactory fashion until i was dead.
with this in mind, there was always a piece of me that had concerns about how this was actually going to turn out whether the aesthetics ended up being an AI hack job mess, the gameplay had problems, or other funkiness. these fears were mostly unfounded, thankfully.
let me start with the aesthetics. when they are nice, they're really fucking nice. the new versions of the scattered settings changed more than i expected without dulling the colors or losing the atmosphere. the lighting in particular is impressive when it works out. the issue comes when it doesn't work as well. parts of the game are incredibly dark (some of which when they weren't dark at all before) to the point where i found myself switching back to the original graphics just get my bearings. it almost felt like they were at one point considering back porting flares as a gameplay feature like they did the in-air/underwater roll but changed their mind or ran out of time and couldn't adjust.
along the lines of this, the remastered visuals definitely makes things harder than it needs to be in terms of readability. items, levers, and the like that used to stand out completely don't anymore. i have years and multiple runs worth of familiarity plus i was switching back and forth between the graphics regularly so i didn't have issues but i can see it being a problem for someone else. i'm glad a fix is incoming.
don't have a lot to say about the gameplay. it plays how i expected it to (classic controls work fine), though it would've been nice to have a higher framerate for the original graphics. i don't suffer from the new control scheme so i didn't really mess with it but i can see it being helpful when outmaneuvering enemies even if it looks diabolical when doing platforming that calls for any precision. this might have been a good opportunity for Aspyr and Crystal Dynamics to copy what Capcom did for the remasters of Resident Evil (2002) and Resident Evil 0 by having tank controls on the d-pad and the modernized controls on the joystick. having to switch back and forth from the menu is definitely helping to keep me away at this point.
in the end i'm pretty impressed with this as a full package. there's room for improvement/it isn't perfect but i'm so happy to even have this as it exists. it's nice to not have a full on remake for once as that shit is getting tired.
gonna move onto Unfinished Business but i'll probably leave II/III and their expansions for after a patch or two.
i cannot stress what a dream come true this and the rest of the remaster project was for me upon announcement. legiterally thought i'd be giving myself aneurysms modding these games to get them and their expansions up and running in a satisfactory fashion until i was dead.
with this in mind, there was always a piece of me that had concerns about how this was actually going to turn out whether the aesthetics ended up being an AI hack job mess, the gameplay had problems, or other funkiness. these fears were mostly unfounded, thankfully.
let me start with the aesthetics. when they are nice, they're really fucking nice. the new versions of the scattered settings changed more than i expected without dulling the colors or losing the atmosphere. the lighting in particular is impressive when it works out. the issue comes when it doesn't work as well. parts of the game are incredibly dark (some of which when they weren't dark at all before) to the point where i found myself switching back to the original graphics just get my bearings. it almost felt like they were at one point considering back porting flares as a gameplay feature like they did the in-air/underwater roll but changed their mind or ran out of time and couldn't adjust.
along the lines of this, the remastered visuals definitely makes things harder than it needs to be in terms of readability. items, levers, and the like that used to stand out completely don't anymore. i have years and multiple runs worth of familiarity plus i was switching back and forth between the graphics regularly so i didn't have issues but i can see it being a problem for someone else. i'm glad a fix is incoming.
don't have a lot to say about the gameplay. it plays how i expected it to (classic controls work fine), though it would've been nice to have a higher framerate for the original graphics. i don't suffer from the new control scheme so i didn't really mess with it but i can see it being helpful when outmaneuvering enemies even if it looks diabolical when doing platforming that calls for any precision. this might have been a good opportunity for Aspyr and Crystal Dynamics to copy what Capcom did for the remasters of Resident Evil (2002) and Resident Evil 0 by having tank controls on the d-pad and the modernized controls on the joystick. having to switch back and forth from the menu is definitely helping to keep me away at this point.
in the end i'm pretty impressed with this as a full package. there's room for improvement/it isn't perfect but i'm so happy to even have this as it exists. it's nice to not have a full on remake for once as that shit is getting tired.
gonna move onto Unfinished Business but i'll probably leave II/III and their expansions for after a patch or two.
“Lara Croft is a major babe…“
-Roger Ebert
I love tank controls. Every movement and every jump in this game has to be deliberate or else Lara Croft will fall 200 ft and crumple on the ground. Moved slightly to the left? Dead. Mistimed the jump? Dead. Nothing against the Tomb Raider reboot, but I think you lose the inherent thrill of danger when everything is so choreographed.
So I played through this with tank controls, obviously (after trying the modern controls for approx. three seconds), but I also played through mostly in the classic graphics style. I think the aesthetic changes in the remaster are more faithful than say, Halo:CE Remastered, but I’ll always be a classic graphics soldier (even if I also own the trilogy on original hardware).
Reminds me of the time when I was a baby and my dad and uncle were playing through the PS1 version, when my uncle accidentally saved over their last level save file when starting a new game. Horrifying! I have a baby now too, and I think he’s at about the age I was when my Dad played through it. Weird, but cool.
Speaking of the last level, I’ve always loved that you spend most of the game raiding tombs, but then it’s suddenly Turok 2 at the end. I personally think the Egypt section is the best in the game, but I’ve always loved an Egypt level. One of my favorite generic gaming aesthetics.
I recommend trying this game, but if you do, I suggest not using the modern controls, because they suck. Also quit being a baby and just use the tank controls, unless it’s for accessibility reasons, in which case good luck bc the modern controls feel busted. Just kidding do whatever you want. The modern controls do suck though.
I love this game. Not as much as Tekken 8 but it’s pretty dang good!
-Roger Ebert
I love tank controls. Every movement and every jump in this game has to be deliberate or else Lara Croft will fall 200 ft and crumple on the ground. Moved slightly to the left? Dead. Mistimed the jump? Dead. Nothing against the Tomb Raider reboot, but I think you lose the inherent thrill of danger when everything is so choreographed.
So I played through this with tank controls, obviously (after trying the modern controls for approx. three seconds), but I also played through mostly in the classic graphics style. I think the aesthetic changes in the remaster are more faithful than say, Halo:CE Remastered, but I’ll always be a classic graphics soldier (even if I also own the trilogy on original hardware).
Reminds me of the time when I was a baby and my dad and uncle were playing through the PS1 version, when my uncle accidentally saved over their last level save file when starting a new game. Horrifying! I have a baby now too, and I think he’s at about the age I was when my Dad played through it. Weird, but cool.
Speaking of the last level, I’ve always loved that you spend most of the game raiding tombs, but then it’s suddenly Turok 2 at the end. I personally think the Egypt section is the best in the game, but I’ve always loved an Egypt level. One of my favorite generic gaming aesthetics.
I recommend trying this game, but if you do, I suggest not using the modern controls, because they suck. Also quit being a baby and just use the tank controls, unless it’s for accessibility reasons, in which case good luck bc the modern controls feel busted. Just kidding do whatever you want. The modern controls do suck though.
I love this game. Not as much as Tekken 8 but it’s pretty dang good!