Tomb Raider I-II-III Remastered: Official Review (SPOILER)
A long awaited day for many Raiders and gamers will finally come: Tomb Raider I-II-III will be finally available tomorrow!
The Tomb Raider saga has been a pillar of the gaming industry since 1996, revolutioning video games forever, and it's protagonist, the athletic, dangerous and so loved Lara Croft became the undisputed protagonist and gaming queen of the late 90s and more. After 28 years fans' dreams became true and the first three classic games will be available on modern consoles with a fresh, high quality and nostalgic look.
If you're new to the Classic Tomb Raider saga, or you are a Seasoned Raider, put your backpack on, prepare your guns and be ready to go on adventure with this special review!
NARRATIVE
There's many stuff to be said about Tomb Raider's narrative as Lara Croft travels many places around the world during her adventures, but the premise remains the same: she is a well known archeologist, who dedicates her life into studies, adventure and well...raiding tombs! She loves exploring unfound places in order to recover the most powerful artifacts while facing the most dangerous perils as obstacles, big jumps, enemies and mystical creatures ready to face off against her, making her adventures more than a simple trip. Her personality makes her one of a kind: she truly looks like a really beautiful woman but she does not think twice into turning your life upside down in a matter of time. She loves adventures and is always ready to travel anytime she has an occasion, or special offers. During your first three adventures with Lara, you will be going into these particular world places:
Tomb Raider I- Perù
- Greece
- Egypt
- Mediterranean Sea
- China
- Italy
- Tibet
- India
- Nevada
- South Pacific
- London
- Antartica
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| Croft Manor - Tomb Raider I |
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| Croft Manor - Tomb Raider II |
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| Croft Manor - Tomb Raider III |
Tomb Raider's gameplay become a game changer for the videogame industry immediately after it's release; it was the first game that had proper 3D enviornement in which it's protagonist could run, peform stunning acrobatics and fight, all without limits. Lara Croft was also the first proper videogame protagonist, and this launched a revolution in the game media. Talking about her moves she can walk, run, jump, hang on ledges, roll, sprint, crawl, spin and much more (she really is a prepared adventurer and you see it from the very beginning).
There are two different control settings for each game: Tank Controls and Modern Controls. Here is a recap of each method:
Tank Controls:
It's the classic and nostalgic control scheme that was featured in the original games. You can control Lara with your arrow keys (keyboard) or left stick and pad (consoles/controller), while performing other actions such as jumping or shooting. The camera in this mode is mostly fixed and follows the protagonist from behind, distancing itself in order for you to see the enviornement clearly; apart from the look button, with which you can use to let Lara focus on what's around here there's a new feature that lets you rotate your camera with your right stick (controller/console) in order to have a brief (and really aesthetic) look at what is around you. That's a new feature that was never implemented in the classic games and it's really great to have a nice look around you while running or doing your stunts!
Modern Controls:
A modern take and remapping of the original controls. It's inspired by the LAU (TR:Legend-Anniversary-Underworld) ones and makes Lara move with WASD, rotate your camera freely with your mouse or right stick (controller/console), aim and shoot with left and right mouse click (or left and right triggers on controller/console). It's intention is to make the experience more fluid for new raiders or also veterans, who wants to revive the adventure in a particular way (note that it might be a bit difficult to get used to them in the first moments, but it would be much easier while progressing the games.
There are also additional new features included into the games such as:
"!" Mark:
An implemented mark around important objects such pickups, interactive objects, secrets and so on; this might get useful in order for you to not lose any important stuff necessary to progress the level...unless you don't want to reload or restart your level all over! (You can disable this option in the controls panel)
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| The "!" mark appears near close objects, pickups and items |
Boss Health Bar:
Do you want to see how much health does the iconic t-rex or any other creatures have? A more accesible way to know it it's a progressive red bar that decreases as the boss loses health and it's located in the down-center of the screen.
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| The Boss Health Bar as described above |
Photo Mode:
A long awaited feature debuts in the classic Tomb Raider games. Get ready to make your best shoots during your game, either be Lara or other character portraits, or enviornement ones. While moving your camera with your arrows and sticks you can play with two main sections: camera settings and Lara settings.
Into the first one you can control the camera rotation and distance point
The second ones let Lara make pre-made poses, face expression and a feature that lets you change your outfits (which are all ones present in the three games) and display all the weapons.
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| A look of the Photo Mode panel |
New Game + :
After finishing the main campaign you can restart your adventure again, but with some twists and challenges:
Tomb Raider I
- All weapons (no unlimited) with some munitions and clips
- Less medipacks but more ammos
- More difficult enemies and boss fights
- More lethal traps and damage
- Crystal save system only
- No cheats
- All weapons (no unlimited) with some munitions and clips
- Less medipacks but more ammos
- More difficult enemies and boss fights
- More lethal traps and damage
- No medipacks at the start
- Collecting all three secrets gives you medipacks
- No cheats
Tomb Raider III
- All weapons (no unlimited) with some munitions and clips
- Less medipacks but more ammos
- More difficult enemies and boss fights
- More lethal traps and damage
- Collectible Crystal and only save system
- No medipacks at the start
- Collecting all secrets gives you medipacks
- No cheats
Archievements:
Tomb Raider I-II-III Remastered offers you a really huge number or unlockable archievements (269), that are included in a more linear campaign or a replayable one in order to collect all of them.
GRAPHICS
Here comes one of the main topics of the game and this review, the mostly why this is called a "Remastered": the graphics.
As said before, back in 1996 Tomb Raider left a huge mark in gaming story, mostly for it's protagonist, the mechanics and also graphic wise: having your character explore large and complex enviornements while trying to have a realistic (back in the day of course) approach to captivate gamers eyes was something Core Design and Eidos Interactive nailed back in the day. It's peculiar block-y style is still iconic now days that many fans still go back to the original classic games and replay them for nostalgia.
Well now, the games are changed since with Tomb Raider I-II-III Remastered you can switch between classic and remastered graphics with a single button...whenever. you. want! How? Just by pressing F3 (keyboard), Option (Xbox controller), Start (Playstation controller) and + (Nintendo Switch). You can experience your journey however you want, in a full classic style or with it's new and fresh look. Let's talk about those:
Classic Graphics:
Classic Graphics makes a huge return in the saga. You want more nostalgia? Here it is. Fans have been asking for ports on new generation consoles many times and get to finally replay the first Tomb Raider games for sure it's an experience; everything it's pretty much the same as it was back in the 90s, with a little improvement in terms of resolution but what is curious is that every texture and special effects it's the same as it was in the original ones, while rocking a constant 30 FPS. It does seem to replay a Playstation version, without your CRT TV of course. The nostalgia it's pretty much real!
Remastered Graphics:
If you want your true new experience you might need to play those games with they brand new enchanted graphics, and it's everything fans may have asked. This is the definitive new way to play the games if you want to embark on the journey with a "fresh" start, as it truly gives the games a really amazing and pleasant experience, while still maintaning it's core characteristics as the famous blocky enviornements and characters but adding that extra touch thanks to it's new full resolution, it's lightning and effect systems, new and HQ textures, remade 3d models and characters, new special and atmospheric effects and 60 locked FPS. It's really pleasant to go throught the levels while seeing a new light approach, making many areas of the game look "dark"but purposely to give Lara a sense of isolation (and maybe use some additional flares to upgrade the difficulty level), snow falling down the sky, rain, fog, water reflections and cute addictions like fireflies in some levels, all this while still maintaining it's original geometric look but expanding some areas to give the places a more realistic apperance. Raiders and gamers will certainly feel beautifully surprised!
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| The Cistern - Tomb Raider I |
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| Barkhang Monastery - Tomb Raider II |
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| South Pacific Islands - Tomb Raider III |
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| Main Menu - Tomb Raider I |
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| Main Menu - Tomb Raider II |
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| Main Menu - Tomb Raider III |
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| Croft Manor Loading screen - Tomb Raider I |
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| Perù Loading screen - Tomb Raider I |
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| China Loading screen - Tomb Raider II |
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| India Loading screen - Tomb Raider III |
The Gold levels look impeccable and the new remastered graphics and it's really nice to see old enviornements in a new way as the beautiful Egypt by night full of shiny stars and moon, or the snowy Alaska of The Golden Mask and the beautiful Scotland in The Lost Artifact. It really gives justisce to this mini adventures and made the playtrought flow very nicely.
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| Temple of the Cat - Tomb Raider I Unfinished Business |
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| The Cold War - Tomb Raider II The Golden Mask |
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| Highland Fling - Tomb Raider III The Lost Artefact |
Tomb Raider's soundtrack and sound effects became so iconic that you may just need to hear the first main theme note to know which games does it come from. There are special sounds for everything: from ambiental sound to music, Lara's sounds, enemies, calm or dangerous moments. The audio used into the Remastered is basically the same ones as the original, with the same quality as those ones; one main particular is that if you intend to play the game with the new graphical settings you can hear an improved version of those sounds, that lets you surrounded by the atmosphere around you.
TECHNICAL
Let's take some words to also talk about some specific stuff before jumping into the final thoughts.
The game overall looks flawless in both it's full classic style or remastered one. There may be some flaws and bugs/glitches thay may be fixed pretty soon so don't worry about putting yourself down if you find some of those. Overall it does not make the game bad in the most way at all.
As for the new Modern control system it's for sure a nice and fresh addiction but it might get a few tries and experience to have the control of those. The principle remains the same of the old ones but it needs a bit of extra attention to make jumps, acrobatics or target and shoot enemies and it might appear a bit confusing also for the Tank control users (as it was the main control system to play those games until now).
Beware of the dark areas, they might feel a bit dark so prepare additional flares to be ready to explore those corners and bits of the game. As there is no brightness feature try adjusting your monitor or TV settings in order to make the experience more accesible.
The experience is the most important thing, and players will certainly feel it.
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| The Lost Valley - Tomb Raider I |
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| Bartoli's Hideout - Tomb Raider II |
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| Thames Wharf - Tomb Raider III |
FINAL THOUGHTS
We've finally reached the conclusion of this review and the honest opinion of this new release.
I would firstly kindly compliment the Aspyr Team, Crystal Dynamics and Saber for their collaboration in order to give fans the definitive Tomb Raider Classic experience in the most recent modern systems; their work will not be done for nothing and i was pleasently surprised by the whole project. Getting to replay those games that made my and many more fans' childhood is certainly a trip down memory lane and explore each beautiful and stunning locations, any corner to find as many details as possible was for sure rewarding. This is a love letters to all Tomb Raider fans!
Let's really hope this is the start of a new era of the Tomb Raider franchise, as fans are already asking for new remastered or ports...so maybe be sure to Pre-Order and play the game and fill it with love, as many fans want!
Thank you for sticking around and remember,
Tomb Raider I-II-III Remastered comes out tomorrow! Pre-Order now!
Until next time!
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