This review was made thanks to our partnership with Nuuvem who provided us with the game key! Buy Tomb Raider I-III Remastered right now from Nuuvem in this link,.
In the 90s, Lara Croft reigned supreme as the muse of games, a very curious term for the time, which exacerbated sensuality as a way of selling games to an audience that was mostly male. However, Lara Croft broke through this bubble and became a pop culture icon, with movies starring Angelina Jolie and more games, but the quality of the franchise fell in the same way as the original company. Core Design went through several difficulties until the Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness fiasco led Eidos to change the studio responsible for developing the game to Crystal Dynamics.
During the second half of the 2000s until the first half of the 2010s, average games were released, including a remake of the first game that was somewhat controversial for purists. Then in 2013 Crystal Dynamics managed to put the franchise back on the media's radar with a reboot in 2013. Another trilogy has been completed and once again we are in that moment where we don't know exactly what the future of Lara Croft will be.
The Remasters
Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is the result of this uncertainty, going back to the origins and playing with nostalgia is usually a move that if done well can bring good results, remasters of Crash Bandicoot and Tony Hawk's for example were very successful, they are exactly the same games of the time only with updated graphics but with almost the same gameplay and seeing people who never had contact with these franchises at the time having their first experience is perhaps the best part.
The first Tomb Raider games were very challenging, very different from what the franchise has become with the reboot, which follows a more cinematic line. The first games were literally about exploring tombs, or rather labyrinths. The geometry of the maps wasn't designed for realism, since at the time it was still a little uncertain how to work with 3D games, and the way Tomb Raider brought it to life was revolutionary, so much so that there were many other games that took concepts from the franchise and became "Tomb Raider-like" games, such as Duke Nukem: Time to Kill and even Indiana Jones. You'll often come across confusing areas and puzzles that aren't very obvious, causing you to spend a long time looking for a solution.
Despite some quality of life improvements, such as some interaction indicators that appear when Lara approaches an interactive object, the game keeps the gameplay structure intact, there are no hints, no maps, nothing. It's challenging, but I believe it's also very rewarding.
The origin
In my opinion, Tomb Raider 1 is a very experimental game, both in terms of controls and game design and stages. Lara goes through scenarios such as Egypt, Peru and Greece with different climates and enemies, and I emphasize this difference in the enemies because they are some of the most insane possible: wolves, dinosaurs, gorillas to name but a few. As the enemies mostly attack only when they come into contact with the character, combat is very much focused on jumping and shooting, something that in the other games was a little more complicated as in Tomb Raider 2 for example there are many enemies with guns which makes it very difficult to dodge shots.
Starring Lara Croft
Tomb Raider 2 expanded on the formula of the original with improved graphics, more weapons, and a wider variety of locations, including the Great Wall of China, Venice and Tibet. The inclusion of vehicles, such as a boat in Venice, added a new dimension to the gameplay. The game also brought a greater focus on combat, which was both praised for adding action and criticized for moving away from the exploration and puzzles that defined the first game. Despite this, Tomb Raider II was a commercial success and is often remembered for introducing new elements to the series.
The Adventures of Lara Croft
Tomb Raider 3 continued to evolve the series with even more graphical improvements and a renewed emphasis on exploration and puzzles. This game took Lara to even more exotic locations, such as the jungles of India, the islands of the South Pacific and Antarctica, each with their own unique challenges and enemies. The addition of new moves, such as crawling and sprinting, along with the ability to select the order in which certain areas of the game were explored, offered unprecedented freedom to players. However, the increased difficulty and steep learning curve were points of contention.
Remastered
As far as graphics are concerned, there's little noticeable improvement if all the games in this collection are played with just the new graphics (which are excellent) since the game is very standardized using the same quality in all three games, but something very cool is the possibility of switching between the classic graphics and the remastered graphics with just one button, something that many developers have done as in Diablo 2 Resurrected. This way, for the more curious, it's interesting to see how the graphical evolution has improved up until the third game, which introduced very advanced lighting concepts for the time, for example.
One small detail I noticed is that when playing with the graphics in classic mode, the developer chose to leave a look more similar to the Playstation versions, even though the PC versions were superior by giving the possibility of smoothing textures, so when viewing the graphics in classic mode we have a "worse" version than the PC versions of the game, but I believe this was a deliberate choice due to the fact that the Playstation versions are better known.
The youtube channel Digital Foundry did a great comparison that shows exactly what I mean
Controls
Tank controls, as we call them today, were very popular at the time, and Tomb Raider originally used this pattern. When I went to play these versions, my mechanical memory kicked in, so I had no trouble replaying the game with this pattern, but I recognize that for those who aren't used to it, it can seem very strange. Aspyr added an option for modern controls to the game, which I tried out, but I just can't get used to, I found them much more difficult than the originals.
Community recognition
I would like to highlight that Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is the result of the recognition of the work of developer Timur Gagiev who has been working for years on an open source engine for the classic Tomb Raider called OpenLara, through his work it was possible to run the games with updated graphics and improved frame rate. Aspyr, developer of the remastered project, contacted Timur so that he could lead the game's development. It would be very interesting if more developers adopted this stance with the community instead of requesting that fan projects be interrupted.
The Nostalgia factor
Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is a great collection of games that faithfully updates the classics of the franchise and mainly helps to preserve the memory of these games that are so important in the industry, now let's wait for Aspyr to continue the excellent work and also release the Tomb Raider's remaining Last Revelation and Chronicles, perhaps even an improved version of Angel of Darkness.
This review was made thanks to our partnership with Nuuvem who provided us with the game key! Buy Tomb Raider I-III Remastered right now from Nuuvem in this link,.
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