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Tomb Raider IV–VI Remastered |OT| "I Wouldn't Worry. We're Not In The Same Class."

Goss Harag

Member
Why are these games so fucking dark? Playing handheld on the Switch. Brightness whacked up to the max. Still can barely see a thing so I'm constantly pressing the + button because you can actually see with the old school graphics.

It was the exact same with the original trilogy remasters.
 

BigLee74

Member
The new quick-save shortcut is amazing.
Elaborate please! I can’t find it in the control map.

Never mind - found it. Could come in very handy, but must remember to make proper saves fairly regularly too. Always save scum my way through TR 😂
 
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SkylineRKR

Member
Definitely, TLR is like a proper sequel to TR1
I hear people say it doesn't match the quality of 2&3 but it's the other way around.
TR1 & TLR are S tier Tomb Raiders.
The only thing that lets TLR down is the lack of iconic music that the original TR has, don't get me wrong the main theme is excellent, but it doesn't have extra tracks that stand out like the original did.
Then again, neither did any of the others past the original.

TLR is the best.

Its a true Tomb Raider game, for the most part. You won't see any humans for many hours. Sometimes they come to hunt you, like in the hub levels. And yeah, After Alexandria the quality nosedives a bit in general. But I felt the same about TR1, which I didn't really like the Atlantis chapters of.

I never really liked TR2 and TR3 much. I bought TR2 at launch and ofcourse I was amazed by it at first. Much more detailed than TR1, more weapons, more action, more locations. Everyone went crazy over it and I caved as well. But I found it a slog to play after I exited Venice. It doubled down on combat, the weakest part of the franchise. And it started to double down on deathtraps too. When I returned to TR1, I found it much more fun to play.

TR3 was a culmination of this, especially on PS1 that game was unfair. It was like Core saying; fuck you. The game actually STARTS with a deathtrap, if you forget or mistime your jump you are immediately game over without being able to do anything. During the first 5 minutes I died due to these spikes, and when I made those I died in quicksand. Without the ability to save whatsoever.
 
Definitely, TLR is like a proper sequel to TR1
I hear people say it doesn't match the quality of 2&3 but it's the other way around.
TR1 & TLR are S tier Tomb Raiders.
Wait...there's people out there that prefer TR3 to The Last Revelation? I really think it all boils down to decreasing sales and IP fatigue from back then.

TR3 feels like TR2 almost entirely. The Last Revelation feels like a proper evolution. The menus, combining items, lots of different weapons, levels that interconnect between each other, new Lara model both in FMVs and gameplay, the script is much more evolved than past games, much more cut scenes, cinematics, more lines, moves, graphics have new effects (TR3 also had some added to be fair), new Lara Croft voice actress, etc...

Btw, a little bit of trivia. I was watching an interview with voice actresses from TR2/3 and TR The Last Revelation, Chronicles, The Angel of Darkness and one of them revealed that when the voice actress for The Last Revelation was hired, she was supposed to play only young Lara...and the previous voice actress was supposed to voice older Lara. Then they decided to stick with only one of them for the entire game:



I always thought it was weird how the one Tomb Raider where Lara has a younger version of herself has a much younger voice actress...but always thought it was odd that she was in the entire game. Seems like the original idea was different.
 
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Reactions: TGO

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
Wait...there's people out there that prefer TR3 to The Last Revelation? I really think it all boils down to decreasing sales and IP fatigue from back then.
Based on reviews for this Remaster...yep
They referring to it as "the worst of Core Design"
And don't single out TLR, to an extent they're right but TLR is fantastic.
I personally think it's on par with the previous Trilogy, with the first title obviously being the best and the last the worst.
I mean it's definitely a worse trilogy of titles, but TLR is up there with TR1 imo.
 

Rivdoric

Member
The IV is probably the best remaster of the whole up to now for me. Only talking about the remaster quality, not the game itself though (Which for me is II, I, IV=III, V=VI 👀)

I-III were good but the IV is another league really. Shaders are beautiful, they added a lot of new curvatures on some blocks, fire animations are improved, contrast & brightness are perfect etc....
It's clearly higher quality than the other 3.
However, to contrast with IV, VI is probably the worst of the whole 6 games. It's still locked to 60 fps, AI is still hilarious, they clearly didn't put a lot of effort into this one.

I WISH, they'll continue improving I-III to be as high quality as IV.

I also wish the resulting sales will be good enough to announce a Legend-Anniversary-Underworld + DLCs remaster.
 
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SkylineRKR

Member
I'd probably take such a remaster, and I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.

I love Legend. It was short, easy but so much fun. Good atmosphere, really vibrant. There was like one big secret per level, and those were actually quite clever. Its such a fun game to knock out over a weekend or so.

Anniversary I don't know. I didn't play it that far. I didn't like the QTE additions.

Underworld is brilliant. It felt more buggy than the last 2, but its so good. Its like Legend, but then with the complexity of classic TR1. Its just that the game ends very suddenly. I wasn't expecting to be at the final stretch. There are only a small few truly expansive levels.
 

Synastry

Member
Guess I'm on the outside looking in cause TR 2 and 3 are my favorite Old school TR games.:messenger_smiling_with_eyes:

TR 4 is nice but there are things I don't like.

TR 1 is cool I finally beat it for the first time thanks to the Remaster and the Save anywhere feature I could never beat it back in the Day.

TR 5 - This Remaster will be my first time Playing it.

I also have the 3 games release on PS3 that features Legends, Underworld and Anniversary Love all there still play then till this day.

I yet to play AOD
 
I never played it but apparently tomb raider 3 started out as an expansion pack, which would explain the increase in difficulty.
Everything about it screams expansion pack tbh.

There's even a cutscene where they forgot to remove the weapon sound from TR2 lmao.

TR3 and The Last Revelation were being worked side by side by 2 different teams. B-team created TR3, while most of the original crew that did 1 and 2 started working on Last Revelation. They asked for more time to actually evolve the series. That's why The Last Revelation feels like a step up.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
I finished City of the Dead. I like this level actually. Its just too dark in the remaster, but other than that I like going around with the bike, opening the way further and finally destroying the turrets.

Everything about it screams expansion pack tbh.

There's even a cutscene where they forgot to remove the weapon sound from TR2 lmao.

TR3 and The Last Revelation were being worked side by side by 2 different teams. B-team created TR3, while most of the original crew that did 1 and 2 started working on Last Revelation. They asked for more time to actually evolve the series. That's why The Last Revelation feels like a step up.

But at the same time TLR kind of underperformed because TR3 burnt out a lot of gamers already. If TLR was TR3, it might've gotten more recognition. Eidos pushing for Chronicles backfired as well. Because Core didn't want to make it and that game was the final nail in the coffin for the franchise, underselling and giving the IP a bad rep. AoD was in development for next-gen PS2 but subsequently crashed and burned, and the IP was pretty much dormant throughout the PS2 generation until Legend came out well into 2006.

TR is one of the worst handled IP in gaming. It was at an absolute peak during 2, with Lara Croft being an icon that also reached mainstream outlets. But pumping out annual copy paste games hurt it. With Underworld they fucked up again, and laid off the staff. And then they fucked up the survivor trilogy too, which started off good but went progressively worse. That timed deal on Rise was kind of retarded in the meantime.
 

Krathoon

Member
Yeah. I get the impession that they mainly just AI enhanced the textures on Angel of Darkness.

Still, it actually works way better than the original. They got rid of the weird crashes.
 

Erebus

Member
TLR has always been my favorite among the classic PS1 games—it truly felt like a proper successor to TR1 in terms of atmosphere and locations. Plus, for its time, it was a noticeable leap in graphical quality, even by PS1 standards.
 

Rivdoric

Member
Guess I'm on the outside looking in cause TR 2 and 3 are my favorite Old school TR games.:messenger_smiling_with_eyes:

TR 4 is nice but there are things I don't like.

TR 1 is cool I finally beat it for the first time thanks to the Remaster and the Save anywhere feature I could never beat it back in the Day.

TR 5 - This Remaster will be my first time Playing it.

I also have the 3 games release on PS3 that features Legends, Underworld and Anniversary Love all there still play then till this day.

I yet to play AOD

TR3 was really uneven to be fair. Some parts like Nevada or South Pacific were great, even scary, but the London Levels are among my worst TR levels because of how weird the levels are built. The metro level made me ALT+F4 several times lmao.
Difficulty is also very tedious, there is no progression at all in TR3 as the second or third level (if memory serves) is probably one of the most difficult one of the whole 6 games lol.

I did a full "no medipack & pistol only" run on all 3 and my gosh III required me to save & load scum so many times it's hilarious !
 
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Rivdoric

Member
Who is the publisher?

Aspyr/Embracer Group but more importantly, all 6 games are being developed by several long-time modders of the original games.
The ones from TR2main i think.
This is why quality and fidelity is of higher standard than other Aspyr remasters.

Edit : whoops, could have simply added that answer to my message above. Apologies.
 
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TR is one of the worst handled IP in gaming. It was at an absolute peak during 2, with Lara Croft being an icon that also reached mainstream outlets. But pumping out annual copy paste games hurt it. With Underworld they fucked up again, and laid off the staff. And then they fucked up the survivor trilogy too, which started off good but went progressively worse. That timed deal on Rise was kind of retarded in the meantime.
I mean, TR2 literally had "featuring Lara Croft" written on the cover of the game like sh was a famous actress. That's kind of insane when you think about it.
I am hoping that they eventually upgrade all the NPC models in Angel of Darkness.
They probably will tbh.
 
TR3 was really uneven to be fair. Some parts like Nevada or South Pacific were great, even scary, but the London Levels are among my worst TR levels because of how weird the levels are built. The metro level made me ALT+F4 several times lmao.
Difficulty is also very tedious, there is no progression at all in TR3 as the second or third level (if memory serves) is probably one of the most difficult one of the whole 6 games lol.

I did a full "no medipack & pistol only" run on all 3 and my gosh III required me to save & load scum so many times it's hilarious !
That's what you get by wanting the user to choose what levels to play next. The london levels are an insult. That metro level made me scream out loud. Everything looks the same and i have no idea how i managed to finish it last year. In fact i think that was the last level i played before dropping TR3 lmao.
 

Rivdoric

Member
That's what you get by wanting the user to choose what levels to play next. The london levels are an insult. That metro level made me scream out loud. Everything looks the same and i have no idea how i managed to finish it last year. In fact i think that was the last level i played before dropping TR3 lmao.

Just imagine unsuspecting players playing London & South Pacific first then launching Nevada and discovering that the second level removes all your looted gear forever 👀👌.
 
I also wish the resulting sales will be good enough to announce a Legend-Anniversary-Underworld + DLCs remaster.

I'm going to take a guess and say that the TR I-III collection is probably one of Aspyr's best selling remasters overall. Maybe even the best selling remaster of 2024? TRIV-VI will probably do pretty well, with Angel of Darkness being a draw. But it is also something that people who will want a complete set of the classic games will want. Plus with TRI-III dropping to $20.00... not on sale prices... Both would make a good purchase when bought together.

I feel like a remaster collection like this should have happened to Tomb Raider I - V at least a decade ago. Better late than never, I suppose. Plus they managed to get Angel of Darkness. Also, the first time that the classic series was made available for a Nintendo console, as well as the Xbox.

On Steam/ PC , the I-III remasters can run on the lowest of end hardware. I ran Tomb Raider I-III remasters on an old I5 2500k, 24GB RAM, using Linux Mint and the Steam Client with Proton and the games ran with no hitches. That was using Steam on Linux. The games looked nice on a 4:3 monitor. The game scales the aspect ratio automatically to any monitor size.
 
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Rivdoric

Member
I'm pretty sure TR I-III is probably one of Aspyr's best selling remasters. TRIV-VI will probably do pretty well, with Angel of Darkness being a draw. But it is also something that people who will want a complete set of the classic games will want. Plus with TRI-III dropping to $20.00... not on sale prices... Both would make a good purchase when bought together.

I feel like a remaster collection like this should have happened to Tomb Raider I - V at least a decade ago. Better late than never, I suppose. Plus they managed to get Angel of Darkness. Also, the first time that the classic series was made available for a Nintendo console, as well as the Xbox.

On Steam/ PC , the I-III remasters can run on the lowest of end hardware. I ran Tomb Raider I-III remasters on an old I5 2500k, 24GB RAM, using Linux Mint and the Steam Client with Proton and the games ran with no hitches. That was using Steam on Linux. The games looked nice on a 4:3 monitor. The game scales the aspect ratio automatically to any monitor size.

Proton is a real marvel indeed, the main reason the Steam Deck is so good and linux gaming breakthrough.
I also ran these remasters on my Deck and to think i'm able to play my good old Tomb Raider with fancy new graphics on my bed @5-6W power is a 35yo kid dream come true lol.
I remember as a child always hoping one day such a PC device would release.
 
Proton is a real marvel indeed, the main reason the Steam Deck is so good and linux gaming breakthrough.
I also ran these remasters on my Deck and to think i'm able to play my good old Tomb Raider with fancy new graphics on my bed @5-6W power is a 35yo kid dream come true lol.
I remember as a child always hoping one day such a PC device would release.

I've been using Proton since the first beta releases back in 2017-2018? I've been using Steam since the first betas back in 2013. It is incredible to see how much the Linux version of Steam has evolved since then.

When the Steam version of TRI-III was released, there was a weird stuttering problem on Windows 11, that could be solved through some simple solution. Playing it on Proton and a Steam Deck, the stuttering issue was not there. Same with Proton on Linux Steam. Still.. you are going to get much better performance on Windows overall and better compatibility. But Proton is incredible in its own right.

Over time Both TRI-III and TRIV-VI will be sold at a bundle price of $40-$50 dollars. Easy way to obtain all the classic TR games with some additional content like the GOTY stuff from the PC. The remastered textures and updates are satisfactory for the most part.

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These above images were taken while using an old Dell 4:3 1280x1024 LCD flat panel. I think the game looks great on a 4:3 monitor. The menus do not scale down to 4:3. Which is not a huge issue. I do not own Tomb Raider IV to VI yet. I will probably buy them at a later date. They will sit in my pile of shame for a while, anyway.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
TR is one of the worst handled IP in gaming. It was at an absolute peak during 2, with Lara Croft being an icon that also reached mainstream outlets. But pumping out annual copy paste games hurt it.
That was simply par for the course at the time. 12-18 months were enough to pump out a sequel, and most studios that made a half-successful game did just that. Capcom didn’t do much different with Resident Evil, and many IPs got at least to game #2 on the PS1. TR just set a ridiculously high bar from the start, it wouldn’t be easy for anyone to keep that quality while trying to up the ante and do something new with every iteration. TR burned out fast, but what they managed to do with it was impressive nonetheless.
Rest assured, if dev times weren’t as long as they’ve become now, we’d have 3 or 4 Horizon games already.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
Just imagine unsuspecting players playing London & South Pacific first then launching Nevada and discovering that the second level removes all your looted gear forever 👀👌.

TR3 was uneven in so many aspects and then the PSX version had the save system of TR1, with the 'benefit' that you could use the crystal at will. Which could cause issues as well.

I never saw the appeal of this game. Straight from the cluttered slide and almost invisible quicksand textures in the first India level I knew it was a worse game than 1 and 2, especially on PSX which clearly struggled to run it. The game never got better or eased up at least.

And yes, you can fuck up by doing Nevada last and basically lacking firepower. Ofcourse there are cheats but still.
 
TR3 was uneven in so many aspects and then the PSX version had the save system of TR1, with the 'benefit' that you could use the crystal at will. Which could cause issues as well.
When i was replaying TR3 all i could think of was..."that's right...i didn't even have unlimited save games". We have it easy nowadays, lol.

But TR3 really did a number on this IP back then. I remember the difficulty really turned people off and i was a kid.
 

emivita

Member
You're all shitting on TR3, but can we all at least agree that TR3 has the best soundtrack in the series?












And these are only my most favorite bangers. And you can all shit on TR3 how much you want, it still remains my favorite TR. Peak of globetrotting pleasure that any other TR doesn't have, fantastic level design and atmosphere, the best weapons, and also the best Lara.
 

MrJangles

Member
You're all shitting on TR3, but can we all at least agree that TR3 has the best soundtrack in the series?












And these are only my most favorite bangers. And you can all shit on TR3 how much you want, it still remains my favorite TR. Peak of globetrotting pleasure that any other TR doesn't have, fantastic level design and atmosphere, the best weapons, and also the best Lara.


Its a fantastic game. So much content for TR fans to get their teeth stuck into. Beats me why it gets a negative rap by some.
 

Rivdoric

Member
You're all shitting on TR3, but can we all at least agree that TR3 has the best soundtrack in the series?



This one is my favourite.
Funny enough, i think you can only hear that version on Bartoli's Hideout.
But we can all agree on the fact that all 3 games have some incredible tracks.
 
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