Announced last year during a Nintendo Direct, the Tomb Raider I-III Remastered compilation is finally available on PC, PlayStation (PS4 and PS5), Xbox (Series X/S, One) and Nintendo Switch. Three remasters of three cult games released respectively in 1996 (Tomb Raider), 1997 (Tomb Raider II: Dagger of Xian) and 1998 (Tomb Raider III: The Adventures of Lara Croft) on PlayStation and PC.
With these remasters, Crystal Dynamics and Embracer Group are keeping players waiting until the announcement and release of the next installment in the Tomb Raider saga, which will mark the beginning of a new era and a new trilogy. It was the Aspyr teams who had the heavy task of taking care of these ports, more than 20 years after their release. What can we say about them? Do these three remasters live up to the original games?
Tomb Raider I-III Remastered: nostalgia is still alive
If you are a fan of Lara Croft and have known and played the original games many times, it is impossible not to launch this compilation and not to go through the adventures of our favorite explorer without having a big smile on the corner of our lips. From the first minutes, the magic happens. The work done by the Aspyr teams is simply amazing. We are not on a remake, so we keep the same gameplay, the same physics and graphics engines. On the other hand, many textures have had the right to a hell of a polish with a huge amount of work done on the lighting effects and lighting. And right away, that changes a lot of things.
Of course, we keep this cubic aspect which will sometimes contrast with these changes of textures, making the games quite uneven. Some levels, some sequences and some environments will be much prettier than others. But overall, it remains quite impressive and pleasant to evolve in these new versions of the adventures of Lara Croft.
The basic cutscenes have not changed, even visually, which is a bit of a shame. On the other hand, Aspyr has taken good care of the in-game cut-scenes, once again bringing a real boost to the titles. The same goes for the Lara Croft model, inspired by the “Anniversary/Legends/Underworld” trilogy, offering us a perfect Lara.
Otherwise, the games are unchanged. You find the same adventures, with the search for Sion in Tomb Raider, the famous Dagger of Xian in Tomb Raider II and the various artifacts sculpted from a meteorite by the Melanesians. We thus find the same gameplay as at the end of the 1990s, with this game design in the form of a grid where you will have to make jumps with millimeter precision to avoid falling. Prepare yourself to face many enemies such as wolves, bears, lions, crocodiles, but also t rex, raptors and other mummies.
Keeping the same sound design contributes enormously to this nostalgia. The sound of Lara's footsteps in Tomb Raider3, the sound of weapons or the sound effect when our adventurer draws or puts away these weapons have rocked the youth of many gamers. It's a little something to find these little details in 2024. We're not even talking about the music, which is a character in its own right in the first Tomb Raiders. Nathan McCree's compositions are back and bring a real plus in the progression of our stories.
If you have never discovered the original adventures of Lara Croft on PC and/or PS1 in the late 1990s, the gameplay may be quite complicated to assimilate. To compensate for this, the Aspyr teams offer "modern" controls inspired by the Tomb Raider Anniversary/Legends and Underworld games. Unfortunately, these new configurations are not really practical and especially not at all adapted to the style of play of the first Tomb Raider. The best advice we can give you is to keep all the default settings.
Three full games in one
One of the strong points of this compilation is to offer you three full games in a single title for a very reasonable price. Indeed, Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is offered at 29.99 euros on all platforms (PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch). Unfortunately, no physical version, you will have to opt for a digital version.
But for this price, you will be entitled to the three adventures of Lara Croft, offering you well over ten hours each. When you have finished your adventures, it will be possible to prolong the pleasure with the famous bonus levels "The Croft Manor", but also with the DLC, for the first time accessible on consoles. It will thus be possible to play "Unfinished Business" on Tomb Raider, "The Golden Mask" on Tomb Raider II and "The Last Artifact" on Tomb Raider III. These are three levels that had only been offered as DLC on PC and are coming to consoles for the first time thanks to this remaster.
Nice new features
In addition to the new graphics, modern controls and bonus levels, this compilation offers you other small new features. First of all, the possibility of switching in real time between the original versions and the remaster, allowing you to see live the work done by the Aspyr teams for this compilation.
But you also have the arrival of a photo mode. Nothing revolutionary, we are on a rather basic photo mode, but which has the merit of being present. It is possible to choose the angle of the camera, Lara's pose, her facial expressions and even her outfit and weapons, allowing you to take some nice photos. However, we will regret the absence of options such as themes, brightness, background blur, etc. It remains a basic mode.
A good compilation, despite a few hiccups
Overall, Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is an excellent compilation with serious work done and proposed by the Aspyr teams. On the other hand, there are still some flaws like the total absence of automatic saving (even between levels). A choice that is not very logical in 2024, especially since it is not specified during the game that the latter does not save progress automatically. A doubly surprising choice when we notice that the famous blue crystals have disappeared, allowing us to save manually at will.
The other problem is the camera. A real hell, especially on Tomb Raider III where it seems more capricious. This was already a flaw in the first games, we would have appreciated having the right to a small improvement on this point.
Finally, even if there is not much to say about the technical part, we can still note some drops in framerates (on Switch) in the cinematics of Tomb RaiderIII where we fall quite low with a lot of jerks. Otherwise, in the game, over thirty hours, no major problems or bugs to report.
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