Tomb Raider I - III Remastered Starring Lara Croft (14th February 2024)

[Julius]

I mean...who else would it be starring? Happy Valentine's! 

Quote

Uncover treasures of the ancient world by solving puzzles and unraveling mysteries lost to the ravages of time. Follow the iconic Lara Croft around the world and face off against deadly foes and dangerous myths. Experience the classics boasting upgraded graphics, with the option to switch to the original polygonal look at any time.

 

Edited September 14, 2023 by Julius

[Ashley]

2 hours ago, Julius said:

I mean...who else would it be starting? Happy Valentine's! 

Apparently it's Lara's birthday.

[Ike]

“upgraded graphics” is up for debate.

[Ashley]

10 minutes ago, Ike said:

“upgraded graphics” is up for debate.

They are upgraded from the original. 

They're not good though. 

[nekunando]

 

[Julius]

This release has a dedicated PS Blog entry where they sit down and talk to some of the folks from Aspyr:

Some of the stuff they're adding is kind of nuts? This release has a Photo Mode. That's wild! 

I've just seen in the Blog entry that there are over 200 trophies to earn across the three games which seem, eh, pretty excessive...

Really curious to see how this one shakes out, got a lot of great early memories spent in the early parts of these games 

[drahkon]

Is one of those games the one where you could lock the butler up in a walk-in freezer?
This was the only thing I did as a kid while playing a Tomb Raider game.

I'm ok now, though.

[Julius]

11 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Is one of those games the one where you could lock the butler up in a walk-in freezer?
This was the only thing I did as a kid while playing a Tomb Raider game.

I'm ok now, though.

Yes, and I remember doing the exact same 

Maybe games are bad for kids after all... 

[Hero-of-Time]

1 minute ago, Julius said:

Yes, and I remember doing the exact same 

Maybe games are bad for kids after all... 

Everybody did it. If you didn't lock the butler in the freezer then you were playing the game wrong.

[Hero-of-Time]

1 minute ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Everybody did it. If you didn't lock the butler in the freezer then you were playing the game wrong.

Just read there's a trophy for it. Amazing. 

[drahkon]

[Ashley]

Which begs the question which is worse; locking a butler in a fridge or dropping a baby penguin off a cliff?

[ViPeR]

The original games bypassed me as I never owned a PS1 I was an N64 kid so I'm going to give it a go anyway  I enjoyed the recent games so be good to play the OG games for the first time.

[Hero-of-Time]

16 minutes ago, ViPeR said:

The original games bypassed me as I never owned a PS1 I was an N64 kid so I'm going to give it a go anyway  I enjoyed the recent games so be good to play the OG games for the first time.

ViPer is posting? 

I played them when I was younger and I'm curious to see how they hold up. The save system in the first and third games were a little brutal and so I'm hoping they've changed them to make them more like the second game.

I completely missed that there's no physical release for this. Shame.  

[ViPeR]

25 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

ViPer is posting? 

I played them when I was younger and I'm curious to see how they hold up. The save system in the first and third games were a little brutal and so I'm hoping they've changed them to make them more like the second game.

I completely missed that there's no physical release for this. Shame.  

Hahaha I tend to sneak in every now and again! Though I've never found a community like this one so may stick around this time who knows lol. Reddit is pretty toxic!

What I like about these remasters and remakes is reworked controls. I loved what they did with Goldeneye on Xbox literally felt like I was playing a different game!

[Hero-of-Time]

1 minute ago, ViPeR said:

What I like about these remasters and remakes is reworked controls. I loved what they did with Goldeneye on Xbox literally felt like I was playing a different game!

Yeah, the original controls will certainly put a few people off. I'm not sure how the new ones are going to work though. The tank controls did have a degree of accuracy to them which allowed you to position yourself perfectly when trying to make tricky jumps.

[ViPeR]

3 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Yeah, the original controls will certainly put a few people off. I'm not sure how the new ones are going to work though. The tank controls did have a degree of accuracy to them which allowed you to position yourself perfectly when trying to make tricky jumps.

Funny I wonder if they'll have the original controls as an option? I imagine they would it seems to be the case for most remasters.

[Happenstance]

I always appreciate remasters that do the work to let you shift between original features/graphics/controls and the remastered ones.

[Hero-of-Time]

7 minutes ago, ViPeR said:

Funny I wonder if they'll have the original controls as an option? I imagine they would it seems to be the case for most remasters.

Yeah, you can change between the two.

5 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

I always appreciate remasters that do the work to let you shift between original features/graphics/controls and the remastered ones.

Agreed. Giving players more choice with such features is always a good thing.

[darksnowman]

Had the first one or two of these on PC. Thought they were pretty substandard and demonstrated the style over substance divide introduced by Playstation. At least I could say on the playground I'd first-hand experience of gunning down tigers and whatever. Then one time at a friends house, he put on 3 and wanted me to do a swimming bit. Maybe on keyboard but there was no chance on the Playstation controller. It wasn't long before we were back on WCW vs nWo on the N64.

Saying that, I'd probably have one or both of the new Tomb Raider games if they were on Switch and I'm keeping this rerelease in mind for an eventual pickup.

On 22/01/2024 at 6:58 AM, ViPeR said:

The original games bypassed me as I never owned a PS1 I was an N64 kid so I'm going to give it a go anyway  I enjoyed the recent games so be good to play the OG games for the first time.

Always nice to see a familiar name/ avatar!

[ViPeR]

On 23/01/2024 at 4:26 PM, darksnowman said:

Had the first one or two of these on PC. Thought they were pretty substandard and demonstrated the style over substance divide introduced by Playstation. At least I could say on the playground I'd first-hand experience of gunning down tigers and whatever. Then one time at a friends house, he put on 3 and wanted me to do a swimming bit. Maybe on keyboard but there was no chance on the Playstation controller. It wasn't long before we were back on WCW vs nWo on the N64.

Saying that, I'd probably have one or both of the new Tomb Raider games if they were on Switch and I'm keeping this rerelease in mind for an eventual pickup.

Always nice to see a familiar name/ avatar!

Thanks bro 😉

[Hero-of-Time]

Trophy lists are out now and they are fantastic...well the PS4 versions are as they each have a platinum to obtain but the PS5 doesn't have one at all.

https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/25881-tomb-raider-i

https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/25882-tomb-raider-ii

https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/25880-tomb-raider-iii

https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/25883-tomb-raider-i-iii-remastered

Easily one of the best trophy lists I have seen in a while. Lots of variety and some challenge to them as well. Shame there's no physical release for this.  £22 on PSN, I'm very tempted to pick it up on release.

 

Edited February 13 by Hero-of-Time

[Hero-of-Time]

I've been picking away at this since it released and I absolutely love it. I spent a good few minutes just listening to the theme music at the title screen.

Beautiful.

I'm 7 levels in so far and it's been a joy to play through this again. The precision platforming is something that you just don't really see these days. It can be punishing (made easier in this version due to being able to save anywhere) but also very satisfying when pulling off a series of jumps and climbs. Despite being years since I last played these games, I still remember the technique of slowly walking to the edge, doing a back jump and then running, jumping and grabbing a ledge.

Even though the game has been given a lick of paint and runs better with the modern visuals, I'm still playing it with the original graphics setting and lower frame rate. Just feels right playing it this way and is more like how I remember it. The new look does look quite nice and fits well with how the game looked back then but I just prefer the blocky, original look.

When playing this I was thinking about the Horizon games and modern games in general and how they handle single play adventures. The original Tomb Raider is a very solitary experience, with Lara being on her own most of the time. Had this been a modern game then Lara would be constantly chatting to herself or pointing things out but that's not the case here. Instead, the player is left on their own to figure things out and to just soak up the atmosphere. This is something I certainly appreciate more now having played a lot of the chatty, modern games.

There are a couple of niggles with the game though. the Load Game option is what pops up at default rather than Save Game. This has caused myself and many others to end up loading a previous save rather than saving the game. Doh. 

The other issue is that sometimes the game's lighting can be a little off and areas appear too dark. I get around this by switching to the modern graphics and then switching back. I know others have had issues with the modern graphics making items difficult to see but seeing as I opted to play with the original visuals, this hasn't been an issue for me.

The trophy list is quite the doozy and reminds me of the modern Resident Evil games in that it's going to take multiple play throughs in order to get the platinum. Speed running the game in 5 hours, killing every enemy in the game, breaking every floor that collapses, find not just every secret but every item, saving less than 86 times...yeah, lots to do. 

[drahkon]

16 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

saving less than 86 times

Is there a reason for that number?

[Hero-of-Time]

57 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Is there a reason for that number?

I think there were 86 save crystals in the original game. Once you used them you couldn't use them again and so you had to really plan when you wanted to save.