My favourite Core Design Tomb Raider I-II-III-IV-V-VI Remaster collection is complete. Next Crystal Dynamics Legend/Anniversary/Underworld please.
Post Scriptum: F@ck Netflix Tomb Raider animated series

What a time to be alive! Now I can raid Set's secret stash of 2600 BC pump-action shotguns in HD!! The Greeks' Uzis hidden amid ancient terracotta and Cleopatra's elaborate ways of smuggling grenade launchers - with that said, how the hell did Ancient Egypt even collapse? I should have become an archaeologist as well....

Thank you for reviving the original and true Lara Croft! Fantastic remasters!

Alright hear me out. I dont want to give the game a thumbs down, because i am a hard core TR fan and having those games remastred is like living a dream! TR Remastered 123 were the best thing ever and the whole community lost their minds around it! The work was absolutely phenomenal! And I feel like it was really successfull in terms of feedback and sales!
So I feel like we all had a expectation so massively high for those remasters.
Now I dont know how much time the team behind 123 had, but its clear 456 were rushed and unfinished! Yeah hitting the deadline of 14th feburary is amazing but this reminds me of the old CORE days and it feels like history repeating itself! Its what killed Core Design! Why not giving extra time to polish it perfectly and then release it? You want to be successful and make sales. It doesnt even make sense? By releasing unbaked game you will get a negative feedback from dissapointed fans? That means sales will drop ? ( like wtf)
Lets now talk about the elephant in the room!
AOD has a MASSIVE love from a HUGE part of the fan base! I bought the Remasters SPECIFICALLY because of it.
When opening the game i felt underwhelmed and sad and dissapointed! It didnt have any glow up!
- textures were almost identical, and some of the HQ looked flat
- many npc's are not finished
- so many small additions can be added like the FMV after Egypt that explains what happened to Lara , or the BETA classic outfit.... and many many more
Some fans now refuse to play the game until patches come out!
And believe i want to give a thumbs up but i also want ASPYR and SABER to hear our voices and fix as much as possible ASAP because the games deserve the best treatement! We all hoped for a second life for AOD so please, do the game some justice! I know you can do better please show us that you care.
Thanks for reading my TED lecture!
PATCHES ! SOON ! PLEASE !

TOMB RAIDER: CHRONICLES
Tomb Raider: Chronicles is definitely the most complete. It has some graphic features that its predecessor doesn't have, such as the new loading screens (which also appear in some places only in TRAOD but don't appear at all in TRLR). I'd say this is probably due to its length, being the shortest game. Chronicles had some bugs when it was released (since it was rushed during its development alongside AOD), and I was glad that I didn’t find any of them here. However, I did encounter a bug that forced me to reset the whole level in Red Alert! During the helicopter chase, after passing through the windows and getting into the area where we have to press a button to open a door, the game crashed when I pressed that button. Every single time I tried to reload my save in that area, the game would crash, which forced me to reset the level. Another bug I found was in the in-game cutscenes in Ireland's Old Mill level, where the audio is delayed. The characters’ lines play long after the mouth animations, and this bug also occurred in 13th Floor in the first cutscene after entering Von Croy's facility. Regarding the graphics, I loved them. It's so well done, and it's just breathtaking how they managed to revitalise the already-known levels. This is my personal opinion, but I'm not fond of Old Mill’s skybox. I hope they will fix the aforementioned bugs and also make all outfits playable. I was so disappointed after beating the game and replaying it, only to find out that not all photo mode outfits are available (I was really eager to play with the X-Ray outfit). I think it just needs a few more tweaks, and it'll be more than perfect.

TOMB RAIDER: ANGEL OF DARKNESS
Where do I even begin when talking about the remaster of the most-hated game in the franchise? It does improve a lot in terms of gameplay—her movements, once stiff and hard to control, are now more fluid (though many may disagree). Restored areas that could previously only be accessed through glitches or mods are now OFFICIALLY there. Seeing this game get the treatment it deserves is something the Tomb Raider community has wanted for years, and I’m afraid that it still hasn’t quite received it.

Besides the restored content and a few new models (only for some NPCs and main characters), there isn’t much else to add. The lighting remains exactly the same, making this game feel reductive in comparison to the other five (even though the others are much older). This game deserved so much more, but it has now been released incomplete for the second time. I wouldn't recommend playing it now—patches are yet to come, and they’ll likely give it proper treatment and improvements. Fortunately, one thing Aspyr has shown us with the first remasters is that they are willing to listen and take feedback. It's just a matter of time before it improves, and waiting is all that's left for us. If you believe first impressions last, just skip it for now. Don’t give it a go until they make it better (which they will).

TOMB RAIDER: THE LOST LEGACY
The infamous fourth game—known for being a horribly maze-like experience. Likely the longest of the classics and the most "complex" of them. This game relies on backtracking: you have many areas in a level, and you have to go to one to get an item that will unlock something in another, repeating this process until you progress. Tomb Raider IV is incredible. I've always been fond of this design, and I remember thinking it was just genius back in the days when I first played it. This game is incredible at the start—the first levels got a lot of visual treatment and are just superb. I'm still in awe after the Valley of Kings levels, but the same can't be said for the middle-to-late ones. As you progress through the game, you'll find areas that aren’t as thoroughly remastered as the earlier ones. I'd bet it's because this game is so long that they didn’t have enough time to fully remaster it, much like AOD.

Overall, the rush to release it on February 14th seems like an issue that affects this whole trilogy. But I don’t think this will make your experience worse—it’s just more content for them to improve with future patches. I’d say it’s a must-play now, but out of the three, I’d recommend starting with Chronicles.

OVERALL IMPROVEMENTS OVER THE OTHER REMASTERS
This is something I noticed: in the first remasters, they stuck closely to the blocky appearance, refusing to add depth and more "3D" to the environment since it could negatively impact gameplay (these games were built in a block-based way, so I see why). However, with these remasters, I felt like they weren’t as afraid of making changes. If you compare the deserts of Nevada with the desert in TRLR, you’ll notice that the stones in the latter are sharper and pop out of the square shape, something that doesn’t happen in TR3. The ladders, which were previously just a texture with a parallax effect in the first remasters, are now fully modelled in these new ones.

Overall, the lighting is better, and the game now has particle effects that I don’t remember being included in the first remasters. Since one of the devs mentioned that they haven’t abandoned the first remasters, hopefully, these new improvements will be added to them in the near future.

DOWNGRADES
For some reason, these remasters don’t include a restart level button, which was present in the previous ones.

THINGS I WISH THEY WOULD ADD
I want all outfits to be playable, and for AOD to get outfits from TR 1-5, and vice-versa.
I hope they add the outfits from the first three remasters into these new ones, and vice-versa.
I want AOD to have a fly-by camera, and for it to be added to the previous remasters too.
I want a restart level button and a level selection option.
I want AOD to have all poses from photo mode instead of only 13.
At the end of the day, I really loved this remastered collection. I’m looking forward to an LAU trilogy remaster more than anything.

Tomb Raider has always been my favorite video game series. To have 1-6 updated makes me so happy. Thank you Aspyr. I have so much love for these remasters.

I was very excited when they announced this collection mainly because it gave me hope that my beloved Angel of Darkness would be actually polished and would feel like a complete game. I specifically bought this collection for AOD only. What developers did with this title is already amazing but definitely not enough, hence the negative review. I hope that with future updates I'll have enough reasons to change this review to positive.

Pros:
- actually playable game
- less bug and glitches
- some of the restored content
- new character models of Lara and Kurtis (huge advantage of this remaster)
- (the most important) pretty good modern controls that doesn't make me crazy like rats (Rats make me crazy... Crazy? I was crazy once...)
- bosses HP bars
- unlocked weapons and upgrades
- a few more smaller details

Cons:
- glitches still appear and they were mostly related to controls
- few graphical upgrades and many inconsistencies - Many textures weren't even updated; they look exactly the same as original ones. A lot of textures were just slightly updated which isn't enough (especially foliage, it should've been replaced by new 3D models). In some cases older textures look even better than remastered ones. Some of the npcs haven't changed a bit, some npcs were slightly updated with higher res textures, but still look like potato and awfully worse than Lara's new model. Completely untouched lighting which doesn't meet modern standards, the other remasters received better treatment in this matter. The setting and the overall atmosphere of this game begs for adding volumetric lighting as it would incredibly enhance ambience. Lack of some graphic options that were already in original game - water looks flat and in some levels is almost invisible because there are no reflections. Weird behavior of Lara's shadow which wasn't as noticeable in the original game. Lack of anti-aliasing but thankfully I was able to unlock FXAA with nvidia's control panel.
- low quality dialogue audio mixed with crispy clean parts - In the tutorial level game starts with incredible audio quality and then it reverts back to very compressed lines.
- Kurtis chirugai combat animations - He can't normally walk while using chirugai as a weapon (he jumps in gangnam style way which is hilarious) which makes it almost useless against faster and stronger enemies.

There are more observations but those are crucial aspects that should be patched in the future. A bit of a disappointment is an adequate description for this product as it feels unfinished which is hilarious and ironic at the same time given the circumstances in which the og game was developed. Hoping for a better future for this title.

Last nail in the coffin for AOD

So for the past 20 odd years, Angel of Darkness has been infamous as being the game that ruined Core Design and has been heavily mocked (justifiably so) for being a buggy unfinished mess of a game with horrible controls.

I actually happen to like AOD, I enjoy the story and I like the interesting locations. However, I've always found the controls slow, uncooperative and janky. It's a game that I like but I cannot defend as it has way too many basic flaws.

With this remaster there was an opportunity to make some improvements to the game and finally shake off it's reputation of being a broken mess.

I was concerned with the release date only being 1 year after the first set of remasters, surely not enough time to do it justice. However, I was pleased with the first set of remasters so I decided to be optimistic and hope for the best.

Sadly after just a few minutes into the tutorial, it became clear that the controls are still lacking. Now to be fair, with the modern controls Lara does move around better. However, they're still stiff when compared to the modern controls in the IV and V remaster. When changing direction she does an awkward delayed turnaround and her animations seem to just as slow and sluggish as before. Even just trying to climb up from drain pipes has somehow become worse.

Now being able to control the camera using the right stick is a major W, however, this is often ruined by sections forcing you to use a fixed camera. This is also present on IV and V. This causes Lara to run in a direction opposite to the way you're pushing the control stick which is extremely disorientating. The best example is when you pull the switch to steal the Iris in VCI, you have to run down the stairs with fixed camera angles and I just found it impossible because she doesn't move in the direction you're holding the stick. We didn't have this issue in Mario 64 or Ocarina of time over 25 years ago so why is it an issue now?!

Now you can cancel the fixed camera by pressing the look button as a workaround. However, this just proves you DO NOT need fixed camera angles when using modern controls. So why can't we turn them off? This seems like a major oversight and hopefully will be fixed with a patch but such a basic glaring issue is inexcusable.

Also to Aspyr's credit, they did make Kurtis much more playable. He moves a lot faster and the Boaz fight is much easier and less tedious for this reason. Although this just proves they could have made more improvements to the game but simply failed to do so.

The IV and 5 remasters seem to be pretty good. The only major issue I found was when swimming in modern controls, Lara sometimes gets stuck in geometry but it doesn't happen every time at least.

I've seen a lot of people saying, well I'm sure with patches this will all be fixed. I'm sorry but that's not good enough, first impressions matter and the game should be in a finished state on release. Especially with a game like AOD which his a long standing reputation of being unfinished. Now it has a remaster which is also unfinished. So whilst the irony is amusing, it has cemented this game's reputation of being broken and frustrating to play. This will also turn off people who wanted to try the game as they will likely have a negative experience.

Unfortunately this has soured my view of Aspyr, this was a missed opportunity and it's clear that whoever was in charge either didn't learn the lessons of having sufficient development time or simply didn't care and wanted a cash grab despite the inevitable damage to their reputation.

The people in charge should hang their heads in shame for letting this happen, I guess they're too busy counting their money.

Now don't get me wrong I like Tomb Raider and it's nice to have a PC version that works out of the box, but somebody really dropped the ball here and we need to call it out.

If your a fan of all the OG Tomb Raider games its a must.

I have finished IV and V, and about 1/2 into AOD (I have not made is past the intro section of this game in the past since the game was so terrible to play in its original release years ago). I have enough to make a general review. Like the original titles and in the remastered 1-3 titles, I always kept 3 saves handy as I progressed.

IV Review: 8/10
The remastered graphics were beautifully well done throughout the entire game. It was all consistent and did not leave any surface behind from upscaling. My favorite to see remastered were the train and city levels. I will say, the remaster lost points due some sections of the game just receiving an upscale texture placement. These areas actually looked quite ugly still as they did from years past. Also, some areas lost a lot of placed lightning that gave the landscape a unique charm; the lighting was replaced with more modern realistic lightning. There were also quite a few game breaking bugs left in/overlooked and I kept getting stuck in areas I guess were "inaccessible". Overall, it was still a positive experience to be able to go through and not have to worry about Windows issues from the original releases trying to work on modern OS's

V Review 9/10
This is honestly the most consistent and best looked Remastered title out of all of them released so far by Aspyr. The original Chronicles after 5 mainline games and 3 standalone Gold expansions, the graphics were not really improved upon drastically when so many other games were now far ahead of this original engine. This game on release was ugly and very outdated. However, Aspyr has breathed new life into every single level bringing it past AOD Remastered in appearance. This game kept the old style charm but made it beautiful. It's hard to describe, but this one is definitely worth playing. I only subtract 1 point for technical issues still present with the Last level of the game. After I finished it, I went to reload my save in the last level but the game just crashes. Lets hope this is fixed in future patches.

AOD Review: 5/10
This one is difficult to score. This title on original release was severely broken. The movement was extremely sluggish and unresponsive. That is what I remember from attempting to make it through the Paris levels but just could not do it. Ever since its release, and as a kid into adulthood, I could never bring myself to finish this through, it was just.. bad. I am currently half way through and I have to comment that this remaster is unfinished. Nearly half of all the prior assets are NOT remastered, so there are borderline PS1 graphic characters paired with others or paired with a fully HD background. A lot of the upscaled textures rendered a lot of the art direction in "clean" state when the prior release felt more alive and natural (especially the Biodome). The movement system has had some improvements but it is still very sluggish and unresponsive. There are also so many game breaking bugs. I have countless times been stuck in the "falling" animation (DOZY) or fallen through the ground into the infinite black abyss. The combat is horrible. Lets just say at one point you get a blade to throw but the holstering command is so delayed, you end up putting it back away and get clawed to death. Or your character takes several steps as soon as you point your gun at something, resulting in falling off the ledge because of this auto walk feature. I wanted to make it atleast half way before making this review as the current state of this game is still quite a bit broken. But from the story and level design, this feels more like a Resident Evil game over a Tomb Raider game.

Overall a thumbs up! But, wait for a patch or two before starting AOD if its your first time playing that title. That title was clearly rushed not only many years ago, but it appears it was rushed now, further solidifying it as the black sheep of the series.

If you're here for Angel of Darkness (like I was) this is what you need to know:

The game was reworked with HD textures, updated character models, updated controls and the ability to quicksave (save scumming). The controls are still slow and heavy and it takes some time getting used to but once you do that it's a pretty solid experience.

Steam Deck warning: In cutscenes, some characters' faces tend to glitch out. Not sure if they will fix that.