Tomb Raider: Legend

released on Apr 07, 2006

Tomb Raider: Legend is the seventh major game in the Tomb Raider series, now for the first time developed by Crystal Dynamics, along with the original character designer of the game's protagonist Lara Croft. It serves as a reboot of the franchise, with a new incarnation of Lara Croft. The typical third-person action-adventuring exploring is still present, and Lara can move more freely because she is no longer limited by specific jumps. As you travel through rough environments, you will need to run, dive, swim, climb on poles, ladders, roofs, use zip lines, shimmy, and vault, with acrobatic actions such as somersaults and flips. You need to cross difficult terrain, solve puzzles to advance or open up new areas, and engage in combat.


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Still the best Tomb Raider game to this day ❤️

As far back as my memory can reliably take me, Tomb Raider: Legend was one of the first video games I ever played. Of course, that meant I completely sucked at it; a level that would take me 20 minutes now took a few hours back then, and I never actually finished the game until a couple years ago. It doesn't exactly hold all that magic of a grand adventure that I once thought it did; it's quite the short journey, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable, in fact I think that's to it's advantage. It's a nice bite-sized and fast paced adventure with plenty of unique stages, that never stops being fun to play, despite it's shortcomings.

Lara is an icon, I mean, everyone knows that, but her characterisation is totally at it's (second) best in this game and I'll stand by that. Legend's best decision was to have running dialogue between Lara, Alister and Zip throughout most of the levels and their chemistry is just so entertaining. This allows her to regularly show off her intelligence and sass very well, giving me many chuckles. They also weren't afraid to let her show a little more of her inner emotions in this entry which was quite nice.

Legend gameplay itself, mmmmmeh? It's enough to keep you engaged throughout and it's certainly not boring by any stretch. I haven't played TR 3-6 so I don't know how much of the parkour elements are new, but I do know that the grapple is a pretty awesome addition that is fun for traversal, and is used in some neat ways for puzzles. I don't have any problem with the gameplay per se, it's just nothing notable. Like the combat is just mindless easy fun. OH YEAH, and the bike sections, I think people mostly hate them but I find 'em pretty fun, although I can imagine if you play on hard mode or something they can get old and frustrating quickly.

Mediocre level and puzzle design is made up for with how well they are integrated into the environments. Whether it's underground in an ancient tomb, on the top level of a skyscraper, or on the cliffs by a waterfall, all platforming is cleverly built into the scenery so as to not take away from the spectacle. My favourite stages in this regard would have to be Peru, Japan and Ghana (such a pretty stage), but they all do it fairly well.

Can we talk about that for a second? I honestly like the Survivor (reboot) games quite a bit, but I think I would like to return to this more "world tour" kind of progression. Lara is a world explorer, playing this and some of the classics has reminded me that I appreciate "exploration" the most when you are taken to many vastly different and unique places all over the world. The newer games tend to stick to their one place, and while I understand that does allow for a deeper exploration of the history that's being revealed, something about this old style of going from place to place felt like a nice road trip of the world Lara visits, that the average person doesn't get to see, and I hope we get a bit of a revisiting of that in the next entry. Also it means more excuses for Lara to try different outfits :)

Playing this game on PC game definitely hurt the experience a bit with all it's bugs, and I would say stick to the console version if you can help it... At least that's what I would say if I didn't find out after my playthrough that turning on vsync fixed pretty much ALL of the issues. PC gaming is such a headache sometimes...

I plan on playing TR6 Angel of Darkness soon since I've become so curious to see first hand why everyone despises it, so much so that Eidos gave the development of Legend to a completely different studio, I can't wait...

i fucking adore this game it is so beautiful to me. truly the root of my lesbianism. nothing makes me happier than figuring out nostalgic puzzles from my childhood while telling my friends repeatedly that Lara Croft is The Woman Ever. she slays so hard. second mission is literally one of the most fun, shenanigans filled things i’ve ever played. i could not recommend this game more it is genuinely so fun even though it’s janky as hell.

tl;dr: it’s buggy sometimes, it’s silly always, and it never takes itself too seriously. also lara is SO hot.

tenho de rejogar mas lembro com muito carinho dessa versão da lara.
variação de cenário e gameplay constantes, desde a exploração de tumba do peru até prédios estilo missão impossível, mas não passa a mesma sensação de "exploração solitária" como os primeiros jogos.
lembro da história ser bem fraca e muito mirabolante, diálogos fracos mas gostava das lutas dos bosses, apesar da câmera bugar de vez em quando.
gostaria que a nova franquia retornasse com essa lara croft.

Surprised how well this game holds up. Playing it on Deck, and it works really well. Some graphical issues, like some transparent ice, or flowing water animations being ever present before they're supposed to be there. Some control and camera jank, but not too bad. The game loses a full star though for the vehicle levels. Overall very playable!