Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered is here, bringing the next wave of classic Lara Croft adventures back to life. During February of last year, Aspyr, in conjunction with Crystal Dynamics, released the absolutely fantastic remastered versions of the original Tomb Raider I-III games. Now, a year later, fans are being treated to another dose of nostalgia with the remastered editions of the remaining games in the original Tomb Raider series — Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered.
What you’re looking at in Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered are remasters of Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Tomb Raider: Chronicles and finally, the much-maligned, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness.
It’s safe to say that these 3 games in the series (Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered) are, most likely, the least popular Tomb Raider titles ever made. Accelerated development schedules to meet a yearly release certainly seemed to suck the life and inventiveness out of Last Revelation and Chronicles back in the day. The stunning puzzle-orientated death traps that had Lara acrobatically weaving her way through to safety had started to become rote and routine, with fewer interesting locations and a distinct lack of polish. They hit the spot if you needed a fix but they were hardly on anyone’s replay list.
And as for Angel of Darkness, well, I remember viscerally hating the game back in the day. In a bid to try something new, the developers ripped Lara out of her dungarees and chucked her into the urban wilds of Paris for a supernaturally charged adventure that saw her trying to clear her name of murder. While Angel of Darkness does have its fanbase, there were far too many issues in the game design to really see it as the way forward for the franchise. That said, I will give credit to the team for trying something new, even if it didn’t turn out as we’d all hoped it would.
With Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered, Aspyr has successfully used a philosopher’s stone to turn these games into gold, or should they have just stayed in our memories?
Thankfully, the same level of love that Aspyr put into the previous Remastered Trilogy is on display here with the Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered set of games. The games have received a significant visual overhaul, Angel of Darkness less so, though the changes to this title go a little deeper. The new, modern visuals are really stunning, retaining the look of the original while updating it to capture its spirit with a decidedly modern sensibility.
The texture work is no small feat as not only have they been completely reworked, but details such as windows, doors and pillars that were nothing more than flat pixels drawn in for detail, have now been converted into fully 3D rendered assets, giving the world some much needed textile depth and detail. Environments feel less like boxes now and more like designed spaces.
All of the game models in the Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered have received the same loving treatment as well, with new 3d models for everything from Lara herself to the health packs you pick up. As the textures make a huge difference, so too do the new models to the game’s levels, enhancing the location details and overall beauty. All of the game’s effects have also received a new makeover, with particles being noticeably improved as well as added for environmental detail in areas that didn’t have them before. Desert set levels, for instance, now have blowing sand particles around Lara’s feet, something that wasn’t there in the original games.
Dynamic lighting also replaces a lot of the game’s static lights, casting more realistic shadows and changing up the atmosphere and light levels in the levels themselves. As much as they add and change the game’s ambience, they make many of the levels much darker than the originals, hiding secrets and climbable areas that are easily viewable in the original games until you’re literally right on top of them with a flare in your hand. I found myself switching back and forth between the remastered visuals and the original, not just because I still love those old visuals but to make sure I wasn’t missing any traversable paths.
Finally there’s the modern control system, which makes general exploration and environment traversal so much easier, especially at speed. It still suffers a bit for the absolute precision gauntlets when you need to throw together a series of moves that the tank controls were made for. As with the visuals, I found myself switching back and forth between the modern and tank control schemes, depending on the situation.
Revelations comes with its DLC level for a dive into Tutankhamen’s tomb, while Chronicles remains as is. Angel of Darkness possibly receives the most interesting changes to the game while also suffering from polishing issues. While the new, remastered visuals really aren’t that far off from the original games, it’s the latter half of the game that suffers from a lack of polish in a variety of areas. Wonky collision detection and unpolished lighting and effects bring down some of the goodwill the opening generates. Did the developers run out of time? I’m not sure, but I hope a patch fixes these issues.
The interesting changes come in the form of deleted content, such as a deleted training level and dialogue that have been added back into the game to further flesh out the story while a new move has been added to Lara’s repertoire that lets her shoot from corner cover. The second playable character, Kurtis, now has full control of his discuss-like weapon, along with the ability to project a shield around him. Some of Lara’s moves, such as sprinting and shooting around corners, have been mapped to him as well.
And finally, all of those euros you find laying around can now be used to buy healing items, weapons and weapon add-ons.
Outside of dipping into The Last Revelation and Chronicles occasionally, these are games I haven’t returned to all that often, especially Angel of Darkness, which was a one-and-done game for me back in the day. While I do admit that they can be quite frustrating – I haven’t save scummed this much in years! – I’ve enjoyed my time with them far more than I expected. Even Angel of Darkness’s slow-paced gameplay kept me entertained, especially once I took it less as a Tomb Raider game and more as an adventure game with one foot in the point-and-click genre.
A lot of that enjoyment certainly has its foot in two places. One is Aspyr’s remastered work on them, which goes a long way to making them feel fresh, even with the dated gameplay. And the other is being able to play it on the go, whenever and wherever I please.
As with the previous Remastered Trilogy, Aspyr has done a mostly fantastic job of bringing Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered to modern platforms. It’s a shame that Angel of Darkness has polishing issues, but right no,w these are the best way to play these games today. Just watch out for those pesky scorpions.
Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered – Announce Trailer
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