This review contains spoilers
Tomb Raider: Chronicles is the fifth Tomb Raider game for fifth straight year and it shows. It's also the final of the "classic" PS1 style Tomb Raider games.
In terms of story, Tomb Raider IV-VI are connected but this game does nothing to advance the overarching plot in the slightest. After the events of Tomb Raider IV in which Lara "dies", her friends reflect back on her past adventures, leading this game to function like a "Greatest Hits" of sorts. This leads to the plot feeling disconnected, well, because it is. None of the locations lead to the next in an organic way, it's just "Lara was here, she did this" and then "Lara went here and did that". This also means that collecting gear along the way is no longer something you're incentivized to do as after the story is over, Lara's gear is reset meaning you lose all ammo, health-packs, etc.
In terms of scope and scale, this game is by far the smallest and shortest Tomb Raider game in the original Core PS1 pentalogy. While Tomb Raider I and II could be finished in around 20-ish hours for a first playthrough, III and IV at around 30, Chronicles dwarfs all of these with a story that can be seen to completion in 12 hours or less. This is largely due to the fact that levels are much smaller and linear than ever before. I don't think I recall a single time where I found a locked door and couldn't immediately find the key in the same room or next room over.
There are very few times you'll ever get stuck in this game due to a complex puzzle. In fact, the only time you'll likely hit something difficult is the final level which ramps up the difficulty astronomically while also leaving you with minimal health packs and ammo. The game introduces stealth as a way to stay concealed and conserve ammo but to call this feature half-baked would be an understatement. You can gather chloroform and rags to incapacitate enemies but this action is either extremely situational or outright broken: I could never quite determine which.
Chronicles doesn't do anything mind-blowing or innovative to improve on the already solid Tomb Raider formula. In fact, it dials a lot of it down, making for a very, very brief game that manages to still have some memorable moments that hearken back to the first three games without doing much to challenge you as a player.
In terms of story, Tomb Raider IV-VI are connected but this game does nothing to advance the overarching plot in the slightest. After the events of Tomb Raider IV in which Lara "dies", her friends reflect back on her past adventures, leading this game to function like a "Greatest Hits" of sorts. This leads to the plot feeling disconnected, well, because it is. None of the locations lead to the next in an organic way, it's just "Lara was here, she did this" and then "Lara went here and did that". This also means that collecting gear along the way is no longer something you're incentivized to do as after the story is over, Lara's gear is reset meaning you lose all ammo, health-packs, etc.
In terms of scope and scale, this game is by far the smallest and shortest Tomb Raider game in the original Core PS1 pentalogy. While Tomb Raider I and II could be finished in around 20-ish hours for a first playthrough, III and IV at around 30, Chronicles dwarfs all of these with a story that can be seen to completion in 12 hours or less. This is largely due to the fact that levels are much smaller and linear than ever before. I don't think I recall a single time where I found a locked door and couldn't immediately find the key in the same room or next room over.
There are very few times you'll ever get stuck in this game due to a complex puzzle. In fact, the only time you'll likely hit something difficult is the final level which ramps up the difficulty astronomically while also leaving you with minimal health packs and ammo. The game introduces stealth as a way to stay concealed and conserve ammo but to call this feature half-baked would be an understatement. You can gather chloroform and rags to incapacitate enemies but this action is either extremely situational or outright broken: I could never quite determine which.
Chronicles doesn't do anything mind-blowing or innovative to improve on the already solid Tomb Raider formula. In fact, it dials a lot of it down, making for a very, very brief game that manages to still have some memorable moments that hearken back to the first three games without doing much to challenge you as a player.