Tomb Raider: Anniversary Review

I have not been so conflicted on playing a game in such a long time, when the game is good, it's good, when the game is bad, it can be really bad. I'll get the bad out of the way, the camera is terrible, the platforming is super buggy and the combat isn't good and not in a serviceable kind of way. The camera makes it hard to tell where you can or cannot jump at times and it obscures your vision a lot both in platforming and combat, in platforming, you can't even see a platform at times and you can miss jumps, and in combat it gets worse, you get hit and when an enemy comes close the camera zooms in on when he hits you and the camera acts erratic in closed spaces on top of that you can get staggered like crazy if you get hit by enemies even once. Dodging can have the camera act spazzy too. The platforming and holy shit, this is where the game's frustration can REALLY kick in, there are times where Lara will grab on to a ledge or won't, there are times where she will either climb over something or won't, the grappling hook with unhook itself for no reason, you tell Lara to jump one way and she will jump another way. You will press the jump button and then she will refuse to jump. Shit like this made the game infuriating to play and I can see why I could never beat it years ago.

Okay, after all that negativity why do I enjoy it? Well that is due to the level design, I am not familar with Core Design's TR games and from what I played of this, I can safely say I am a fan of it. It's feels like platforming heavy version of Resident Evil with key hunts while also having the timeless level design of switch pulling to activate certain parts of the level design, I love this level design mainly in that it encourages you to explore and feels like you are slowly unravelling a mystery. I also love how much platforming, trap dodging and swimming there is, every level is large and it feels like you are actually "raiding" an unknown place you are not supposed to be. Every level feels like you are part of this large grand spanning adventure, the levels can be pretty exhausting to finish due to how expansive they are. It's interesting how Crystal Dynamics stayed true to this kind of design in the 7th gen no less. Overall, I enjoy this game, but if you remove the interesting level design, I would not be very positive on it.

I am disappointing that the TR franchise in general went away from this level design, this to me feels more timeless, hope the new one goes back to this style.