Tomb Raider Remastered review: Lara Croft's underwhelming comeback
We didn’t get quite what we wanted from Tomb Raider I-III Remastered.
When does a re-release become a remaster? And when does a remaster become a remake? These questions were on my mind as I dived, climbed, blasted and explored my way through Tomb Raider I-III Remastered.
This new collection of the first three Tomb Raider games, which also includes their three expansion packs, is billed as a remaster. To me, this suggests that the classic games will be brought up to modern standards of graphics, gameplay and general goodness without doing too much to alter the core design (pun intended).
Fans who’ve already pored over the original Lara Croft games might’ve been hoping for more of a remake — a complete rebuilding of the original games with all-new elements added in, similar to the Resident Evil 4 Remake that wowed players last year, or the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
That’s not what this new collection has been labelled as, so you’d be wrong to expect that.
To me, however, Tomb Raider I-III Remastered doesn’t even live up to what it has promised. In my eyes, the end product feels more like an admirable re-release than a jaw-dropping remaster. It feels like they’ve taken the original games, added some quality of life features, and asked you to buy them again.
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Thankfully, this collection is priced at £24.99 RRP (and CD Keys has it discounted at £16.99), so it’s not like the powers that be are asking you to fork out 50 or 60 quid for games that don’t feel new.
That’s what Nintendo did with the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection, which didn’t impress me much, so I’m glad to see that isn't the case with Tomb Raider Remastered. But still, I feel a bit disappointed by what I’ve experienced.
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That’s not to say that the newly added quality of life improvements aren’t good.
The ability to swap between the original grid-based 'tank controls' and a more agile modern control system was a big positive for me, and it will go down well with any players that don’t have the muscle memory of the original control scheme. This mode makes TR 1, 2 and 3 feel much more approachable to modern players.
I was less fond of the 'modern' graphics that you can swap back and forth between at the press of a button. The functionality was cool, making the retro option feel like a filter that you could switch on and off at will, but even the 'modern' graphics still looked a bit old hat.
Rather than making the games feel up to date, it basically takes a mid-'90s game and makes it look like something from the mid-'00s.
I had similar feelings about the gameplay, which hasn't been overhauled or properly brought up to modern standards. As much as you can control Lara differently, the level design itself is unchanged, and sometimes the new control scheme doesn't feel like a great fit with what the game wants you to do.
On top of that, I did run into a few little visual glitches, like characters disappearing into walls or clipping in and out of obstacles like crates. Again, with a 'remaster', you’d be hoping to play a seamless and beautiful version of your old favourites. You wouldn’t hope for jank, and yet I did find some here.
Other new additions include a Photo Mode (good fun), hundreds of trophies/achievements (nice for collectors) and practical things like health bars for boss battles and lock-on for enemies.
All these elements combine to make the collection very playable — presumably, the nicest way to relive these classic titles — but the new bells and whistles won’t exactly wow you.
It should go without saying that these games are still very fun to play, once you get used to the throwback nature of it all. Trying to figure out the puzzles, master the platforming segments and overcome the baddies (from nameless goons to massive dinosaurs) is a great way to spend some time. One scary bit properly made me jump, too!
Derby-based developers Core Design did industry-changing work when they first cooked up these adventures, and the team at Aspyr (best known for porting Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to every platform imaginable) have done a fine job at taking that original vision, giving it a bit of servicing, and getting it fit for public consumption again.
We wouldn’t call it an amazing remaster, but we wouldn’t call it an outright failure either. It's just a little underwhelming if you'd been hoping for more than a port.
These are still great games and this is a nice way to play them, but don’t go expecting a sleek and beautiful package that feels like a modern game. If you want to play a truly modern Tomb Raider, you might be better off with the Square Enix reboot trilogy from a few years back.
Tomb Raider I-III Remastered launches on Wednesday 14th February for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch. We reviewed on PS5.
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