Last time, I made some hasty complaints before realizing I might just be wrong about them. Specifically about Lara not being as safe around ledges as she was originally. I wasn't using the walk function at all this time. So I went to the manor again to test that out. I should point out that I lost some screenshots last time, so I had to replay sections of the manor after that. It turns out that the manor does save, but only after you've started a real game. Okay...
I also spot a room I didn't notice before. The pool room, now under construction. The reason why I miss some of these doors is that one door on the ground floor doesn't open and the other quits the level. Not exactly helpful for ensuring the player knows where he can go. So let's get into some of the movement.
Anyway, movement. In the original, you knew exactly where Lara could go at any moment. You knew where Lara could reach because she could reach anything that was within jumping distance. Anniversary tries to be like that. It works about 80% of the time. In this regard perhaps Tomb Raider is the easier of the two games. Anniversary obfuscates what you can do whereas the only challenge in the original is just figuring out a path. This seems to run counter to wisdom about this version.
I note that no matter what you do, be it walk, run or sneak, Lara will happily go off the edge, with only grabbing preventing Lara from, say, falling into a massive pit with spikes at the bottom.
Since this is from a time when you can show stuff you can't interact with, we have stuff Lara can't interact with, like these metal construction bars. Lara can't climb these for some reason. I hate to pull this card, because while some players can do things that a player character can't, they can rarely do things for as long, but I, a somewhat athletic person, could probably climb up a construction bar. Lara cannot. Lara can do some fancy spinning move but can't climb up one? This is of course a classic problem with realistic environments, obstacles that characters should be able to overcome cannot because that would break the game.
Starting off in this section, I spot a stack of crates Lara can climb up. This leads to a pole and then a balcony Lara can shimmey across. At the end is a wooden catwalk. There's a spear with a grappling hook bit on it, but I need to climb down to pull it down. That allows me on top of one balcony on either end of the room. At which point I get stuck and start pondering how you should be able to reach the other side and how you could.
Several bit pieces I've already figured out are; A rotating statue next to spears on the ground with something that opens like the medusa head from last time. The other statue is off the rotating bit. Why Lara can't just push the rotating bit back onto the niche is a question that will never be answered. The second is a statue held up by ropes, Lara has to break three to drop it onto the pool, no doubt to break the wood. I've already taken out one. Another is on the other side and the third is on a balcony I shimmeyed across but can't reach. Despite shooting the first one, I can't hit the second rope from here despite seeing it.
The third is a see-saw that was attached to a rope. Lara can grapple it, but it doesn't do much. There's a crate above it, but I can't do anything to it. I take a couple of days off and come back. I don't know the solution now, but at least I have a fresh face. I find the remaining parts quite by accident. You can move a nearby box of pipes on the first balcony to take the place of the other statue. This spawns a target and then opens part of something in the pool below.
So the way to the other balcony is to pull a seemingly innocent box of scrap between what was otherwise a dead end on the upper level and an unreachable platform. This creates a point that Lara can jump on. Over here is the second pulley, easily destroyed, and another pressure plate puzzle. It's not difficult, use the grappling hook on Atlas and it opens an entrance in the pool below. The see-saw connects to this section, that's not too hard either, get the other end of it high enough you can reach the other side, but not so high you slide off. That leads to the third pulley.
This opens the pool, and gets me a bow. Yeah, all that for a bow. I was expecting to find a spanner or something down here, since I need something to turn on the water. I guess this is going to turn out like all adventure games, you wander around for an hour only to find out the spanner was you all along.
I figure out the gym by accident, another one of those swinging bars. I'm starting to find these annoying. A lever there turns a bar which opens a path...? The game decides not to introduce this until you have to do it, but there are pillars Lara can hug and jump off of. It isn't a bad idea on paper, but it's hard to aim. Finally, on top of the raised platform is a wrench. Lara says she lost it. How the heck do you lose something up here?
That leaves the niche with one of the artifacts. You can't easily reach any of the slopes to that artifact, which means I'm missing something or this game expects you to do a jump even the original Tomb Raider didn't expect you to do. You just have to get lucky and sooner or late you can reach the final artifact in here.
At this point, everything is smooth sailing, albeit a bit tedious. I go to the pipe output, use the wrench and open the water taps.
Go back into the garden maze, get some water and put in the bow I got from the pool statue. Either way you have to go back into the house, talk about annoying. That gets the arrow from behind the fireplace, then using the arrow on the other side of the statue gets me a music box piece.
That opens the final upstairs door and the music room. This completes the level, though I'm missing one artifact, despite getting three from the garden maze, must be one somewhere in the mansion. It's not in the pool or the gym, because I connected the path there and found nothing. I'll just leave it at that.
Back to the main game, a bear passes by a door in the distance. You know what I hate about modern game design? How anything remotely dangerous is told to you so far in advance it's not a threat at all. I'm sure that bear appearing is some preset event. Probably because it then starts charging at me. Lock on with right click, yeah, you told me that. Then I can do moves like adrenaline dodge (bullet time dodging, basically) and head shot. I would if the game would stop stopping dead in its tracks, can't do it that way, game.
After a very sad wolf ambush, I'm in the City of Vilcabamba. There's another bear, which really feels like the tone this city succeeded at. Oh, it's there. I grant that the original didn't feel much like a city either, but this feels sadder. If the level statistics are right, there's only one secret here. Lame.
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| Some of these pop-ups are helpful, others are so patently absurd as to cross over to the comedic. |
So the pool, it's still there and its also lame. But lamer still are the swimming controls. Regular movement controls basically shifted to underwater, with crouch going down and jump going up. I do not like it, and I do not like the more realistic air meter. They lack the elegant simplicity of the original and even discounting its status as a remake they are simply awful in general.
This seems to no longer be an optional section, but required to advance, because the game makes a checkpoint after I go out the other end. This also corresponds with the room you start in to advance through the level proper from the original. Its kind of weird, because I thought the ledge here was something that lead to a secret and left it for later.
This leads to the room with the first push block. At first it's almost exactly the same, breakable floor, but you can reach the item it's leading to anyway. It's a mummy now rather than random piece of wall, which leads to a room with a key. Upstairs isn't the path forward, it just has a medikit and a pack of shells, of which is my second, I forgot where the first was.
I may have to come back here, because I know there's something up there, but the key opens the gate forward. More wolves, I hear them before I shoot them. Two of them. Did I put this on easy mode by mistake? I could have sworn I picked normal, this is a cakewalk. Reminder, I have to stop in my tracks to take screenshots in this game, and they're not giving me any trouble. Even if they did Lara respawns with full health.
Another wolf, and its that grand entrance. Looks grander than the one in the original, but I can tell they removed the cool bits. I just have to do something here to open this door, like in the first level. Oh, wait, that's an entrance.
Up top you jump onto to...wooden lever to activate some complex gate mechanism. Not that I buy into it, but didn't people complain that the mechanical bits in the original were a bit goofy, let alone this? The other path is more or less the same as the first one. The gate opens, but I'm not done here yet.
The path up to the artifact took me a long time to figure out. One of the problems of this era was when realism was just enough there to depict an environment where you could do all sorts of things, but the designers didn't let you do all those things and it became a case of guessing the level designer's intentions. There are a lot of things that Lara should be able to do that she can't. When I finally figured it out I was shocked it took me so long, I was trying to construct a path, and I didn't figure out that I could use the crate in the one room out here, then climb onto a huggable pillar. I even tried to get onto a house first, but they were impassable slopes.
Once up, its a simple matter, jump over some ledges, grappling hook across a large gap, shimmey to the left, jump over more ledges, grab the artifact. Oh, and kill some bats, because we needed to do that.
Going forward now, we're at another random broken hallway. What was the original doing here? A series of swinging blades? That's going to pop up in a minute, I know it. Down is some shells and a wolf. This isn't tricky, its just there to introduce the sliding ledge. While reaching the final ledge, I didn't have grab pressed and I noticed that Lara gets an extra second of hangtime, almost begging you to press it. Its very noticeable considering how much of a pressing force gravity is in this game. There's another hallway like this, only with a dart trap. I discover that the fancy climb up animation is in this game too, albeit in a way that's hard to pull off with the default control scheme.
That's the city, and now for the Lost Valley. This one is very different. Just one path, up the waterfall. There are still wolves, of course, but two of them, off in a corner where the entrance to the valley should have been. One of the cogs is just right here.
Okay, there are two paths, but one requires all the cogs...so...you need to cogs to get into the valley? The tomb isn't going to be under the waterfall then? Strange. Well, I go up the waterfall. Its a bit different from the original, nicer even, but then, the path wasn't really the hard part of the level.
Making it to the end, I get another cog...and wait, I have to climb up that. Well, at this point, I've already figured out if there's any difficulty in a level's design, the game will do whatever it can to make that difficulty disappear. In this case, where this leads to is a lever, which opens a gate at the bottom of the waterfalls...it's a secret...with just a small medikit.
This seems to be a path to the valley, finally. Nice little areas you can sort of use the crouch+move buttons to get past. Another bear, I've killed more of these guys here than in the original, and I spot an artifact, but its not clear straight away how to get there. More specifically, it's not clear how to reach the section opposite it, which is where you'd enter it. (A pair of .50 caliber magazines is not worth talking about, this game is more generous with ammo than the original, and that was generous with ammo)
Aha, I think, spotting a path up. This must somehow link to the artifact...only its the path forward. Huh. What I previously identified as the path forward is actually a downward slope. So, the artifact, do a slightly damaging jump onto a roof that slopes downward, jump off and the rest of it is a piece of cake.
Right, another package of shotgun shells. Huh, I can't pick it up. Guess I have a limit? Kind of funny I hit it before I've seen a shotgun. 32 shells, seems low. Wait, the .50 cal magazine pickup gave me 15 rounds from two magazines. WTF. That's just going to bug me the rest of the game. You don't have to be a gun nerd to notice that when you have 2 items that should have the same number of things inside them combine to give you an odd number isn't quite right.
The ledge is somewhat interesting too. That's a giant pit. And another pack of shells. Actually despite saying its interesting, all you really do is jump onto some slopes onto ledges. But it seems neat at least. This would be good practice if the game was going to include any of those slope secrets. I die on the second hallway like this by missing a ledge slightly going for a secret. Just a victim of the camera. Its more tricky getting back, also thanks to the camera. This along with one regular pickup gets me another two big medikits.
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| Quibble, looking at it now, that skybox is lower res than I'd like. |
Finally, the valley. I prefer the mental construct we all had of the original in that it was a secret underground cavern, but this is very nice. Three raptors pop up. One would almost mistake the game for suddenly getting difficult if they weren't easier than the wolves. How disappointing for an enemy that once scared the heck out of me, these are just nuisances. Another set of .50 cal mags. Oh, hang on, another group of three just randomly popped out.
And a cutscene starts. More of them show up, only to be taken out by the T-Rex. Also, QTEs. Lame ones. Really, really lame ones. Press directions and the cutscene continues. This adds absolutely nothing, it was just added because Resident Evil 4 was sucessful during development and they added it in because why not? This continues the trend of this game not just letting you discover the super deadly creature and telling it to you in big, bold letters.
Boss fight, you can do this one of two ways, you can slowly pelt down the enemy's health or you can try to bait it into these spike traps. Bait is a strong word, since all you seem to do is just do the fancy dodge I've barely had to do before, wait a moment for a bullseye to appear, and then he smashes into a spike trap. I nearly killed him the hard way. (This cost me my medikits, hard to believe in this game) Maybe those messages that pop up occasionally are a terrible way to introduce complex moves like that.
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| Adding insult to injury, you can jump on his head. |
More QTEs, and he smashes into the temple, which was unreachable. The way back is also unreachable. Inside is a cog, but remembering the original, I go into the pool, finding another area I can climb it, reaching the top of the temple. (Sadly I missed taking a screenshot of it)
I feel like this is ruining one of the cool bits from the original. You can reach the top of the temple was something genuinely cool there, to have it be required is...eh. It's especially annoying since this is really bad with invisible walls and what seems like it should be reachable but isn't. A lot of these sequences just solve themselves. Here though, there's one problem, one particular bit up here was just not triggering the proper grab action. Dunno if that's because I shouldn't be holding grab after jumping away from a ledge or if the trigger itself is screwy, but it was very aggravating.
The second artifact is kind of annoying to get, if you miss the jump you're actually put on the path forward, in such a way that going backwards is difficult to do. That leaves the relic, and since I've seen almost everything its almost certain I've missed it. (Probably the same with the shotgun, hopefully there's a second) At this point I'm going back the path I've already been. Also, wasn't there supposed to be a second T-Rex in this one? I could have sworn I heard that people complained about "breeding population" and they added in a second.
Ignoring the shotgun shells I seemingly cannot actually ever use, I put the third gear in place and the waterfall parts. But first, like in the original, I'm going to check how it looks upstream.
Turns out I didn't miss the relic. Its just in a random underwater area. Another item used for drinking chicha, if Lara keeps this up she can have a traditional Incan drinking party.
The Tomb of Qualopec. Oh, wow, another hallway like this, they really love this one, don't they? Pillar, pole, two pillars. Nothing below, for once.
Ah, here's the classic bit. You know, modified because it needed to be more decayed. The rolling boulder is still there, only this time you basically have to let it roll you over for it to kill you. It destroys more of the floor, probably for some reason that'll make sense in a moment. It also blocks the way it came, so no peeking at the Scion.
Its at this point that I end up stuck. Down is just some .50 cal magazines. One door I can't reach has some tell-tale ledges, but I can't reach that. Up has a giant medallion hanging, but I can't shoot it from below. I spot a door behind it, which should have an entrance in the hallway I just came from, but doesn't. It takes me a while to realize that the suspiciously light-colored support is capable of being moved.
From there, its a simple matter of moving the block towards the ledges I need. From there I can climb up to the roof of the side where the three doors are, shoot down the medallion and reach the other side. Its a lever, opening one of the doors. That's still here, though I have more questions here than I did in the original. Off to the place I can reach already.
Its a hallway full of dart guns and dodging them while on ledges. Hey, they did the one trick with these that work before the final level. Well, kind of, its not really that difficult. The second lever too, is simple enough, just a spot of climbing up ledges then jump onto a big lever. Back the way I came.
Another hallway. This game seems like its going to run out of ideas sooner than the original did. I find an artifact, quite by accident, falling down here. Its a secret. Its a secret? Falling down is a secret. How bizarre. (This is the only artifact I find here, guess I missed the other one)
Finally the tomb, again. As soon as I approach a cutscene approaches. Qualopec is one of the Triumvirat, the three rulers of the Scion. Lara approaches the man, a bit too closely, and one of his guards falls over on her. Foreshadowing, of course. Lara goes back, grabs the Scion and the tomb shakes. She runs, but the player can see Qualopec stir.
While I don't mind the idea of Qualopec stirring or any of this, this just feels overplayed compared to walking in and all of a sudden something you didn't know was alive falls over. Cutscenes are not the same as finding it out in gameplay.
After avoiding a raptor placed somewhere I'd have to try to reach, we get a cutscene of Lara jumping out of the tomb and reaching Larson. They banter, and Larson says he'll be taking the piece of the Scion. Its a QTE boss, which, frankly, fits Larson. Lara handily beats him up and disarms him of his shotgun.
Cutscene, Lara infiltrates Natla Technologies. Feels a bit overproduced, like an animator's demoreel. Guess that motorcycle scene later isn't going to happen. Also, a lot of angles here make Lara look like she has no eyebrows. Instead of just getting a text document describing St. Francis's Folly, we get video calls between Natla and her hunters. That's right, a video call in a secret mountain village. Something funny is going on with Natla, she has technology far beyond any human design. Next time, Greece.This Session: 4 hours
Total Time: 7 hours
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