Playing the first three Tomb Raider games in 2024, even the remastered version, feels like visiting ancient ruins that are safe to visit.
We don’t get updates for older games (or several in this case) every month that are just content to familiarize old and new players with rusty mechanics, systems, and control schemes. As much as I love straight-up remakes and ambitious remakes, I’m becoming more and more convinced every day that a remake like Tomb Raider I-III Remastered strikes the perfect balance between old and new.
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Aspyr is no stranger to giving old games a new spin and much-needed quality-of-life changes. Personally, I love all the work they’ve done over the years to recreate retro Star Wars games like Knights of the Old Republic and Republic Commando. However, this Tomb Raider Remastered project is even more ambitious, a complete visual remake of Lara Croft’s first three games, retaining the feel of the original art style, and the gameplay is almost same.
After spending a few hours with these remasters, I’m happy to report that they’re more of a polished preservation of classic games than a reinterpretation. While the first game has been given a pretty decent remake in Tomb Raider Anniversary Edition, many younger gamers want to experience Croft’s original adventure and see how they ended up creating Tomb Raider. Uncharted and other new series. Despite its flaws, I think this remastered series excels at allowing new and old players to experience the original trilogy without losing their minds in the process.
Game protection is a hot topic, mostly because the industry is really bad at it. Remakes and remakes are becoming more and more common due to their repeated success, but forgetting about old games always feels like a huge failure and holds the medium back.Note that this wasn’t an issue with older Tomb Raider games; hard Convince a new generation to try retro gaming when many feel it sucks to play now.
Despite the impressive level design of the three OG Tomb Raider adventure games, Lara Croft has always been a bit difficult to control. Likewise, the immersive user interface lacks a lot of truly useful information, and navigating the most complex sections often feels like an exercise in patience.Out of respect for the game’s original vision, the remaster doesn’t completely address any of these issues, but it does Just enough Let them have fun in 2024. Extra graphics are just extra.
While Lara Croft still prefers awkwardly delayed jumps, and the camera can go crazy in tight spaces, the tank controls could be swapped out for more modern rigging. The shiny presentation also makes some of the puzzles and confusing rooms easier to read. The list of changes is long, but most of them don’t pop up. They still feel like the same good old games, they’re just becoming more popular.
I’m still interested in simple re-releases for easier preservation and huge remakes that recreate big legends of the medium or even dare to change the entire plot, but I wish more older movies got this type of treatment (Halo: The Master Chief Collection ). Things like instantly switching between old and modern graphics and grabbing the screen from previously impossible angles via Photo Mode are perfect for anyone who wants to take a closer look at these artifacts.
