Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Tomb Raider: Anniversary is a remake of the original, a decade older Tomb Raider (1996). Essentially, Anniversary recreates the original in a newer engine with expanded environments and tells its story in a more comprehensible manner that was also altered to fit the following events of Tomb Raider: Legend. In Anniversary, Lara is hired by a rich businesswoman Jacqueline Natla to find an artifact called Scion of Atlantis.

Re-imagining of a classic

For some reason, every character in the game pronounces scion with a hard c, as "ski-on", when it should be /ˈsaɪ.ən/. There's in-game developer commentary by the game's director Jason Botta and the original's creative director Toby Gard, and they too pronounce the word incorrectly. I wonder if whoever came up with the artifact first, wasn't aware of the correct pronunciation or maybe didn't even know it's an actual word and they just stuck with it. It sure bothered me and I couldn't find any official statement from the developers.

I wouldn't be surprised if the reason was the lack of knowledge because I learned from the developer commentary that the original game's Greece used Neptune as the god of the sea. (Neptune is the Roman counterpart of the Greek Poseidon.) Research was probably not a thing game developers did thoroughly in the '90s. In Anniversary, Neptune had been replaced by Poseidon to be more fitting for the location. Also, I think the commentary tracks should be enabled even on your first playthrough. You can always disable them from the options. But as it was, I mostly just read transcripts of the commentary on Stella's Tomb Raider Site. 

Vertically expansive levels

I was correct in my assumption that there would be more mechanics in this one, the developers being able to build upon Legend. Playing a series in its release order once again proving to be the correct one. The additions are not massive but still welcome. I particularly enjoyed the rappel-assisted wall run move: it's a surprisingly frictionless action to perform. Well, at least as long as you don't need to jump directly away from the wall at the other end. Movement being relative to the camera's facing can cause trouble in the game's toughest parts, at least on keyboard and mouse.

According to the commentary, the developers originally recreated environments in the same scale as in the original. However, playtesters found the returning locations disappointingly small: the original's extremely limited view distance had made them imagine things being larger. With the black fog not being required in this one's newer engine, the illusion was no longer there. And thus for Anniversary, everything was made twice the size. There are huge platforming stages that are almost intimidating at first: how to even start your approach.

I enjoyed traversing the scenery but as the game progressed, it started to become more time-consuming and even frustrating. Failing a jump often meant redoing a long sequence. Anniversary's platforming difficulty keeps increasing as well, particularly if you're going for all the collectibles. Some of them require pretty much perfectly executed lengthy timed runs. Towards the end, the increased difficulty is no longer even optional. Having to retry many parts multiples times killed the fun for me.

Some of the most challenging timed sequences are found in the ascension of the game's penultimate level. One part in it took me a good 30 tries at least. Not having learned how to do the handstand turn on a horizontal pole didn't help but that wasn't the only issue with it. The relative movement directions really came into play there. In the end, I did the section by skipping the start of the sequence and going straight into its wall run part. It wasn't exactly smooth either because the skip happens with a long jump that results in Lara's rappel rope also being too long for the wall run and requiring adjustment under time pressure.

To add to the frustration, that section's starting checkpoint is before two flying, fireball-spitting creatures spawn. On hit the fireballs knock Lara down which feels extremely annoying. Having to kill the fliers so many times did eventually teach me the proper technique. The times I fell off the platform due to the fireballs sure weren't fun though. I'm glad I didn't make myself to do time trials in this one. They're for unlocking cheats; outfit unlocks require only collectibles.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary keeps Lara in the same outfit for the entire game -- I guess similarly to the original -- which is far from being appropriate for snowy mountains. On level replays and in the returning Croft Manor level you can again change outfits. A cool detail I noticed on Lara's default outfit was it drying up gradually after getting wet.

Combat still basic

Gunplay in Anniversary is largely the same as in Legend, meaning simple and unexciting. There's a new adrenaline dodge maneuver that is executed by dodging a charging enemy you're targeting. In the following slow motion you wait until a reticle is over the enemy to pull the trigger for an instant kill.

All boss fights require the dodge to be beaten. In Legend, boss fights (with the exception of the final one) were simple once you figured out what you were supposed to do. I feel in Anniversary you have more chances to fail the actual execution even after understanding what you're trying to do.

Enemies are almost exclusively animals and different kind of bestial monsters. The only humans encountered are fought in cutscenes with quick-time events. In this point of the game's chronology, Lara has presumably not yet killed a human. One of the baddies reckons she's not even capable of that.

"That's just not who you are."

"I'm not who you think I am."

And then Lara proceeds to gun the guy down. Afterwards she does appear to express remorse but this depiction of Lara is definitely not as shocked about having to take a human life as the one in Tomb Raider (2013). In that her first kill is in self defense too while in Anniversary Lara shoots the guy because he is in her way.