I'm one of those freaks that never stopped playing (and replaying) the original Tomb Raider games, so I have a very strong familiarity with this series and these three games in particular. So a lot of the typical barriers to entry that these games present to newer fans, and maybe even older fans (the controls, the camera, the grid system etc.) weren't really an issue. I do still recognise that these remasters are probably a hard sell in 2024 and I've read plenty of reviews that support that. Personally though, these remasters delivered exactly what I expected and was hoping for.

Not to speculate but it feels like the devs were given no time at all to get these remasters made. My guess is that they were maybe given a year? We have the updated graphics sure but everything else (aside from the new control scheme) remains untouched. The in-game cutscene use the exact same head- bobby animations from the original when it would have been beneficial to clean those up a bit. The voice acting is the same, the music is the same, there's no extras to speak of... TRIII also chugs quite a bit which supports my theory that these might have been rushed. The FMVs drop frames like crazy, even when they're compressed which is wild to me.

Like, as a piece of video game history/ preservation I think these games are the gold standard for how older games should be made available for modern audiences. But I can't help but wish there was been a way to tighten up the newer versions while leaving the original games as they were, jank and all.

It's insane that they chose to remaster the graphics the way they did, basically just pasting new textures over what was already there. I love this decision even though it doesn't always work from a readability stand point. I'd prefer that the game take a big swing with the art direction and make a mad choice like this then have the games lose their charm striving to match modern graphical sensibilities. Lara's character model is also the best it's ever looked.

The photo mode has the potential to break the game altogether!? The camera isn't tethered to Lara so you can just straight up map out the whole level if you feel like it and get a sense of what lies ahead. Again, a crazy decision that I 100% support. These games are hard!! It's good to give players a useful tool like that. I don't know if that was the intended goal for the camera but regardless, I hope they never patch it.

I really enjoyed revisiting TR I, II and III in this way. I hope that some new fans can get some enjoyment out of them too. I hope we'll get The Last Revelations and Chronicles eventually but maybe that's asking for too much.

TRIII was my favourite of the original games back in the day and now, having played through all three of these in succession I think it still is my favourite, even if I think TRI is the superior game overall. TRIII remains as frustrating and obtuse as ever ( I relied on guides more for this game than either of the other two) and while the level design is more ambitious then it has ever been up to this point, I think the devs hadn't quite figured out how to make non-linearity work in a TR game yet.

Still, I LOVE the atmosphere in III. The sound design especially does a lot to make this game extra spooky. I love that the games have steadily introduced more horror- elements as they went on. III especially feels very influenced by the X-Files and of course there's the final 3 hours and change that's spent basically running around the set of The Thing. It's brilliant!

To speak exclusively about the remaster for a second, the modern graphics do this particular game a disservice the way they didn't for the other two. TRIII has such wonderfully weird and spooky lighting design and there was no effort to recreate it here. It's not a problem in every area; most outdoor sections still look very nice. But once Lara is indoors everything just looks so flat. London was my favourite section in the original game because of it's use of purple and green lighting where it shouldn't exist. It really enhances this game's lean towards outright horror and it's just gone now.

The racist portrayals of certain cultures were inexcusable when this game first came out but the remaster really pulls all that stuff into very sharp focus. It stick out so much and makes some sections of the game fairly unpleasant. I don't really know how Aspyr could have gotten around this, short of not remastering III at all. It's baked in to the game's DNA and it's rubbish.

Lara is very fun in this game even though she's at her most murderous. There's more cutscenes than ever and she gets a lot of good banter. And I like that she's kind of a dope in this game too.

I guess my final word on this whole game is that it's a mixed bag that I have a lot of nostalgic attachment to. I'm happy to have finally played it from beginning to end and I hope to revisit it again as the years goes on.