Tomb Raider Remastered review: Lara Croft's underwhelming comeback
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.
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
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