Tomb Raider 2 Review

Tomb Raider 2 is the game that geniunely pushes the idea of being a video game to its absolute limit. I played Tomb Raider 1996 a few months ago and honestly, I only bought the recent TR remastered collection at all is because of that game, not so much it's sequels but I decided to play TR2 anyway since there isn't many games like the classic Tomb Raiders and as much as I don't want to mention other Youtubers in my reviews Josh Strife Plays' vid on TR2 got me interested in playing it

When I started up TR2 all the stuff I liked about TR 1996, the level design and platforming is all here. The level design in that they are large expansive puzzle mazes where you are slowly solving it as you go through switch pulling, swimming, key finding, among other things are still here. The slow paced and methodical take on platforming is also still maintained, and it gives TR2 the same feeling as the original where it's more about positioning and hoping you can make the jump at all with some added movements like climing certain areas and how you need to do things like backflip jump, and jumping while turning into air to make certain other jumps. TR2 does make more out of the movement system by comparison to TR 1996 does.

However there are some strange "quirks" about TR2 that prevent it from being as good, still a good game, but not as much. The first thing is the over reliance on hitscan enemies and how combat controls themselves are fundamentally the same, where in TR 1996, you fought monsters and animals with human enemies being bosses, in TR2, you fight human enemies with guns and melee enemies, and they all involve the same tactics, you beat melee enemies by jumping constantly and making sure you can jump faster than he can run up to you, and gun enemies can be beaten by using similar tactics but also relying on shooting them from far away and the AI being so stupid that they will run around in circles and you fire at them and they maintain line of sight on you as little as possible. What makes these parts of the game bearable however is that enemies constantly drop ammo and medkits, and you can use medkits anytime you want so as not so well designed as these enemies are the game slaps a band aid on to itself by doing this. There are more damage spongey enemies later in the game, but you will be able to take them out with more powerful weapons you get later.

What's weird about all this is that later in TR2 enemies start to use projectile weapons and enemies start to use hitscan weapons less so in a sense, if TR2 just had these kinds of enemies for it's roster the whole game, it's emphasis on action gameplay would've felt more welcome.

The level design is still good, and while apart of me loves the idea of how the game uses really strange level design logic in real world locations like say needing a chip to turn off a sawblade, or keys to turn off 3 fires which is so gamey but yet the game sticks with it so much that it is endearing. Another part of me thinks that while it is well designed, it just doesn't reach the heights of TR 1996 since in that game since it was spent actually raiding tombs and not spent in real world locations using game logic, TR 1996's levels tend to be more memorable as a result since the tombs are mysterious places not meant to be disturbed, where in TR2, you spend 3 multiple hour levels on an offshore rig.

However, when TR2 starts to have more traditonal tombs, the game's level design reaches it's peak. Barhang Monastary and Temple of Xian are both geniunely fantastic levels with multiple areas to explore and the former feels like a big puzzle room where you are slowly uncovering everything the level has to offer. Temple of Xian is insanely challenging but every challenge I overcome made me feel good and when I got to end, I felt like I overcome such a hugh and epic obstacle gaunlet.

Some improvements to TR 1996 is that when Lara presses most of the switches, there is a cutaway to which door that switch opened, I like this since it feel like whenever I pull switch, I am uncovering a potential mystery all though I will admit, there was a lot of, "what door did that switch open" when I played. This probably explains why Stellalune made the career that she did since TR2 can feel like the levels can be bigger and there's parts where I feel like I didn't even uncover yet.

However, there is many more cheap deaths in TR2 than in TR 1996, the saving anywhere feature comes in handy because of this. There is also much more timed switches in TR2 as well, just in general, TR2 ups the challenge, but I did find it mangeable contary to popular belief. Most of the challenge of TR2 comes from the random deaths and the hitscanners ambushing me out of nowhere. I thought the game was going to be so cheap that I would stop playing but much to my surprise, I was able to get to the end at all. 

Another aspect about TR2 and by extension these older games is that how very little story there is, it's both charming as it is a hinderance since, I would love to be given more context as to why Lara does what she does but another part me loves how purely gameplay driven these games are. There isn't many long games I can think of where 98% of the game is spent you playing it. Not even 90s FPS or Nintendo games are as long as these classic TR games are. 

Overall, solid sequel to a predecessor I really liked, I was expecting to not like TR2 but I do like it