Tomb Raider Anniversary has finally come to modern Playstation consoles through PS Premium. I've been wanting to replay it since released a while ago on the service and replayed it because of that. I also beat Underworld on PS3 over a year ago along with beating the first 2 games Core Design games. Unfortunately the series under them goes drastically downhill after TR2 and even that game had a good number of awkward stains on it. Underworld is also considerably worse than both Legend and this game. Legend itself was just on the so okay it's average side. TR as a mainstream franchise is about as consistent in quality as Devil May Cry and 3D Ninja Gaiden. With the aforementioned Premium, I've been wanting an excuse to replay Anniversary since I beat it on emulator years ago. I did drop the game years prior but I wasn't as game design savvy back then compared to first beating it on PCSX2.
As a whole TR:A is one of the better games in the series even if it is hard to overlook the fact that it's using TR 1996's levels as a basis for everything and are reimgainings of those levels than completely new levels. Crystal did do a good job at modernizing the 96 game for the most part. It does highlight just how amazing that original game's level design is. Just by using what Core Design did in that particular game as a foundation, it easily has some of the best level design in a Crystal Dynamics developed TR game. It's level design so well done that it carries so much of the game and elevates it to being the most memorable title in Crystal's "trilogy" prior to Survivor.
Before I start describing the level design, I'll touch the story and well...it's serviceable at best and terrible during certain scenes. It is easy to bash the story of Anniversary being a filler arc in the grand scheme of the Legend "trilogy" and it pretty much is. Minus the part where Natla comes back in Underworld rewritten to be Lara's Lex Luthor. Ignoring that while the original 90s game barely had much of a plot at to the point where it might as well be an excuse plot in arcade game stretched out over 10 hours. There is more context by comparison to the original. There is long stretches gameplay but the end of a lot of bookend levels do have major story beat and plot revelation. It's not all too dissimilar in stories you'd find in Indiana Jones are stories like it but the more added context was nice and gave levels a reason to connect to each other like an action movie plot connecting fights and actions sequences together.
Where the story drops the ball is with the human villains Lara goes up against in that they are nothing more than jobbers but are they? Later in the story Lara kills Larson and it's supposed to her first kill even though the story never acknowledged she was apprehensive towards taking human life beforehand. The other villains have show up have a few scenes and then die. The way Jerome and Kin die is almost something straight out a pacifist protagonist story where the hero won't kill the villain but die by some other means.
They all have "boss fights" with QTEs which is Crystal saying, "yeah we know those bosses sucked in the original game".
The aforementioned level design is fantastic and the biggest highlight of the game. It has my favorite kind of level design where there is a small puzzles within a larger puzzle. For a game that came out in the 7th gen, levels are open without needing hand holding or player guidance of any kind so the integrity of the original is kept but with new code of paint.
What I really love about the level design is how they are designed and the camera is spaced out enough that the player will always a clear sight line of where to progress through the level. The end goal will always be visibly shown to you at the start or when progress furthur into the level. You have to press switches, find keys, swimming, timed climbing challenges or solves puzzles within rooms adjacent to the much larger area where the level exit is.
There is one major caveat to all this and that is unfortuately TR Legend's automated climbing. The original game's rules where consistent in that jumps were about judging distances, positioning yourself and timing the interact button to reach the platform. Anniversary is automated which Crystal is aware since there are good number of quick reaction climbing challenges unlike Legend. Unforuntately this leads to a lot of buggy platforming where there are ledges and parts and of the environment Lara SHOULD grab but the game might grab on to but maybe she won't? Or she will? It really turns into awkward guessing games since in Legend, the level design are magnetic handholds, point Lara there press x and she will grab it. Since Anniversary has TR1 levels and it's more open nature means that there will be more ambigious moments where Lara's magnet hand will latch on to the hand hold or she will fall to her death? It can be hard to tell. There are times where even with the timing and the stars aligning, Lara just won't grab the handhold.
There is also other issues where the grapple hook prompt won't pop up to know you should use it. This isn't too common.
The buggy and unpolished nature of climbing can really test one's patience.
Combat is better than the original but still not as serviceable as I would like. It still keeps the sparse enemy encounters and with Legend's updated combat it should be leaps and bound better. You now have the shoot dodge from Max Payne all though contextual here. Survival hinges on how good you are with it. If you are combat is a breeze, if you aren't it becomes an infuriating ballet of getting staggered endlessly.
The actual boss fights are decent puzzle bosses now.
Overall, TR:A is a solid modernization of TR 1996.
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