Back in 1996, my teenage self was in awe of Lara Croft. She was the first female lead in a video game I'd ever seen, and I loved watching her. Tomb Raider became a pivotal game in my personal gaming history, and Lara Croft showed me that women can be badass adventurers just as well as men, if not better.
At the time, Tomb Raider was considered the pinnacle experience. But when you look back, the biggest peak was Lara's triangular breasts. Including a ground up remake of AnniversaryAnd the most recent remasterThe original Tomb Raider still feels like it's not living up to its potential. Its slower pace and jankier platforming are somewhat off-putting to today's teenagers, including my own. I was afraid it would always be like this. That is, until the trailer for Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis was revealed at The Game Awards.
Tomb Raider: Underworld is finally getting some love for the Legacy of Atlantis skin
Lara's most iconic underworld look can be yours in Legacy of Atlantis.
The game ages in myriad ways
Graphics are always the most noticeable upgrade when it comes to remasters or remakes, but with many games there is much more that would have been upgraded if the title was made today. Tomb Raider is a great example of this.
Take the famous T-Rex fight. While the anniversary makes it feel more epic compared to the original from a decade ago, there's still a huge disconnect between players, characters and threats. Some of this has been mitigated slightly by graphical upgrades, but this issue seems to be in the past.
The fights in the game felt intense back then but are laughably basic these days. Look at the two basic hitbars without any numbers or information of any kind. Green is good, red is bad. Guns fire, fences go down. The first death to strike Red. There are no tricks to learn beyond just 'move out of the way', and no combat techniques to master beyond 'press to shoot'.
There is absolutely zero nuance to combat in the original Tomb Raider. Back then it was fun to fire two pistols at a tiger, but now? We modern games and the main appeal of 1996's Tomb Raider boils down to story and vintage value. Take away those flashbacks and rose-tinted glasses and I can totally understand why my kids wouldn't want to engage with the basic gameplay to get to the story.
The only part of the game that really holds up is the plot. It is a story of exploration, adventure, betrayal, and drama with a climactic finale. All elements are essential to great storytelling. While we have a 2013 reboot of the series to add more modern gameplay elements, that game's Lara Croft is very different from the original. I enjoyed the 2013 title, but it didn't feel quite as Tomb Raider as I expected, offering a very different experience.
A combination of past and present
Watching the trailer for Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, the most important thing was that those story elements from the first game seemed intact, but combined with modern gameplay mechanics that gave me Uncharted vibes.
Lara can be seen jumping off cliffs, swimming underwater, rearranging cogs, and making huge jumps while holding on to ledges. These core elements of the original game are now performed by a Lara who looks more human and less caricature-like, and who brings you into the action with more realistic moves and motions.
We get a glimpse of an iconic Lara vs. Dinosaur fight, but it feels even scarier here, despite having no idea how the battle might have changed. While part of it is the realism in the graphics, it's also the simple things, like the angles you look at things. In the 1990s, few developers considered how low angles could be used to make a threat appear more dangerous, but they do now. As technology has improved over the decades, developers now have more ways than ever to fully bring their ideas to life.
Meet the current generation where they are
My kids are teenagers, and they've all played games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Baldur's Gate 3, or Resident Evil Village, and one of them is surprisingly good at soul games. Although, as parents, we managed to successfully instill in them a love of classic 80s and 90s movies, the same cannot be said for games.
Don't get me wrong, they will engage with older games, but it's really only the classics like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Spyro titles that have their attention. And even with these, they gravitate more towards modern titles than older ones.
The main technology limitations when it comes to gameplay mechanics in pre-2000 games meant that nothing outside of puzzle titles and simple platformers could compete with equivalent titles today. That's why I'm so excited to see Lara's original story ported into a completely modern game with up-to-date mechanics. It also parallels her outfit and dual pistols to create a bridge between the past and the present that I hope my children will happily pass on. I want them to know that I first met Lara Croft when I was their age, and Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis.
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