• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Releases on February 14, 2024 (Switch, PS4/5, XBX/S, PC)

kuncol02

Banned
I'm surprised by the positives reactions here, I thought it looked awful and like a mobile game :messenger_confused:
Even Tomb Raider Anniversary still looks much better than this.
New graphics look really bad in TR. They should look at Quake and Quake 2 remasters from Nightdive how to update graphics of old game without destroying game style. I swear both looks exactly how I remember them to look when they were released.
 

Elios83

Member
The gameplay is designed around tank controls anything else would brake the gameplay

Indeed but in the trailer the textures have been changed considerably and it doesn't seem like you can see the seams between the blocks anymore. That does not seem to be functional if they're keeping the grid system at a gameplay level.
I guess we'll need to see more footage to clear these doubts.
 

Wildebeest

Member
Combat in the original games was not good. The optimal strategy was to stand still and have Lara just trade blows with the targets like a Final Fantasy game. The design of fun John Woo gunplay was already broken by the implementation.
 

JimboJones

Member
i noticed jiggle physics at the 6 or 7 second mark in the trailer , can anyone confirm?
Figuring Out Super Mario GIF by Mario + Rabbids

Working Super Troopers GIF
 

radewagon

Member
The gameplay is designed around tank controls anything else would brake the gameplay
Not really. It would be an awkward fit to be sure. Considering how important the grid is in ensuring that Lara can properly execute her jumps, full 3D controls would probably be harder to play with in a lot of ways, but I think a bit of time to adjust would clear that right up. That back step hop to make a perfect jump would likely be cumbersome. If you think about it though, the tank controls are only really noticeable when Lara is at a standstill. Once she starts running, the game kind of shifts to a regular 3D movement model where moving left and right moves you in that direction vs. making her pivot in place like a tank. On top of that, unlike a game like OG Resident Evil, the tank controls do not create as many situations where directional inputs being locked to Lara's position vs. the camera's position conflict with each other because the camera often locks itself behind Lara.

Anyway, I don't think either choice would be a dealbreaker, but I do hope we get the choice.
 

DaGwaphics

Member


It's good to see them get added to the newer systems.

I do wish they had been remastered in the way that the Insane Collection was. Where they keep the core game exactly as it is, but rework the art to be as modern as possible. I thought the Crash remaster came out great, a missed opportunity with this one.
 

Fart Knight

Al Pachinko, Konami President
It's good to see them get added to the newer systems.

I do wish they had been remastered in the way that the Insane Collection was. Where they keep the core game exactly as it is, but rework the art to be as modern as possible. I thought the Crash remaster came out great, a missed opportunity with this one.

Insane collection?
 

DaGwaphics

Member
Insane collection?

I guess the correct name is the N. Sane collection, the original Crash Bandicoot remaster is what I was referring to. I would have liked to have seen a remaster like that, leave the basic outlines of the interactive part of the maps alone, leave the controls alone, but do a massive overhaul on the art, especially the backgrounds and things that you aren't really interacting with.



I think a treatment like that would have been great for these games. Obviously, the really square nature of the platforms would have to be maintained since that is a big part of the play style for these games, but things could certainly look a lot better outside of that.
 
Last edited:

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Can somebody please tell me if these include the PC exclusive levels?

edit: answer is yes accordin to the playstation blog!
 
Last edited:

Krathoon

Gold Member
I like that it is keeping the level design and just using better textures and effects.

It is like how Ocarina of Time was tweaked up on the DS.
 
Last edited:

DaGwaphics

Member
Now that I watched the entire trailer ( :messenger_winking_tongue: ), I see that some parts of it do kind of look the way that I would imagine them for a remaster. LOL, that opening comparison is the least impressive one, I thought it was just a port of the PC release after that.
 

Quezacolt

Member
I do wish they had been remastered in the way that the Insane Collection was. Where they keep the core game exactly as it is, but rework the art to be as modern as possible. I thought the Crash remaster came out great, a missed opportunity with this one.
The Crash collection was a remake, not a remaster.

It's the same way as shadow of the colossus remake and demon's souls. Everything was made from the groundup, but they reused the code so it would play and feel the same as the originals.
 

Fake

Member
I guess the correct name is the N. Sane collection, the original Crash Bandicoot remaster is what I was referring to. I would have liked to have seen a remaster like that, leave the basic outlines of the interactive part of the maps alone, leave the controls alone, but do a massive overhaul on the art, especially the backgrounds and things that you aren't really interacting with.



I think a treatment like that would have been great for these games. Obviously, the really square nature of the platforms would have to be maintained since that is a big part of the play style for these games, but things could certainly look a lot better outside of that.


This is a trick comparison. Crash is a cartoon character, instead of Lara Croft being a boobs badass girl, so was easy to translate the remake of the first Crash Bandicoot because Crash games are all about silly, fuzzy and gooffy stuff, they never intended to push realism or graphics to begin with, while Tomb Raider was trying to simulate a real woman inside the game, but limited by the time technology.

Even so, if I remember right TR 1 indeed got like a remake, with different gameplay.
Characters like Crash, Mario, Sonic, Klonoa, they are all more easily to hit with a remake, while realistic character like Nathan Drake, Doom guy, Indiana Jones, etc... remakes not always do wonders to those characters.
 
Last edited:

DaGwaphics

Member
This is a trick comparison. Crash is a cartoon character, instead of Lara Croft being a boobs badass girl, so was easy to translate the remake of the first Crash Bandicoot because Crash games are all about silly, fuzzy and gooffy stuff, they never intended to push realism or graphics to begin with, while Tomb Raider was trying to simulate a real woman inside the game, but limited by the time technology.

Even so, if I remember right TR 1 indeed got like a remake, with different gameplay.
Characters like Crash, Mario, Sonic, Klonoa, they are all more easily to hit with a remake, while realistic character like Nathan Drake, Doom guy, Indiana Jones, etc... remakes not always do wonders to those characters.

I was purely talking from a graphics perspective. Honestly, the character they've gone with for this seems fine.
 

Drizzlehell

Banned
I only became interested in this series with the release of Tomb Raider Legend. I never liked the tank controls of those older games. It just screams "we came out at a time when analog controls weren't a thing yet" and honestly, they just feel stiff and awkward. Pretty much every third person action-platformer from that era is like that unless it controlled like an FPS with kb+m.
 
Last edited:
What do you mean by "modernised control scheme"? The game is basically played as a grid system. Everything is done by "squares".


I'm sure this will be the least popular comment in here though so bring on the hate, lmao.
No. You're right and the laugh emojis make no fucking sense. The game cannot have it's control scheme changed. Everything is literally built around it.
 
Yes, and this gameplay was already modernized(in the same generation):

hqdefault.jpg


If just one well known developer had stuck with this design and tried to evolve it instead of completely dropping it, we would have witnessed the evolution of grid platforming already. It would take a developer to do it against all odds though, much like King's Field to Demon's Souls to Dark Souls.

Edit: They just have to make it feel slightly better to control, not automate grapples or anything crazy.

I'm struggling to understand the comparison. Both games were built from the ground up. Tomb Raiders controls are a necessity of its level design. Legacy of kain isn't built on a grid, tomb raider is.
Indeed but in the trailer the textures have been changed considerably and it doesn't seem like you can see the seams between the blocks anymore. That does not seem to be functional if they're keeping the grid system at a gameplay level.
I guess we'll need to see more footage to clear these doubts.
My dude this didn't make any sense. I don't even know how to come at this. The grid based design doesn't depend on "seams between blocks." The seams in the original are simply a graphical quirk of the system and the primitive graphics/large polygons. Grid based just means block based...picture everything being made out of like sized blocks ala Minecraft. If they're going to implement modern controls it breaks the gameplay as it's been designed around the grid...if that's what you want then play the tomb raider remake that already exists.
 

TLZ

Banned
Completely unrelated. Onimusha doesn’t require precision jumping, or jumping at all.
Does it matter?

Also, I find it really hard to believe they release it to current audience in tank controls. These belong on the PS1. I think they'd like to sell their collection.
 

Alan Wake

Member
Loved Tomb Raider on my Saturn back in the day but I don't know how I'd feel about this today. Maybe I'd dive in to play TR2 and 3.
 
I'm struggling to understand the comparison. Both games were built from the ground up. Tomb Raiders controls are a necessity of its level design. Legacy of kain isn't built on a grid, tomb raider is.
I'll try to explain why I consider Soul Reaver to be on the same track as Tomb Raider. Apologies in advance for the long post.

I do not consider the Tomb Raider games to be in their own bubble when it comes to platforming. I think that those games are an evolution from what we were used to seeing in 2D grid based platformers with games such as Prince of Persia, Flashback, OddWorld, etc.

I consider this an evolution path: Prince of Persia ---> Flashback ---> Oddworld

I also consider this to be the 3d evolution path that spawned from the above path: Tomb Raider ---> Indiana Jones N64 ---> Soul Reaver

(I am aware that Indy technically released after Soul Reaver, but humor me for a bit)

Indiana Jones N64 shares very, very close similarities when it comes to it's platforming and level design, to Tomb Raider. However, he controlled better because his movement was not confined to a specific confined variation of tank controls. You didn't need to make him pull out his guns and target an enemy so that he could simply strafe or turn on a dime. Instead, you could move him around in a way that's closer to other 3d games at the time, but you still had to line him up for jumps and play very carefully due to the game requiring it for progression and survival. This means that the character control of that Indiana game didn't suffer as much as TR, as the character controls were not supposed to be the main attraction of the Tomb Raider games in the first place, it was always the level design and the fear of failing a calculated jump or sequence.

Soul Reaver evolved the TR control of the character, by making the controls feel much, much smoother than the other two games I've listed. However, it still relied on many grid based level design features and puzzles even though the character could freely walk in 3d. You still had to line up quite a few jumps. You still had to avoid certain pitfalls. You still had to solve sometimes very obtuse and jumping puzzles by taking a step back and surveying your environment, sometimes through multiple moments of failure. It just did all of these things in a way that didn't completely lock you into very, very slow turning and walking animations like TR and to a lesser extent Indiana Jones.

However, if Soul Reaver did not have it's parachute mechanic and wasn't as forgiving with deaths/had more traps, it would be much easier for me to point this out. I think that people don't view it in the same category as those two games because of these two things that ease the user experience, but it definitely, heavily shares DNA with the other two games.

What should have happened after Soul Reaver was that the PS2 Tomb Raider game(Angel of Darkness) should have taken what's there from it's competitors, while keeping it's own soul, and evolving all of this another step further. If you look at footage of Angel of Darkness, you can clearly see that's where they were going to take things. It was going to do both and Lara would feel much better to control(finally no tank controls) while keeping the grid platforming and difficulty.

Angel of Darkness' problem wasn't necessarily the character control, it was behind the scenes turmoil. Eidos made too many mistakes. Yearly releases for every TR game slowly degraded the value of Tomb Raider and degraded the developers themselves to multiple projects of questionable quality after TR 3, due to working on all of the I.P. like a sports game franchise. They scrapped the story and designs of AoD twice before arriving to a final decision, upper management wanted to compete with too many heavy hitters of the PS2 gen, the game was going to be episodic at some point so some content was forcefully cut, the story was all over the place, the level design was half assed, and then finally you weren't even raiding tombs.

Everything about AoD was a mess, arguably except one thing: Lara was finally able to move around like a 3d character. They finally did it. In the one game where they finally started to fix her movement and evolve it, it just happened to be their biggest franchise bomb.

I want grid based difficult platforming to return one day, but it has to be done right. The biggest obstacle, tank controls, have to go. Only a subsection, of a subsection, of a subsection, of a subsection of gamers want tank controls anymore. Difficult platforming can be done right without it, but fans of TR have to acknowledge that TR 3 should never have been seen as the pinnacle of this type of design because it never reached a pinnacle to begin with. It was cut off at the knees.
 

emivita

Member
I'll try to explain why I consider Soul Reaver to be on the same track as Tomb Raider. Apologies in advance for the long post.

I do not consider the Tomb Raider games to be in their own bubble when it comes to platforming. I think that those games are an evolution from what we were used to seeing in 2D grid based platformers with games such as Prince of Persia, Flashback, OddWorld, etc.

I consider this an evolution path: Prince of Persia ---> Flashback ---> Oddworld

I also consider this to be the 3d evolution path that spawned from the above path: Tomb Raider ---> Indiana Jones N64 ---> Soul Reaver

(I am aware that Indy technically released after Soul Reaver, but humor me for a bit)

Indiana Jones N64 shares very, very close similarities when it comes to it's platforming and level design, to Tomb Raider. However, he controlled better because his movement was not confined to a specific confined variation of tank controls. You didn't need to make him pull out his guns and target an enemy so that he could simply strafe or turn on a dime. Instead, you could move him around in a way that's closer to other 3d games at the time, but you still had to line him up for jumps and play very carefully due to the game requiring it for progression and survival. This means that the character control of that Indiana game didn't suffer as much as TR, as the character controls were not supposed to be the main attraction of the Tomb Raider games in the first place, it was always the level design and the fear of failing a calculated jump or sequence.

Soul Reaver evolved the TR control of the character, by making the controls feel much, much smoother than the other two games I've listed. However, it still relied on many grid based level design features and puzzles even though the character could freely walk in 3d. You still had to line up quite a few jumps. You still had to avoid certain pitfalls. You still had to solve sometimes very obtuse and jumping puzzles by taking a step back and surveying your environment, sometimes through multiple moments of failure. It just did all of these things in a way that didn't completely lock you into very, very slow turning and walking animations like TR and to a lesser extent Indiana Jones.

However, if Soul Reaver did not have it's parachute mechanic and wasn't as forgiving with deaths/had more traps, it would be much easier for me to point this out. I think that people don't view it in the same category as those two games because of these two things that ease the user experience, but it definitely, heavily shares DNA with the other two games.

What should have happened after Soul Reaver was that the PS2 Tomb Raider game(Angel of Darkness) should have taken what's there from it's competitors, while keeping it's own soul, and evolving all of this another step further. If you look at footage of Angel of Darkness, you can clearly see that's where they were going to take things. It was going to do both and Lara would feel much better to control(finally no tank controls) while keeping the grid platforming and difficulty.

Angel of Darkness' problem wasn't necessarily the character control, it was behind the scenes turmoil. Eidos made too many mistakes. Yearly releases for every TR game slowly degraded the value of Tomb Raider and degraded the developers themselves to multiple projects of questionable quality after TR 3, due to working on all of the I.P. like a sports game franchise. They scrapped the story and designs of AoD twice before arriving to a final decision, upper management wanted to compete with too many heavy hitters of the PS2 gen, the game was going to be episodic at some point so some content was forcefully cut, the story was all over the place, the level design was half assed, and then finally you weren't even raiding tombs.

Everything about AoD was a mess, arguably except one thing: Lara was finally able to move around like a 3d character. They finally did it. In the one game where they finally started to fix her movement and evolve it, it just happened to be their biggest franchise bomb.

I want grid based difficult platforming to return one day, but it has to be done right. The biggest obstacle, tank controls, have to go. Only a subsection, of a subsection, of a subsection, of a subsection of gamers want tank controls anymore. Difficult platforming can be done right without it, but fans of TR have to acknowledge that TR 3 should never have been seen as the pinnacle of this type of design because it never reached a pinnacle to begin with. It was cut off at the knees.

The only good Soul Reaver was the first one, sequels sucked. And controls were imprecise and laggy even in the DC version I played.

Classic TRs improved gameplay, controls and level design up to III, then started to introduce shitty mechanics like rope jumps. AOD still had tank controls, but imprecise and laggy as hell, the worst TR in that department.
 
The only good Soul Reaver was the first one, sequels sucked. And controls were imprecise and laggy even in the DC version I played.

Classic TRs improved gameplay, controls and level design up to III, then started to introduce shitty mechanics like rope jumps. AOD still had tank controls, but imprecise and laggy as hell, the worst TR in that department.
I'm sorry you had that experience with Soul Reaver 1's controls as I did not 🤷‍♂️

Regarding AOD, I'm not saying they had finally perfected 3d controls with Lara, I'm saying they had made a positive attempt at making it better in 3d. What they had developed was this weird hybrid that, again, never got a chance to really evolve beyond that because that entire design philosophy of grid based gameplay behind TR was abandoned not long after that game (when Crystal Dynamics took over). Lara's range of motion in AOD(on the ground) was better than her range of motion in the PS1 games. It ultimately doesn't matter though because everything around that range of motion was worse. That was the point I was getting at and hopefully this explains my earlier post better.

Ultimately I just wanted to explain my reasoning to UnravelKatharsis UnravelKatharsis though. I'm aware that there's no convincing old school tomb raider fans that there is potentially a better version of TR 3's character control that theoretically could exist. It sucks, because I fully believe that old school TR fans and it's specific genre will die on that hill and fade into obscurity. I'm just glad that other genres and modes of control managed to find a path to evolve beyond their first 3d iterations, even something as old as Doomlikes.
 
Top Bottom