for years i've longed for a game with puzzle-like traversal that'd offer me the same kind of intense anxiety i'd feel while climbing a boss like malus in shadow of the colossus. if you're like me and you've slept on this - knock it the fuck off

tomb raider provides platforming nervousness in spades with ruthlessly unforgiving - but incredibly smart, well paced and rewarding - stage design. the way it constantly forces you to analyze level geometry, take risks and conserve (extremely limited) save crystals only amps up to greater and more sadistic heights as it goes. and it's goddamn brilliant

PLAY this fucking game. do not write it off based on your missed jumps in the first stage or the drab exterior. this shit WILL hook you in. and just for the record: the controls are perfect. don't even start with that

I'm not sure who decided to make a game that uses tank controls but requires a ton of precision jumping, but I am calling for their immediate arrest and the seizure of all their assets.

Tomb Raider is another one of those games I was acutely aware of back when it was relevant, but never had the chance to actually play. That's fine, I didn't miss out on much. In fact, the marketing storm around Tomb Raider (and more specifically its lead character) is probably more culturally significant than the game itself. It was the first time people were openly thirsty for a video game character, it was embarrassing and it was everywhere.

The game itself just does not hold up at all, though. I've defended tank controls in the past, I have no inherent issue with them, but there's absolutely a right and wrong way to implement them and Tomb Raider is the kind of game that would have benefitted tremendously from more fluid movement. A lot of your time actually raiding tombs is going to be spent climbing up objects and jumping across chasms, but Lara controls so stiffly that you'll more likely fling her into a pit, pop her ankles like balloons, and lose a bunch of progress. There are 2D platforming games with rigid controls and weighty characters and I've defended those too, but something about translating that into a 3D space is where I draw the line.

Atmosphere is the one area where Tomb Raider really excels. Damp dark caves, subterranean rivers, and of course ominous ancient tombs... The game feels wonderfully isolating, eerie, and mysterious, especially for a Playstation 1 game. Just don't interact with any part of it if you want to remain immersed in the experience. This network of waterways sure is spooky, but now I gotta fuck with the water level and I don't want to be here anymore. I'd rather be outside, or doing my taxes, or hiding underneath a pile of dirty clothes in my closet where nobody can hear me cry.

This was part of my 250 Game Retro Bucket List (it's a clumsy name, I know.) I originally planned to play the first three games in the series, but as soon as I started up Tomb Raider II and realized it was just more of the same, I decided to scrub them off the list and replaced them with both 3D Gex titles.

Addendum 2/27/24: I understand Tomb Raider was probably the first difficult game a bunch of people beat as a kid and is thus unimpeachable, but I'm kinda just tired of going in circles relitigating my opinions on this thing for its ardent defenders. I think it sucks. You know what doesn't suck? Oddworld! Now there's a good mid-90s cinematic platformer. Oh man, I wonder what Lorne Lanning is up to now, let me just fire up the old PC and take a--WHAT!? SOULSTORM SOLD BAD!? LORNE FOUND DEAD IN A DITCH!!? OH NO!

Cultural osmosis is a funny thing. I, like many, only know about Lara Croft and her adventures through the media surrounding her, even though we never really played much if any of the games. I myself always had the firm impression that it was some kind of trashy Indiana Jones knock off with a sexy female lead or something of that nature. Probably a bit outdated, coasting on nostalgia for the original PlayStation titles. I had only ever dabbled in some of the PS2 games, seen the first movie, and got roped into playing the 2013 reboot. Admittedly, of my experiences with the franchise, Anniversary, the remake of this first game, was a game I really fell in love with. It's the starting point where my perception of Tomb Raider started to shift into something I became more and more interested in. Critical in the second phase of that process was discovering Youtube channels like the wonderful Steve Of Warr, seriously underrated creator, check him out. He gave me a good old case of talking so passionately about a topic he cares about, that it started to infect me with the energy to become a fan myself. I now really wanted to know what Tomb Raider was all about and why it left such a deep mark on gaming. Lucky for me, I had previously purchased the entire classic series on GOG for like 5 bucks. So I installed the automated PC fix and started Lara's very first adventure.

And just like I wrote in my first impression, I'm really impressed how much I dig this game. I might even go as far as to say that I love it. There is an absorbing atmosphere to the original Tomb Raider I havent felt in any game before. Exploring these locations feels like you're setting foot in places that hasnt been touched by humans in centuries. Both in a beautiful and unnerving way, when the silence is suddenly puncture by the sound of an enemies roar. I can now feel why so many people have childhood nightmare stories of sitting in front of their PS1 only to turn their TV off in horror as a vicious T-Rex suddenly stomps around the corner in Lost Valley. It even got me, despite the fact I knew it was coming. That really extends to all locations, and I can't say that there was a miss across the entire game atmosphere vise. Be it the structures of St. Francis' Folly or the final home stretch in The Great Pyramid, it was all excellent.

You control Lara through these Levels via tank controls. In 2024, a horrifying discovery for some for sure, but quit genius if you look back on what hardware Tomb Raider originally came out on. The PS1 had yet to introduce dual analog sticks and PC was restricted to keyboard and mouse, so you could easily design controls that work for both. In combination with Core Design's decision to structure levels on a strict grid, the game allows for extreme precision platforming while remaining immensely fair. You know at almost all times where Lara will land or how many steps she will take upon pressing the D-pad. The result is a game that delivers everything promised in the opening cutscene, with more freedom of movement than most games today. Combat sadly doesnt met that high water mark, with the limited camera not being able to keep up with enemies that love to poke Lara to death while she's stuck in a corner somewhere. It's by far the worst aspect of Tomb Raider, and by the time I reached Atlantis I was ready to strangle somebody. Atlantis was also the point where I felt a worrying trend come up, of the devs simply hating my guts. The final stretch is an absurd difficulty spike in my opinion, and not for the right reason. Unfair deathtrap after unfair deathtrap, bad enemie spawns, the lava pits.... the lava pits sucked so fucking bad. I still loved the whole design of Atlantis, the gross flesh covered horror Pyramid making me quite uncomfortable. Atlantis in TR1 is unlike any interpretation I have ever seen. Looks amazing, but I sure went back to Lara's Mansion a couple of times, just to decompress after the 100 times I miss timed a jump trying to dodge a flying demon, face plating Lara straight into the next best lava pit. I miss tutorial levels, Lara's mansion is the shit, bring back tutorial levels you cowards!

Finally, of all the things I loved and hated about TR1, there is one thing I still haven't mentioned yet. The actual story of the game. The story really isn't anything. Aside from giving Lara a very well defined character, it's your typical treasure hunt. Lara gets hired by a mysterious millionaire to recover a lost treasure, millionaire turns out to be evil, you beat the evil millionaire and explode her Island. The End. Probably an unfortunate result of inexperience and a short dev cycle. I don't really blame them too much, but I think it says a lot about how they really didn't know what the story was when your Villains' henchman consist of a Lumberjack, an Evil French Man, a Cowboy and a Kid on a Skateboard ? To be fair: Kid with skateboard sliding around the corner, with his Uzis akimbo drawn like he was on his way to assassinate Tupac and Biggie himself, was hilarious. If anything I hope the next game has more kids on skateboards, I would 100% support it. Anyway on to Tomb Raider 2, really looking forward to that game.

Yeah I gave it a 4 1/2, fight me. "ooh it aged bad," i will Kill You.

Played on PC, I loved it on Saturn but the save crystals ramp the challenge up to ferocious heights in a game that's already hard with save scumming. I Love This Shit, games that require practice and mastery of their controls and systems are my jam. Tomb Raider works on such a consistent set of rules that by the end game you can eyeball a room and figure out where you can and can't move.

Also the variety of locales is incredible, I'd recommend playing just to see the crazy ass final levels.

The story is great, Lara is just a callous villain who is purely out for herself, she is incapable of introspection or finding a deeper meaning in her actions and I love her for it. She spots a fucking T-Rex roaming the earth? She draws. She doesn't give a fuck.

Recommended for cool good looking people, ugly people who smell will not enjoy it.

[This thing was a lock for a glowing 9/10 write-up from me for like the first 85% of the game, but DAMN those last few levels suck. It's certainly -a choice- that they decide to go with, but it's so bad conceptually and aesthetically, and the levels themselves aren't even fun in a way that would justify the left turn. (In fact, quite the opposite.) Such a sadness. I was so enthusiastic about everything before that, though, so I'm going to try to write the rest of this like as I would have, and just provide this disclaimer and dock the score a bit. Just to try to recapture that feeling and wash the gross taste of Dogshit Pie Ending out of my mouth. Okay, preface over.]

Because I'm weird, I own physical copies of every game in this series up through the reboot, but I have never played any of them. I think I found this one or maybe TOMB RAIDER II at a thrift store and said, well, if I'm getting this one, I might as well get them all, and so I did. This one has "$2.99" written in wax pencil on the back. I probably bought it in 2013. Anyway, for no particular reason at all, it's finally time to dive into this series!

I know enough about games to know that there's always been something to Tomb Raider. If you never played it or didn't own the proper systems at the time that Lara Croft was the biggest thing ever, it was easy see the juvenile ads and hear your dumb friends gush over it and write it off as the silly boob girl series. Those situations applied to me, but in my adult life I've always understood that these games deserved the attention they got for legitimate reasons as well. Even with that mindset, though, this game shocked me with how cool it was.

I have a high tolerance for archaic or "clunky" control schemes, so the way this plays doesn't bother me at all. I absolutely love the deliberate, methodical pace of gameplay that the early-3D setup forces on you. It makes exploring and platforming immensely satisfying in a way that felt new to me. Minor acrobatic actions you would toss off in any modern game become challenges to approach with caution and forethought, and then apply Lara's limited but very deliberately designed set of abilities to. The difficulty curve is thoughtful and well-calibrated to train you in, even independent of the cute mini-training level in Lara's home. The first few levels give you plenty of room to get the hang of the particulars of the jumping and the flipping and the walking and the grabbing. It's very rigid, but once you're good at the game, you feel like a genius platforming android doing obstacle courses perfectly by mental calculation and essentially typing in commands that Lara executes. And then when you're REALLY good at the game, you make all that flow seamlessly and look as cool as it feels. (Note: I was never really good at the game.) I bet speedruns of this game are sick.

The level design is [mostly; see preface -ed.] brilliant and gorgeous, playing up to your specific abilities and presenting you with very organic challenges that at first glance seem ridiculous, but then click into place Eureka-style after some close investigation. Even with the extremely limited geometry and resolution, the sense of place and exploration in this completely blows every UNCHARTED or modern-era Lara Croft game completely out of the water. I know this sounds wild, but you -legitimately feel- like you are -raiding tombs- here, going places you shouldn't, seeing places undiscovered by modern man, getting in and out by the skin of your teeth. Even through the old-ass graphics and controls, that feeling comes through clearly. It's something those other games have never really touched for me. Specifically UNCHARTED (which I have played all of) feels like such a cheap version of this to me now. You got nothin', Nathan Drake!

Some stuff sucks. The combat gets increasingly unnecessary as the game goes on, but never feels particularly good, even when its easy and infrequent. The story is essentially a joke, with the absurd characters (one of the villain's henchmen is a skateboarding punk kid who quotes Taxi Driver at you), the dialogue (love abortion jokes!), and most of all, the eye-searing pre-rendered cutscenes giving you that old '90s cringe-y feel. Every time Lara comes on screen in one of those, it's just painful. I know it's old news and it feels beyond stupid to even talk about, but good lord, her flopping balloon tits really are ridiculous. It's so embarrassing that they were a hot topic in gaming for years. Years! I just want to go back in time and tell the devs to take a second and have some fuckin self-respect. You're adults! She doesn't need to look like a literal sex doll! Go jack off to the concept art and come back to your desk with a clear head, dudes! And anyway, her ass is much nicer, so.

I never had a PlayStation as a kid, so I happily took the opportunity to play this on original hardware, on a CRT, with the old non-Dual Shock controller. Hits different. Like nostalgia for a past I never had. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this series progresses. I've got a lot of it in front of me, so I hope it stays good!

I actually find this pretty compelling, almost relaxing. Played 2.5 stages.

The art and ambience in particular is stunning, I love the use of light and vegetation. Spatially it's like this minimalist take on early FPS shooters... the secrets, the weird score popup at the end of levels. The lack of HUD elements in gameplay and minimal save points, no guidance is really nice.

That being said! The controls are really really bad - and I don't mean the precision and slow pacing, which I think are unique and valuable, but like there's just so much bumping into walls and doing these huge moves I don't expect her to do. It's just a level too unpleasant for the vibe they're going for.

The price for dying or slipping is pretty severe (being set back minutes of tedious traversal).

But if you ignore that what you have is a really interesting 3D platformer that's all about reading the environment. It really feels 'adventure-y', although I can't help but wish for something that was a bit more compelling conceptually other than raiding ancient ruins one after another.

Playing this as a 6 year old was amazing. The sense of adventure and discovery was basically set in gaming by Tomb Raider when this first released.

Today, while still being a fun game, it has some clearly outdated mechanics like it's entire combat, which suck the life out of the game each time you have to fight an enemy.

Tomb Raider SHINES when it is about exploring, platforming and solving puzzles. Thankfully the game is mostly this, which is why 2018's Shadow of the Tomb Raider was my favorite of the survivor trilogy as it ditched the Uncharted cloniness of the first 2 games and went for more of a focus on puzzles and exploration.

The puzzles in tomb raider aren't really deep. Each puzzles comes down to finding ways to unlock doors, which is mostly trying to find switches or keys in levels that you will need to platform to.

Some people will say the platforming/climbing system is outdated here but it really is the heart of the gameplay. Unlike most modern games where climbing is automated and mindless, here you have to actually think about your jumps and the timings of your jumps as any misstep could lead to your death.

A big strength is the exploration aspect of the game. There are so so many secrets and hidden areas you will need find and platform your way to in order to find weapons, ammo, health kits. And you will really need these to help you get through the game as Tomb raider has somewhat of a survival game aspect to it.

Each level is a cool exploration of a releastic location where you would actually find tombs. Nepal, Greece, Egypt etc. SPOILER: I really really don't like the concept of the final levels though and it really doesn't fit in this game.

With the positives said, there are many negatives. The biggest one which was mentioned before and almost ruin this game for me is the combat. And it's quite abundant and sprinkled out through the levels, especially in the later levels where it's everywhere. There is no rhyme or reason to the combat. Sometimes you will get hit, sometimes you won't. It's all about facing the enemy and pressing shoot, hoping you kill them while jumping and dodging around before they kill you. Just make sure you are playing on PC or an emulator so you can quicksave before each fight.

I won't get into it too much, but the final levels are really awful and made me almost want to drop this game. It doesn't have the soul or spirit of what makes tomb raider good and felt rushed and lazily put together.

Tomb Raider is worth playing through once if you are a fan of classic gaming and history. You will still get a lot of fun out of this if you can put up with some of the outdatedness of it. If anything, it's worth experiencing to see how the iconic adventures of Lara Croft all began.

É muito comum ao se criticar um jogo antigo dizer que ele "envelheceu mal". Eu mesmo já utilizei essa expressão diversas vezes, mas ultimamente tento evitá-la. Esse argumento, além de potencialmente vazio (afinal, o que é "envelhecer mal"? E o que seria "envelhecer bem"?) mascara uma abordagem teleológica muito comum ao se discutir games. Ela parte do princípio de que há uma forma "correta" de se fazer jogos e julga os games antigos pelo quanto eles se aproximavam ou antecipavam nossos padrões modernos.

Tomb Raider é um exemplo notório disso. Os controles de tanque e a personagem frágil vão contra tudo o que se espera de um jogo de plataforma 3D hoje em dia. É um tipo de abordagem que só parece possível num mundo que ainda não sabia a forma "certa" de se fazer o gênero — problema que só seria corrigido com a vinda de Mario 64.

Mas se pararmos de ver TR como uma espécie de atavismo ou um desvio de percurso dentro do gênero, fica fácil de perceber que ele funciona perfeitamente bem para os seus propósitos. Ele não envelheceu mal: ele só não se encaixa em padrões modernos do gênero, padrões que nem existiam naquela época, porque ele não pretende criar uma experiência similar à maioria dos jogos de plataforma 3D. Sua intenção, antes, é traduzir a experiência dos platformers cinemáticos de outrora para o mundo tridimensional, com toda sua cadência e precisão. Algo que ele faz muito bem, de forma que nem o próprio Prince of Persia faria no futuro.

Não quer dizer que é um game perfeito, com um combate simplista e nada satisfatório que vai ficando mais enfadonho com o tempo, com os inimigos virando esponjas de bala que nunca morrem no final. Mas seus defeitos são isso: defeitos, não partes que "envelheceram mal". E, a despeito de seus defeitos, ainda é um jogo e tanto. Por isso mesmo é considerado um clássico.

"An Interesting Start For Lara Croft Hampered By Aged Controls"

Beginning in 1996, the Tomb Raider franchise has had a long, storied, and accomplished history spanning nearly 25 years. Lara Croft is one of the most iconic video game characters of all time, finding popularity in the video game art scene, cosplay scene, and even finding her way to appearing on the "big" screen with two blockbuster films to this date! However, many forget her humble beginnings, so I figured I would go ahead and check out this groundbreaking title!

I'll come right out and say it - the controls have not aged well, even with mods to make them better. This game has tank controls for movement, shooting, and platforming, and its a very awkward and frustrating experience. The difficulty is fairly high for some fights in the game, with the fights against human opponents and one particularly huge dinosaur being very difficult to overcome. While progression was still made on my end, the game just didn't feel "good" to play.

The sound is alright, and some of the tracks are fairly exhilarating for combat scenarios, but the effects just fall a bit flat to me. There's a large amount of repetitive ambient noise that plays in the background in between larger, ore dramatic tracks, and this does little to add to the game's immersion.

The visuals are pretty good for such an old title despite the environmental textures appearing a bit plain and wonky at times. The facial animations are cool to see, and give Lara a sense of emotion and reaction to many events in the game. The character animations are very advanced for 1996, with Lara being able to acrobatically scale obstacles with style and finesse. Enemies are distinguishable from the environments, and are terrifying to fight against.

The gameplay is fairly straightforward, and there are some systems that are very solid. There is a good blend of action, exploration, puzzles, and platforming, giving the game a nice well-rounded feel. Puzzles aren't too difficult to figure out. Exploration is pretty cool, mainly due to the game's nice color scheme and varied environments. Action and platforming are presented well enough, but there's a huge issue with the game that makes these portions of gameplay unbearable to play through...

Despite having some great presentation from the era that still holds up well to this day, the gameplay suffers a bunch due to the game's archaic control scheme. Tank controls do not work well in this title, as the lack of camera controls are also very frustrating. While Lara is able to lock on to foes without turning the camera, its hard to get her to focus on certain enemies, making combat a chore. Dodges and jumps are slightly delayed and very awkward to complete without the ability to fine-tune your directional controls, so it makes Lara feel like a stupid bunny hopping all over the place. Its really not that fun, and causes Lara to take heaps of unnecessary damage.

Platforming is where this game suffers as well. The controls translate ever worse to platforming sections, and there were many times I died trying to complete a maneuver over and over again! There are specific angle where Lara can grab on to objects, and they are pretty unforgiving, leading to countless trial and error moments. Sometimes there is such a small window to properly time a jump where it makes you repeat sections dozens of times. Altogether, the controls ruin the main portions of gameplay.

Sadly, my experience with this game was ruined by its controls. I liked the systems it had in place, but I couldn't enjoy them to their full extent due to lackluster and dated controls. It is impossible to change now, since there are no camera controls or strafing controls included in the title. Besides the controls, the rest of the game is fairly modern by today's standards. You can clearly see its influence in many modern Action-Adventure titles! Still, I will Not Recommend playing this title unless you are really willing to put up with some awful controls. It didn't have enough going for it in order to make me ignore its age, but I still respect the progress it made as a game!

Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)

Video games do not “age poorly”

Everything about Tomb Raider’s design is deliberate. The tank controls, the grid structure, the delayed jump, these “dated and clunky” mechanics are what allows TR to have platforming that is extremely precise; to have seemingly insurmountable gaps. The tank controls make lining up jumps natural. The grid structure is what allows the jumps that take advantage of every last inch of Lara’s jump (and allow the small dev team to make an absolutely huge game very quickly). The delayed jump is automatically timed perfectly when the player presses square 1 block away (or one back-dash).

The game is never at fault. It is always the players’ mistake when you miss a jump. TR requires the player to have patience and fall into its deliberate design. Rush a jump and you fall. Engage with the mechanics, you’ll pass the gap just fine. TR is player agency dialed up to 100. It is immensely satisfying.

The level design is masterful. TR’s stages are enormous with many secrets to find. Levels in TR require the player to solve platforming puzzles, engage in light combat, and think critically to progress. The levels combine the games’ mechanics (block pushing, swimming, shimmying, slopes, etc.) constantly to create new and engaging puzzles room after room. It never gets old. I find it hard to put down.

The atmosphere and OST are both great. TR is a very lonely game; all the player hears are Lara’s footsteps and the occasional grunt. The music helps create an inspiring feeling of discovery when arriving in new areas. It’s so exciting seeing a new area wondering what challenges await me.

TR’s final level can be exhausting on console. While the platforming itself is fun, as it takes all the elements from previous levels and creates a gauntlet of traps and obstacles to traverse, it becomes tiresome doing the same section 10-15 times as you inch your way forward. There just needed to be one or two more save crystals in my opinion. The combat in Tomb Raider isn’t good. It’s not devoid of strategy, but it all boils down to jumping and holding down the fire button. At least there’s not much of it, and there is a decision to be made about the weapon you’ll use.

Tomb Raider (1996) is a litmus test game. It completely filters out those that have no idea what they’re talking about. Like I said in my title, video games do not age poorly. I’m 22 years old and played TR for the first time 4 years ago. There’s no nostalgia, there’s no yearning for better days, it’s just one of the greatest games ever made.

9/10

My introduction to the Tomb Raider franchise was the deeply unpleasant, poorly designed 2013 reboot, an awful game and an awful experience that somehow did not deter me from playing its sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and having a much better time with it despite the presence of a lot of modern AAA design elements that really put me off of that sort of game. Having, I guess, committed to those, I figured I would return to the roots, as I so often do with these things, and I’m glad I did because Tomb Raider 96 is both an excellent 3D platformer and in incredibly WEIRD game full of funny quirks and bizarre choices that are I think mostly pretty bad in concept but never affect the play enough to do any actual harm to the experience.

The core of the experience, then, is that platforming. If I had to compare it to a modern game it would be less the modern tomb raiders and uncharteds that are often compared to this and something closer to a precursor to the Ubisoft 3D Prince of Persia lineage. Most of the levels here do involve other elements like occasional combat and puzzle solving to a greater or lesser extent, but Tomb Raider MOSTLY just sticks you in often very large, occasionally complex 3D environments and asks you to kind of just jump over to that ledge, then that one, then that one. The platforms are often gussied up as pleasant environmental features like natural rock formations, bridges, statues, etc. I think the game does a good job in general of disguising how rigidly all of its geometry adheres to a clear grid structure, disguising it sometimes with the aforementioned décor and sometimes letting the jagginess of the early PS1 dev cycle create the illusion of restriction, when the reality is the game is clearly this square on purpose. And that’s a good thing, it lets the game demand a great deal of precision from you, but it also means you very rarely find yourself in a situation where you’ll be making a jump you shouldn’t be trying, or where you’re uncertain about the scripting of a sequence because of the environmental design. It makes the world feel a little bit more artificial, with how obviously constructed around Lara’s verb set everything is, but it makes for a more rewarding play experience.

Lara’s verb set rules, by the way. As one of the biggest ones if not THE progenitor of semi-realistic 3D platforming, it’s wild how much of this feels exactly right for the needs of the game. Tomb Raider came out before Playstation analogue sticks and LONG before 3D action controls had been standardized, so there IS a learning curve, but there’s also an optional tutorial selectable from the main menu to walk you through the movement specifically (it tellingly doesn’t teach you about weapons or inventory or contextual actions). Once you have a handle on things it becomes apparent that your set of actions is slightly more robust than something you might find in one of the older, less streamlined Assassin’s Creeds or those weird Lord of the Rings games. The big difference between Tomb Raider and one of those is that rather than any action being contextual, you have to actively press and/or hold every button for every action as you need them, for things like jumping at the right moments, grabbing ledges after a jump, shimmying, dropping and catching, everything you do requires active input. After just the tutorial and a couple of the early, simpler levels, these controls were singing to me. The experience is so engaging when you have to be ON it at all times. And while it is a somewhat clunkier experience by nature than more modern games, the team at Core Design was obviously aware of this and accounted for it. You have dedicated buttons for slow walking, taking small sidesteps, and quick 180 degree turns – everything you need to be able to position yourself with the precision necessary to do what the game asks. It’s a somewhat complex control scheme but it’s an excellent one, that understands the limits of the controller, the hardware, and the map design and elegantly adapts to their needs. This is how you create a genre.

Of course, it’s not all jumping around cool obstacle courses in Tomb Raider, but before we can talk about the OTHER stuff you get up to I think it’s important to discuss Lara Croft herself, and the game’s narrative. Tomb Raider doesn’t really HAVE a much of a narrative, maybe ten minutes of cutscenes spread over a fifteen-hour game, and usually with absolutely no connective tissue between levels, just a results screen that tells you how fast you went and how many animals you shot and how many secrets you found then BAM you’re in the next one. What scant few cutscenes it does have are MOSTLY here to make Lara Croft seem COOL AS FUCK bro. She’s a hot babe who lives in a MANSION built on STOLEN WEALTH. And YEAH, she may break into tombs and ruins and historical sites and ROB THEM and then SELL THE GOODS for CASH and yeah, she starts the game by taking a job to do exactly that for somebody and only stops because that person tries to double-cross and kill her, but she assures us out loud early on that SHE’S NOT IN IT FOR THE MONEY, only the THRILL. It’s a very weird and funny portrait of an anti-hero who is simultaneously supposed to be one of those detached 90s asshole characters who we like despite knowing they’re a shithead while still being thumb-twiddlingly self-conscious about her moral character. They’re constantly making sure to try to make Lara seem not as evil as she obviously is, these white British developers seemingly aware how much of A Problem this premise is politically even back then when mainstream media was still getting away with A Lot. She’s not in it for The Money, she seems at least KIND OF annoyed when an innocent man is killed by equally innocent wolves that she led him to, she HAS this big mansion but she’s converted it into a gym! (do not worry about the many stolen artifacts she is hawking in the foyer). She’s not as bad as THAT OTHER adventure archaeologist, the evil French one who uhhhh, litters? That is the only evil thing he does that Lara does not also do. She kind of vaguely thinks genocide is bad, I guess. It’s really funny, she’s seriously awful.

So that’s Lara, some kind of meandering adrenaline-seeking sociopath, so it is fitting that the other bit of the gameplay loop that kind of mindlessly pads out these levels is all the GUNPLAY as she mercilessly guns down random bats, wolves, bears, crocodiles, gorillas you fuckin’ name it, if it breathes Lara will shoot it with guns. A borderline comical amount of animal violence and it’s all so needless. Bats do no damage to you and they go down in one hit why are they here??? There is no aiming mechanic you just pull out your guns and mash the fire button until there are no more bats. It’s super funny to fall into a hole in the first level and be absolutely run over by a gigantic bear you didn’t know was there. None of the combat in this game is good and there’s not even that much of it but it feels very cool to jump around and shoot guns in mid-air. There are precisely two human enemies in the game and they’re both miserable to fight so I GUESS I would rather just mow down endless wolves but I am mostly wondering if Tomb Raider couldn’t have just had more slapstick adventure action in the vein of running away from large boulders or something.

Or maybe more dinosaurs. There are dinosaurs! coulda just been dinosaurs the entire time. See this is the secret third pillar of Tomb Raider: that it’s an extremely bizarre game, where just every element that ever made its way onto the ideas whiteboard also made its way into the game. What if there were dinosaurs in level THREE, no buildup, no story context, no sense of design pacing, and then they’re just GONE. Hell yeah gamer. At one point there’s like some King Midas themed shit and every time you turn into gold and die it’s accompanied by this incredible cartoon BONK sound effect, like, why?? You remember Pierre the evil French archaeologist? He appears in like EVERY level to try to kill you like the fuckin terminator. You never know when you’re gonna turn a corner and find Pierre there ready to pop you, and you have to shoot him like a hundred times until he does NOT die but instead runs around the nearest corner or behind a pillar or something where he will DISAPPEAR, ready to harangue you again in the next level. This happens like twelve times it’s insane! This game’s primary inspiration is obviously Indiana Jones but we cannot forget how big John Woo was starting to hit in America and I guess also the UK in the 90s and this is extremely obvious in Tomb Raider because Lara has the iconic two pistols and all of her attacks involve huge jumps and flips and shit it’s so funny and out of place in this otherwise very strictly laid out rules-heavy platforming game to have Lara just blasting infinite ammo pistol shots as she does a ten foot horizontal flip eight feet in the air from a standing position. All of these choices are nonsense but they add up to a game that does have something of a unique identity from its inspirations and certainly from its successors. Tomb Raider 2013 could never and more importantly WOULD never.

I don’t really know how to sum up a game as uneven as Tomb Raider. I feel like I just spent a lot of time bashing parts of it that feel half baked or like they don’t work, but the core appeal of it is so good, and makes up the majority of what you’re actually doing outside of setpieces. I barely talked about the puzzles which I think have a pretty high hit rate. They’re not like Puzzle Puzzles as much as they are just further extremes on the idea of environmental challenges most of the time. When it’s focused on stuff like this, using your core verbs to interact with the environment, Tomb Raider is almost unassailably good fun. It’s just when it does almost anything else that things get shakier. I do appreciate that it leaves the immense racism that is baked into the premise MOSTLY in the margins, as much as possible, in favor of a much stupider story about Atlantis. All the villains are Bri’ish stereotypes of Americans and French people so the worst shit gets left to context but it’s impossible to truly escape from it, as much as Core Design tries to divert you from thinking about it. I do feel that the things that are successful in this game and the things that aren’t are SO obvious that it’s hard to imagine Tomb Raider 2 being this weird, which would be a shame. That combination of incredible polish and comically rough edges in all the right places really make this one what it is, for me.

Before we begin, we must talk about sprucing this PC port up since it is a 1996 game and we have the tech to make it better. After getting it on either GOG or Steam, you'll need the Automated Fix installer someone made. Basically gives you all that's needed to make the game work as intended: OG PS1 water color, the Unfinished Business expansion that for some reason isn't bundled by default, the whole soundtrack, higher resolution, etc etc, some of which being customizable. That alone should suffice some, but if you're like me and want some extra pizzazz, you'll need one of those engine thingamabobs, a more modern iteration I used being Tomb1Main. This has loads more custom options, like re-activating the PS1 and Saturn versions' save crystals, using control tweaks TR2 and 3 have, allow for enemy health bars, extended draw distance and more. Again, all customizable, so if you're really just aiming to have it look and run better with extra polish, you can opt to use little to none.

Tomb Raider 1996. Another entry in my long list of "I've heard, watched, and looked up everything related to this classic while yet to have actually gone through it". I dunno what exactly compelled me to finally give it a look, but I suspect it might have to do with the fact I got hit with a cinematic platformer bug and this happens to fall inline, albeit more as an adventure title. Whatever the case, I'm pretty glad I did cause quite honestly? It's supremely dope, and despite what I have to say, no amount of "aged" or "clunk" could undermine how surprising of a heavy hitter this ended up being.

In fact, I'm gonna say right now, I struggle to really agree with some of these people regarding the mechanics and operation within the environment and overall lateral edges and blocks you interact with. Just seems like one of those "It's slow and deliberate which equates to having to grapple and learn the feel and rhythm of the movement to get the most out of it, which I don't like nor want to do" cases, which funnily enough is probably the reason I ended up grooving to the control scheme to the same level as tank controls; just becomes second nature in terms of what could be jumped via a standard or running start, sidestep and/or walking around to orient yourself, and bouncing around chaining all these sorts of maneuvers together. I'm also rather pleased to say the camera's also commendable for the most part, opting to stay behind you while you move around and follow along from there. There's a Look option you have to press and hold down in case you need to see what's above and below, and this also works when you're in tight spots and aren't quite sure what's safe and what isn't, so it goes without saying that it's one of the most vital tools in your kit. In fairness to those I mocked though, I'll concede in that some moments, particularly near the end of the game, do end up getting too rambunctious to properly handle the challenge and flow of what lies ahead, but rarely is it because of the platforming predicament and more on the combat and enemies, but I'll save that for later.

Indiana Jones is always brought up as a point of reference to the series, but there's a couple of other influences that helped give Toby Gard the concept and design plan needed to create Lara Croft, and it's something that especially clicks in if you're familiar with it: Ultima Underworld. The play-by-play of the environment and the trappings within it, interactions with objects, puzzles, and other action-based pulls and levers, and that whole boxy dungeon feel is present throughout as it goes along, and doubling with the whole spelunking atmosphere, if the controls weren't doing so already, this gives a lot of weight in selling the idea that she's been going through this multiple times. It's also just, funny as someone who's only experience was the 2013 reboot, to see this Lara gleefully blowtorch an elevator cable up to the rooftop of the villain's Big Office Building, invade their office, and then read their hired goon's journal in a manner that makes it seem like she's the one in charge. Also, that motorcycle stunt she does during the ending Egypt FMV? Hilarious, probably the best thing about the whole package right there. I don't aim to knock the Modern Era games just yet, but it's wild to see how different these two interpretations are irregardless of the time difference between them.

Another aspect I grew to appreciate was the framing of discoveries. For example, after going through the beginning portion of St. Francis' Folly, you come across a corridor that, at the end of it, you'll then need to climb up on. After this, you'll then see a Jenga-like tower construct, with the music beginning to play while you go on over and examine it, all while fighting off bats and getting a timed secret that reveals after activating a specific panel. Upon closer inspection, you find four levels of four different Greek Go- oh wait, Toby messed up and accidentally added in Neptune, a Roman god, and Thor, a Norse god, into the mix. Whoops! At least he amends that blunder in the remake. Anyway, four levels, four puzzle rooms based on each deity's strength and iconographies, each containing a key needed to unlock a door at the bottom, where at some point you'll also encounter Frenchmen Pierre as he learns about your arrival and aims to stop you dead. It's a fantastic setpiece and layer of design mechanically, in the soundscape, and visual feedback, culminating in one of my favorite levels in the game.

Sadly though, that's what a lot of my favorite events in the game end up as: moments. Like, everyone knows about the random appearance of dinosaurs in Lost Valley as one example, and there's this random outburst during the endgame of Tomb Of Tihocan where an experimented Atlantean Centaur comes to life and starts firing explosive at you, or pretty much the final levels doubling down on horror aspects of body gore and weird meat as you see these enemies burst to life... but the actual game ends up being just good enough in most cases. Like, Peru's set starts the venture off good, then Greece became slightly gooder than it, then Egypt became the goodest set, and Atlantis starts off good but then ends slightly less good. I've had dips and peaks between them - Palace Midas and The Great Pyramid ended up as my least favorites while I love the aforementioned St. Francis' Folly, Natla's Mines, and Sanctuary of the Scion - but there wasn't a specific stretch where I can say the game achieves greatness, if that makes sense.

The curve and exposure feels very rocky, due to having times where I've had a smooth ride from one area to the next, then suddenly got slammed headfirst into Padding Zones that serve more so to waste resources and time than to heighten the danger and mystique of these tombs I be raiding. I'm largely glad combat isn't entirely the main focus and it does showcase the puzzle, the platforming, or a mixture of both at most circumstances, but it gets a bizarre sense of focus willy-nilly in ways that I don't feel is quite right. It's especially at its worse when the Atlanteans become the common enemy and not the bats, crocs, and other standard animal wildlife since not only are they spongey no matter if you use the unlimited Pistol, the strong and reliable Shotgun, the quick yet efficient Magnums, and the beastly Uzi, there's also plain obnoxious, more often choosing to hone in to your location and claw at you repeatedly, a few times even getting you stuck due to positioning or cause they're the culprits making the camera freak out and start losing track of what's important. They also explode after death, but considering how surprisingly easy it is to stock up on small and large medpacks even without secret hunting like I did, this becomes a moot quirk of theirs.

Enemies aren't the only thing that can make things exhausting. When there's a consistent string of tough challenges after tough challenges, the toll starts to weigh in heavily, something I even debate on being worsened if I turned on the Save Crystal feature (while I did save scum near the end, for a grand majority I opted to do checkpoint-like saves, doing it at the beginning then doing another once I deemed necessary, culminating in about 3-4 usually being done). In Palace Midas, there's three challenge rooms you have to do in order to get lead bars that you then turn into gold thanks to Midas' "hand". One of these was pretty alright, save for a pretty bad Gotcha! right at the end, but the other two were pure slogs, due to requiring tightly-made jumps, shimmies, what have you. Despite being only 20-30 minutes, it took me almost triple that just to be able to finish it due to all this. It can be quite exhausting at points, and while thankfully it's a rare occurrence, it still feels like an unfortunate blemish regardless, but in this instance, it probably didn't help that I marathon most of the levels within a particular region in about a day, sometimes almost immediately after getting home from work.

Still, I do want to stress and underline something. This was a game released in 1996 developed within 18 months, the tailend also suffering from a bit of crunch overload (a thing that will seem to be a constant baggage for Core Design as a whole...), with a budget of at the time £440,000 - I believe this becomes like £810,034.51, or roughly 976kUSD when adjusted for inflation - largely developed by six people, those being Gavin Rummery, Jason Gosling, Toby Gard, Heather Gibson, Neal Boyd and Paul Douglas, with some extra work such as composer Nathan McCree and the OG Trailblazer for many Lara voices to come, Shelley Blond. Everything considered, it seriously does begin to show how much of a genuine marvel this was once it hit the shelves in the same year as Super Mario 64, as well as being two years shy before Ocarina Of Time did its whole song and dance. Lara Croft may not have been the first female lead in gaming, but she sure as hell gave a giant push for the medium nonetheless. That's powerful, and in some respects this gave me an even larger impression and scope to the strengths this does manage to achieve. I'm pretty in-the-dark as to how the OG Timeline sequels fair, but I'd be more willing to give a look now. For now though, I'm aiming to look at the remake next.

EXPANSION: UNFINISHED BUSINESS

NEXT TIME: TOMB RAIDER ANNIVERSARY

Finally played this for the first time on PC with Automated Fix. Not gona lie, I really dig it. The atmosphere kills and I adore the soundtrack. I can't even say I agree this has aged horribly, it's damn well-designed. Basically a cinematic platformer like Prince of Persia or Another World but flipped into the third dimension. And just as unforgiving as its 2D sibllings aswell. I will finish this game eventually, but Sanctuary of the Scion has me kinda stuck right now, so might as well take a break, maybe try some of the other games.

Link to my full review of Tomb Raider: https://www.backloggd.com/u/NovaNiles/review/1411026/

One of my earliest memories is being a toddler and thus too stupid to know how to double-click an .exe file. "Auntie's game," I would tell my elder sisters. "I want to play Auntie's game." I don't know why I called Lara Croft my auntie, but I did. Today we'll be reviewing Auntie's game, kids.

In fact, a lot of my childhood memories revolve around 'the real Lara Croft,' as I have to call her now to differentiate her from Square Enix's stock protagonist. At the time, Lara was a celebrity - an actual celebrity - on a level I don't think I've seen a video game character be since. Being played by the gorgeous Angelina Jolie in two feature films sure helped, but even before that, there was something about Lara's design and attitude that imbued this primitive pack of polygons with a charismatic charm. The actual plot of Tomb Raider may be somewhat thin on the ground, but it was enough to establish Lara as a badass heroine, while the game's blocky but practical, rough-hewn yet well-researched environments did the rest.

Another childhood memory I have is telling my sister, "We have half an hour before school. We can both play Tomb Raider for 15 minutes each." I was a very kind child, you see. At the time, actually beating a video game was a distant thought for me - as achievable as climbing a mountain. It's only now, 20 years later, that I've finally finished this game by myself - no walkthroughs. I feel like mentioning that because Tomb Raider is actually a pretty tough game. If you clear a risky jump, you better save. If you come to a place with branching pathways, you'd better save. If you walk a few steps without dying, you'd better make two separate save files to account for two separate universes where you fuck up by a centimetre and fall to your death. By the time I finished this game, I'd saved exactly 380 times, but by golly I finally did it. Pity the people who played through this on the PS1 version, which doesn't let you save anywhere.

Yet even if my mentality about video games changed, the principles of Tomb Raider didn't. Both when I was 4, and now when I'm 25, it was all about the joy of exploration. Tomb Raider provides this joy in spades. The platforming, the puzzle-solving and the slow yet definite resolution of a level that at first looked impossibly complex - Tomb Raider was an early champion of these elements in a 3D space. There is combat, of course, but it's merely serviceable because Lara needed something for her iconic dual pistols to shoot at.

I don't know when humanity's collective IQ dropped to the point that tank controls became too big an ask for players to grasp, because they always felt intuitive to me. That isn't to say Tomb Raider isn't unforgiving as fuck, because it is. It requires precision platforming, lateral thinking and a good deal of patience. The game is mostly fair - with only a few bullshit moments reserved for the endgame when you're already attuned to its deceptions - but it plays by its own rules, which are hard and fast.

However, I'm only saying all of this now because I've already had my love rekindled. Despite my childhood memories, there were some moments early on where I said, "Fuck this game," because Tomb Raider has aged. Its design is archaic, and its graphics are nigh prehistoric. Even with some fanmade patches that modernize the game as best as they can, there's no hiding the fact that this is very much a 1996 game.

I entreat you to give this game a fair shake in spite of this. I said the game has aged, not that it's aged badly. With enough patience - juuuust enough to let the Stockholm syndrome set in - you too can discover the joy of Tomb Raider, of its hypnotic cycle of exploring levels with sparse musical cues and only the sepulchral ambience, the thumping of footsteps and the occasional ding of a secret discovered to keep you company. And every now and then, the sound of bones breaking as Lara falls to her death for the dozenth fucking time.

Before the Tomb Raider I-III Remaster trilogy was announced, I had long given Lara up for forgotten - that the only people who would even remember the PS1 Tomb Raider games would be the ones who grew up with them, because who has the time or patience anymore? But look past its flaws, I assure you. This was a revolutionary game then, and it's still a great game now. Tomb Raider in 2024 takes the act of exploring something ancient to find a hidden treasure to a very meta level.

Played through alongside Anniversary. It still fucking slays.

One of the most satisfying games I can think of when you're willing to put the time in to learn the controls. The level design makes the most of both the simplistic moveset and design elements (the game is on a grid system) for an ultimately cohesive experience. The level design flows without feeling like you're being railroaded from place to place. Not all games (see: the remake) have That...

Anyways, I'm looking forward to replaying through the rest of the pre-Crystal Dynamics games in the near future. It's been long enough.

A very interesting and weird playthrough as someone who has no knowledge of this series outside of "Lara Croft hotted video game woman". The controls obviously took some getting used to, as they were baffling at first for this sort of action-adventure platformer game. But I got used to them much more quickly than I thought, and I actually ended up seeing how this control scheme helps this game in some ways. It requires you to really consider every jump, whether to jump from right the edge of a cliff or do a jump with a running start off of it. You have to carefully climb down walls to not take damage, you have to take time to crouch down before making a leap.

Tomb Raider does a lot in the service or "realism", which I'm usually not into in games but I can't say I wasn't impressed by it here. Stuff like no music in-game, only cold ambient noises, your underwater oxygen meter taking time to refill when you rise up, and the animations for stuff like pushing a block or picking up an item. These elements combined with the form of methodical platforming and puzzle solving made Tomb Raider actually fairly promising to me when I started.

But unfortunately as the game went on its flaws overshadowed what I liked about it. For one, combat in this game is never anything more than a nuisance or completely trivial. It mostly involves holding the action button while backflipping away from enemies, but if they get close enough the camera flips out so much that it becomes a mess trying to get in a position to start shooting again. By the last third of the game, I had so many healing items that combat basically became a health-losing race, especially against "bosses". It's strange because they occasionally have these rooms with lots of pillars for cover in order to set up these dramatic fights with other characters, but all I do is stand in front of them and unload my shotgun a couple times.

The slow, "realistic" nature of the controls also became a detriment. Way too often I ran into the issue of Lara taking 2 or 3 more steps than I intended, falling to my death, or the walk button taking too long to actually stop my current pace, or just the tedium of having to wait for Lara to push a block by one square. Also, way too often I ran into the issue of walking right past the next point in the level because of how everything tends to blend in with the each other.

The puzzle solving aspect of things, while occasionally interesting, can be frustrating by the fact that it feels like the game sends enemies after you after every step of a puzzle. Like, I pull one switch and four apes just show up, and then I get to the next part of the puzzle and four more apes show up. This process got so repetitive and frustrating, especially with how annoying combat is.

This game also loves cheap deaths. Things like putting an enemy right around a corner you weren't expecting, or a fall leading to spiked you wouldn't be able to avoid the first time, and just countless things that seems to only exist to encourage save scumming, which I did freely. I understand its the nature of an ancient tomb to have countless traps, but I could tell when one obstacle was clever and required engaging problem solving and when another was something I had not chance of avoiding, like entering a small room and having a gorilla spawn the exact moment I walk in.

The story might as well not be here, and honestly I kind of wish it wasn't. The way the game just puts you in a locations that is continuous across several levels, sometimes going back to certain locations from different levels to emphasize the fact that their all continuous, with no cutscenes or narration or music in between, it's a really strong first impression. But when voice acting all of a sudden starts and you're watching a cutscene, its jarring and overall uninteresting. I get that the cutscenes function as transitions between locations, but basically every aspect of the story did not stick at all.

With all these negative points, it would make sense to give this game a more negative score, but I honestly did find playing through it fascinating. It makes a lot of bold decisions that I honestly think work really well when it does. I played this less because I thought it was gonna be a good game and more as a curiosity, a piece of gaming history I'm not familiar with, and in that front it provided a very interesting and educational experience. I could also see the sequels to this game being much better, but I'm probably not playing those for a while.

Describing what a movie is about is pretty easy. Most of the time it’s just a direct depiction of a story, so summarizing the plot is good enough. Things are a little different for games, because the gameplay and the story can be emphasized in varying degrees. For example, Tomb Raider seems to be about preventing powerful artifacts from falling into the wrong hands, when it's actually about jumping. As overly simple as that seems, its focus on the mechanics of jumping makes for the most compelling movement I've ever seen in a game. Modern games have jumping and climbing as an ancillary part of combat and exploration, but in Tomb Raider it’s the gameplay in itself. Even jumping straight up requires decision making, because grabbing onto things isn’t handled automatically. Forward jumps require you to actually build momentum with a run, and trying to jump before you’ve taken enough steps will lead to you sprinting off a cliff. While mostly used for combat, side jumps have their own niche uses, and so on. Every motion needs to be carefully considered against your list of options, because choosing poorly will make you lose part of your very scarce health supply. A system of limited save points also means that screwing up and falling into spikes can be extremely punishing, and you get used to taking every step seriously. It’s a nuanced and tense system for platforming that has gone woefully underutilized by the games of today. This is another case where I could describe all the little interactions and things you can do to improve your gameplay, but taking away the discovery would take away part of what makes this game so cool. In the latest Tomb Raider games, there’s nothing like this to discover. You'll automatically grab and stick to walls by moving the control stick and that's pretty much all that’s ever required. The sense of danger isn’t from the mechanics, but from the movie magic and visual spectacle. Even though the original doesn’t have those technological advantages, the sense of presence and personal involvement is so much greater than the modern interpretations of the genre. It accomplishes so much with so little that it's become one of my favorite games of all time.

I wanted to like this game. I really did but theres so many issues that i cant bring myself to finish it. To cut to the chase, the game is slow. That isnt necessarily a bad thing but when the game wants to also be so fucking punishing at the same time, it turns the game into a slog. When you may solve a puzzle or find out where to go its fun, but then you might die to some bullshit trap or the 500 gorillas that half health you with every hit. So youll be doing some of these segments multiple times over. In modern games like celeste for example, when you die the game doesnt punish you heavily and spawn you near where you died. tomb raider will take you back to where you last saved, at least on ps1 which can be so fucking far back that it makes tou want to stop entirely. But i kept pushing because i enjoyed the games atmosphere. The controls are strange but i like them. Grabbing ledges manuvering terrain is way more interactive than most modern day games like assassins creed. The general game is fun but its so intent on curb stomping the player at every moment with awkward puzzles, and constant insta kills. Some puzzles require timing so tight that i was doing some for 20 minutes straight. Initially enemies arent so bad but ehen you get to egypt, you get lions and gorillas that hit so god damn hard and are everywhere. There is also some random ass dude who pops up from nowhere sometimes and just starts shooting you. Youll never know hes there until you see your hp bar draining rapidly and then he doesnt even die, you have to get him off screen after hitting him for a bit. This humanoid gun combat and 2 shot kill animals make most of combat just health tanking and chugging med kits. If this game removed the combat and was designed to be more forgiving in some aspects, it would be amazing. I couldnt bother to finish it and stopped at the king midas level because it was so confusing to play through. I looked up a guide and knew instantly how to beat the level which took out most of the fun. On top of that, it was gonna take so long to actually play the level that i just gave up because i got bored and was annoyed at confusing puzzles. In a way, this game is like a zelda game without the shitty story and just the dungeons, but now the dungeons are just a mishmash of bullshit. I also wish the levels werent so wide and expansive. It makes traversing them so boring when it takes so long to get from point a to b. It also make the levels confusing mazes because theres so many different path ways, and if you stop mid level, you forget and just get fucked. The music is also annoying, its very loud and basic. The nice mood that you might get from, for example, portal is just ruined when the ost comes on every time you enter a new room in tomb raider. Tomb raider in a way is relaxing, where you just solve puzzles in peace, but it refuses to be that and instead wants to be an aggresive globe-trotting adventure which i just dont think its built for.

I love both old and clunky games with all my heart - I can count on one hand the games I've been physically unable to enjoy because of their controls, and sadly this is one of them. I adore a lot of what the classic Tomb Raider titles do, but despite trying so, so many times over the past 18 years, I simply can't play them. My brain is incapable of adjusting to the movement and platforming; despite classic Resident Evil and its ilk feeling almost second nature to me at this point, Tomb Raider eludes me. I cannot have fun with it. Progressing past the second level feels torturous.

I'll probably give it another shot next year.