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KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
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As someone who's recently played NuTombRaider and thinks it's a bit shit, which of the older Tomb Raiders is worth a go? Isn't there other that is considered better than the others? Anniversary perhaps?

Still no expansions for TR 1-3
oh well

I would avoid all Crystal Dynamics TRs. I guess if you insist you can try Anniversary.
As far as TR games go, the original first three Core Design games are the only TR games.

You can find them easily online.

As for which TRs are worth it, 1 through 3 definitely and I've heard good things about 4 and 5. All the others are pretty bad.

I've generally heard nothing but praise for 1 and The Last Revelation. 2 is generally positive, and 3 I believe is the hardest of the original series. Chronicles if you really like the gameplay, it was just something to pass the time between TLR and AoD. Angel of Darkness is a buggy, unfinished mess that never got fixed. As for the Crystal Dynamix series, I liked Legend, but there's no denying it was decline. It is TR, but with all the typical design trademarks of the era. Cutscene-heavy, lots of weird unlockable content, and following the usual TPS design template, that ironically enough was inspired by the earlier TR games. The later ones failed to hold my interest.

I had a fucken dream about GOG releasing those just last night!

The first is the best, followed very closely by the second (some would argue it's even better), both are superb games; the third is a pain with terrible choices both in level design and mechanics (turret defense, clumsy bloated boss fights, irritating reiterated backtracking, poor "readibility" of interactive objects and surfaces) and the fourth has a good start and some brilliant levels but drags on and becomes a chore as you race to the end through the most uninspired platforming in the classic series, heavily suffering from bloat -Chronicles, however, is undeservedly bashed as it's great fun and introduces interesting new situations in its short albeit intense runtime, great variety and a cinematographic style that while a harbinger of decline was still charming.
Angel of Death is pretty much a meme game at this point, even with the fan made patches that make it actually playable. I did enjoy it somewhat, mostly because of the hilariously antagonistic attitude of Lara to the point of psychopathic cruelty. But really, it's only for completionists as every choice the designers made was wrong and executed even worse (except the excellent model and animations).

The LAU trilogy is crap. Legend is insultingly bad, a cheap third person shooter with some retarded platforming thrown in with invisible walls all over the place. Anniversary is very pretty but it hurts to go through it thinking "I had so much more fun in the original" every single instant, as it suffers from severe visibility issues. Underworld has some impressive set pieces and though a mediocre Tomb Raider with a retarded plot to end the retarded story arc Legend perpetraded it was still a fun game with gorgeous underwater segments but likely worse than any alternative you could be playing instead unless you are bent on going through every single TR.

So, TL;DR, do yourself a favor and play the first two at the very least.
Well, go figure. The last few barely come up to some change. I mean a few are .84 cents. Yeesh. That says a lot.

So the expansions are easy to get. Damn dumb they weren't included.
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Melcar

Arcane
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Merida, again
Steam regularly has the complete series of games for sale. I guess if you want to try out the NuTR. I at least have an easier time running the original TRs with Steam than the GOG versions.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
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Messages
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Pathfinder: Wrath
I at least have an easier time running the original TRs with Steam than the GOG versions.
Really? I've never tried the Steam versions, but the GOG versions run out of the box for me on Win 10. I have a friend who has them on Steam and he told me he never managed to get them to run. I doubt he has put much effort in, but still.
 

Melcar

Arcane
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Messages
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Location
Merida, again
I at least have an easier time running the original TRs with Steam than the GOG versions.
Really? I've never tried the Steam versions, but the GOG versions run out of the box for me on Win 10. I have a friend who has them on Steam and he told me he never managed to get them to run. I doubt he has put much effort in, but still.

Don't know about Windows. I run Linux and for me Proton (Steam) actually runs the games.
 

catfood

AGAIN
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Nirvana for mice

As someone who's recently played NuTombRaider and thinks it's a bit shit, which of the older Tomb Raiders is worth a go? Isn't there other that is considered better than the others? Anniversary perhaps?
1 is a bit rough around the edges but it's still a solid title with great level design such as St. Francis Folly. It's a classic for a reason.
2 is a good game but it's very overrated. The problem is the constant enemy spam and a couple of really bad levels such the underwater one.
3 is the most varied out of all of them. Yes, there are a couple of sections that will make you pull your hairs out (the canoe rafts), but overall this is the ultimate TR experience. Tough as nails, epic adventure and some of the best level design the series has to offer. The last level is an absolute joy.
4 is also very good. It has the best puzzles in the entire series IMO. The only downside is that the egyptian setting overstays its welcome a bit.
5 is ok. It's a set of disconnected missions. Some are really good, while others are really bad. It's a mixed bag but I still had fun with it. Most fan missions are designed using the 5th game's engine.

I'd rank them as 1>3>4>2>5

Angel of Derpness is an unfinished ugly mess. Forget it.

Legend introduces the popamole: long unskippable cutscenes, ameriturd "humor", QTE. The controls are a lot smoother this time around though. Other than that it's the same good old TR experience: lots of tombs to raid, lots of puzzles to solve, lots of enemies to kill, clunky vehicle controls, but without the tank controls. Oh, and Croft Manor is excellent!
Anniversary is the remake of the first game. It's good since the original was also good. Again the improved controls will appeal more to some people.
Underworld is the last TR game. It kind of follows the same flow as the other 2. I liked it more than Legend, but less than Anniversary.
 
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Lacrymas

Arcane
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Pathfinder: Wrath
The first three games also have a very cool speedrunning community. Really, you can't go wrong with classic TR, and you get all 3 games for the price of 1 when you buy them on GOG anyway.

2 is a good game but it's very overrated. The problem is the constant enemy spam and a couple of really bad levels such the underwater one.
You mean the ship? I loved it, very cool level design and eerie atmosphere. I disliked Venice, though, the mob spam was indeed over the top and I found the level design perplexing. TR is at its best when it's Lara vs the environment with occasional enemies thrown in for story and some variety. The later TRs leaning into the action aspect was a bad move and paved the way for the decline to follow.
 

Semiurge

Cipher
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Asp Hole
Chronicles (5) has a few good levels for atmospherefags, the ones set in Ireland. They are completely devoid of gunning & running since underage Lara can't pick up any firearms there. It may be because of a personal bias, but that skybox with the red sunset combined with that dark occult setting appealed to me. There are areas where Lara will have a creepy looking changeling running after her like some pasty gingerbread man, and attacking her if she lets it get too close. The first hub has a hanged men's tree, and most of the enemies are undead or ghostly in nature. The first Russian level was good also, and so were the submarine levels after it. Chronicles is buggier than The Last Revelation despite using the same engine, because it was a rushed release (surprise).
 
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A horse of course

Guest
Chronicles (5) has a few good levels for atmospherefags, the ones set in Ireland. They are completely devoid of gunning & running since underage Lara can't pick up any firearms there. It may be because of a personal bias, but that skybox with the red sunset combined with that dark occult setting appealed to me. There are areas where Lara will have a creepy looking changeling running after her like some pasty gingerbread man, and attacking her if she let's it get too close, and the central hub has a hanged men's tree. Russian levels were very good also, reminiscent of TR2's Golden Mask addon, and you also board a submarine.

Yeah the I*ish levels are some of my favourite. I quite enjoyed Chronicle when doing a marathon of the whole series because it's a nice change of pace from TLR. I can imagine classicfags disliking some of the levels for being too short/action-packed/linear though.
 

Bad Sector

Arcane
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Joined
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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Legend introduces the popamole: long unskippable cutscenes, ameriturd "humor", QTE. The controls are a lot smoother this time around though. [...] Anniversary is the remake of the first game. It's good since the original was also good. Again the improved controls will appeal more to some people.

The "improved controls" are really just the game taking away control from you and automating Lara's movement where you just point towards the general direction of something and having Lara automatically adjust to the proper location, starting the series' decline. Even AoD, despite its issues, has more fine control than Crystal Dynamics' Tomb Raider games.
 

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
15,772

Still no expansions for TR 1-3
oh well
You can find them easily online.

As for which TRs are worth it, 1 through 3 definitely and I've heard good things about 4 and 5. All the others are pretty bad.
I was wondering how big the series was so I hit up wiki and mobygames. Jesus Christ. That's a lot of shit and what is what?

The worse is the last entry
This surely is just crap.
Tomb Raider Reloaded

740464-tomb-raider-reloaded-android-front-cover.png



free mobile game is a fucking turd to be flushed. SHIT!
 
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Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,833
Pathfinder: Wrath
Yes, there aren't any good TR games after 5. As expected, the AAA ones are also utter tripe which has nothing to do with TR. They are some kind of unholy amalgamation of Uncharted and ...something that isn't TR.
 

Semiurge

Cipher
Joined
Apr 11, 2020
Messages
7,761
Location
Asp Hole

Still no expansions for TR 1-3
oh well
You can find them easily online.

As for which TRs are worth it, 1 through 3 definitely and I've heard good things about 4 and 5. All the others are pretty bad.

740464-tomb-raider-reloaded-android-front-cover.png

There's something missing in Lara... can't put my finger on it.
 
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KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
15,772
You know, a Lauravania would be fine if done right. A Laura Gear (maybe Laura Gear solid but TR seems close enough) would also be acceptable. Laura shooter bullet hell.... meh ...NO! Laura Doom? Eh..... Laura on Lily 69 .. probably already done.

Laura Rogue almost looked ok. This shit can be done but generally "FREE" phone games are shit. And yeah, make her assets good not some woke reduction bobblehead shit.
 

Bad Sector

Arcane
Patron
Joined
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Messages
2,334
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.


At least that last one is making an effort to do a 3D platformer, kinda, sorta. Though TBH the limitations, especially on size, on those J2ME phones were kinda brutal and the carriers were at full control before Apple and Google provided means for end developers to get paid directly for their games, so pretty much every game was made by very tiny teams at very low budgets - often popping out little more than reskins of previous games to make ends meet and even then once that market crashed all those developers disappeared.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,833
Pathfinder: Wrath
You know, a Lauravania would be fine if done right. A Laura Gear (maybe Laura Gear solid but TR seems close enough) would also be acceptable. Laura shooter bullet hell.... meh ...NO! Laura Doom? Eh..... Laura on Lily 69 .. probably already done.

Laura Rogue almost looked ok. This shit can be done but generally "FREE" phone games are shit. And yeah, make her assets good not some woke reduction bobblehead shit.
Who is Laura?
 

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
15,772
Her sister?? Maybe... a psychologist? Dunno why I had that on the brain and not Lara.

It was first changed to Lara(which is the name used in the prototype stories) due to Americans not being able to pronounce Laura, and Cruz was later replaced with British name Croft, which was picked out of the phone book. Change in the backstory molded the character into the Lara Croft we now know.
Professions: Tomb Raider; Mercenary
Real Name: Laura Cruz
https://tombraider.fandom.com › wiki
Laura Cruz | Lara Croft Wiki | Fandom
Tomb Raider ver 4
Lara Cruz enjoys working with underprivileged children and the mentally disabled. She has a degree in needle work, and loves to travel. Lara's one wish is to ski down Everest with Brian Blessed strapped to her back [5]
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