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.
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.