Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft Review
Summary: Reject modernity, embrace the tank.
4
Hiraeth
Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft is a tricky package to review. Not just because it has a stupid SEO word soup of a name but because whether you enjoy it depends a lot on whether you have misty-eyed nostalgia for Core’s classic trilogy of adventure games in the first place.
For greying hacks who remember when Tomb Raider I-III came out in the mid-90s, they’re tied to a more hopeful time, or Hiraeth as the Welsh say, which could lead me to be a little easier on them than someone experiencing old-school Tomb Raider for the first time.
Don’t get me wrong, there are legitimate reasons to be excited about this collection, Tomb Raider remains one of the most important games in the medium’s history, and at the time was one of the best 3D adventure games ever made in an era before analogue sticks were a standard part of most pads. Though all three games have a remarkable layer of spit and polish, the original feel and tone of the games have been kept completely intact which may be a sticking point for some.
The graphical improvements are the first thing you’ll notice about Tomb Raider I-III Remastered. However, they’re laid over the original geometry Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy style, though it’s not as extreme as Toys For Bob’s Bandicoot makeover, as Aspyr has decided to use a lighter touch with its enhancements. Or at least it does until you hit the button that lets you flit between the original graphics and the enhanced ones. Its presentation is not current-gen, but there’s a definite leap. It’s more like a cross between a PS3-era HD collection and Tomb Raider Anniversary.
The lighting and water effects are much better, models have been greatly improved, textures have been either upscaled or replaced l, and extra vegetation and other artifacts have been added to make the world feel more densely packed and alive.
It’s great work and a lovely way to replay through these classics.
I just wish they’d lavished the same level of care and attention on the trilogy’s cutscenes which are almost completely untouched. They show their age and the only difference between original and new is whether you want them to be macroblocked into oblivion.
The other major change is the ability to play through all three games with a ‘modern’ control scheme. You’d think this would be the better way to play, but they feel less precise and you need to hold R2 to grab ledges, not the action button.
You are better off pretending the analogue sticks aren’t there and using the tank controls with the d-pad instead. which lets you effortlessly backflip and spring around the environment, avoid getting chomped by the menagerie of angry animals, and make sure you’re in precisely the right place to line up jumps.
Precision is key to not ending up as a greasy smear on the rocks below. To be able to do that successfully you need the tank controls. The games were made with platforming and movement tied to a grid system with tank controls in mind. Especially in the later levels that demand perfect timing on top of having your jumps lined up just so.
That’s probably the most off-putting part of Tomb Raider I-III for new players; these games demand a level of precision in movement that modern platforms simply don’t ask for. If you are off even by a couple of degrees, or forget to grab for a ledge, Lara will fall. If you’re lucky it’s into a pool if you’re not, it’s into a pit of spikes or several dozen feet.
There’s no autosaving either. So make sure to save regularly, especially before walking through an ominous-looking door, attempting a tricky jump that might kill you, or you see something large and ominous charging towards you.
Combat on the other hand is messy by modern standards. Lara automatically aims her pistols at whatever the closest target is and shoots at it until it’s dead. The problems arose when she needed to refocus her aim as she’d often just keep shooting at the thing she’d just killed. So you need to stop shooting so she can aim at something else. Although if the thing is barring right down on you or flaps about randomly, like most of the insects and bugs in the game do, she can’t get a bead on them and you’ll end up getting savaged by a tiny spider.
Creaky mechanics aside, there is still a lot to love in Tomb Raider I-III, every level is masterfully crafted like a giant puzzle box, the globe-trotting adventuring, putting several species onto the endangered animals list, there’s still a charm to them that remains even 20 years after Lara locked her long-suffering butler in the meat freezer and took over the world.
Final Thoughts
In many ways, Tomb Raider I-III Remastered feels like a museum piece. Each of these three relics was constructed using methods mostly lost to time in a way that modern audiences might find baffling with controls that always were somewhat esoteric but at the time necessary given the constraints of control methods and hardware of the time.
Although the modern controls are what intrigued me most about this remaster, after spending half an hour having the worst time with them, on the verge of quitting, I decided to flit back to the old tank controls and lost hours rediscovering the wonderful world of Tomb Raider.
In other words, Aspyr’s decision to allow gamers to experience the games as they were on release, with an optional glow-up, was the right one.
If you are interested in gaming history or have fond memories of this trilogy and are old enough when modern 3D gaming was young and an analogue stick was something that weird new Nintendo N64 pad had. You’ll have an absolute blast.
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