Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft

The good: - Graphics are improved while keeping the original look and atmosphere - You can switch at any time to the original graphics for some serious WOW effect when you switch back - Controls feel more responsive - Subtitles in cutscenes [finally!] - Bosses health bars [finally!] The bad: - Lighting is way off, some areas are so dark that you have to switch to original graphics to tell what's going on The ugly: - Modern controls lack the ability for backward and side jump, unless you unholster the guns, which just feels nonsensical; they should have added a modifier button to replicate the original behavior - For the same reason you can't backpedal, meaning that you lose focus on the enemies at all times - Camera goes completely nuts when you face a wall All in all a good remaster that could become great if only they fix the issues.

The best news is that we can finally play the original version of Tomb Raider 1/2/3 on modern system without having to patch it or use dos emulation. The even better news could have been that we can play these games with modern graphics and 60fps... however that's when the issue start: The modernize art-style is fantastic, however it makes the game much harder because now everything, from key items to platforms and pathsways, blend in so well with the rest of the environment to the point of being lmost impossible to spot. Modern controls are questionable as well, since they built a new control scheme and camera for Lara without changing anything about the grid system of the old games. Definitely worth the money, but expect learning curve as you go no matter what mode you chose.

If you played this on a 486 in a 320x200 resolution in the 90's you know why you want to get this. For those who didn't, try this game for its exploration, discovery, puzzles, without a game studio holding your hand. It's an excellent classic game (Tomb Raider 1).

I'm surprised this remaster exists at all to be frank, but the people involved clearly loved the original games. Despite its shortcomings they are continuing to update the game and add features. This is also the only way (as far as I know) to legally play any of the expansions, which have some of the best levels in their games, and overall I'm very greatful to the team and their effort to keep these games alive. :)

Looking at it purely as a remaster, I'm very impressed. As these are the original games underneath, I wasn't expecting much more than a texture upgrade. In fact, they have reworked the lighting, adding light sources as necessary to make the lighting logical. They've added a lot of 3D geometry for detail, e.g. vines and branches of trees and lamps to provide light. They also added some effects, such as subtle reflections on glass etc, some light fog. The cutscenes have animated faces now. The interpretation of the levels is excellent. The new lighting and added details make the levels look quite different in places, but they look how I imagine Core would've made them if they could've. There's some nice fixes, e.g. it has all the music intact despite being the PC version, the footstep sounds on the Maria Doria have been fixed, TR2's broken waterfall sounds have been fixed. TR1 has skyboxes, the braid, and the midair flips. It feels like they really 'got' the games, and did everything they could to express Core's original vision. I haven't seen everything in all three games yet of course, and I have no doubt there are imperfections in there, e.g. Floating Islands skybox. On the whole though, this basically fulfils my childhood dream of playing these games with the graphics from the FMVs. Please, for the love of god, do Last Revelation and Chronicles. Some other reviews have expressed some concerns: The EULA - I skimmed over it very fast and it did look bad, but these are worth the paper they're written on. Crystal's warning message - They didn't make the games, they didn't even make the remasters, and they'd be nothing without the franchise they appropriated from Core. And their contribution? To directly and explicitly call Core racists. They mad no-one likes nulara. Fine by me. "Modern" controls - work as well as you would expect (barely at all). As always for 28 years, ignore anyone criticising the controls, they should stick to Mario 64. Buy at full price.