General Information
Weighing in at just 4GB on PS5 and closer to 5GB on PS4, the Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Trilogy contains all three games, all three games extras, expansions and secrets, as well as up-rezzed cut scenes and a slew of new textures and models for you to gawp at.
Three Games, All the Bonuses, Remastering: Optional
Starting with Tomb Raider, you get access to Lara's house as well as the bonus "Unfinished Business" chapters (AKA Tomb Raider Gold in NA) where Lara starts in Egypt but ends up destroying the last remnants of an Atlantean lost city.
The main crux of this remaster is to give you the full retro experience but with a twist. Tapping the Options button on PS5 instantly converts the graphics mode into modern, slick, silky high-definition models & textures, that make the games look incredible. You can swap between these two modes at will, and it is entirely up to you if you want to change visuals at all!
The first thing I noticed was that the lighting is more "realistic" in the modern overhaul with shards of light streaming through windows, and light bouncing off floors and objects to create a softer and less harsh aesthetic. The uptick in this is that the prebaked lighting of the 1996 original is gone and a far more natural look to the game is presented with new textures taking the place of what were incredibly low-resolution artefacts and objects around the rooms. However, the flip side of this means that shadows and contrast are far more abundant and thus darker areas are harder to make out than they ever were, but the overall trade-off is pretty nice, to be honest.
Caves and tombs are incredibly difficult to see when you enable modern visuals, but the effects such as liquids, particle effects and fire/flames look incredible, and there are better animal and object models too that make the games feel refreshed, more detailed, and far more visually appealing.
Refreshed Visuals, Up-rezzed Cutscenes
Tomb Raider II and the Golden Mask bonus sees you revisit the second game in full along with the Alaskan and Las Vegas additional chapters. The second game upped the ante with more polygons, more outfits and a refreshed look for Lara, and the game saw incredible commercial success because of this progression.
I immediately felt like TRII was a more modern game with a bigger budget and far more going on in terms of richer storylines and much-needed protagonist progression. The game utilises more weapons and more combat-oriented gameplay than the original game's explorative formula, so I enjoyed this one a lot more than the first.
One thing I noticed about this title was that you could swap graphic modes in FMV cutscenes too, and I noted that where the original untouched FMV was extremely grainy and jagged, the up-rezzed version that you could switch to was smoothed out, enhanced and less choppy. I kind of appreciate the fact that the FMV remained intact and not remade or re-imagined, and the fact that you can switch between the 1997 sequel and 2024's smartly polished version was a respectful nod to the original creators' efforts.
£25 is a Steal, Trophy Hunters Beware
Rounding off with 1998's Tomb Raider III and the extra "Lost Artifact" chapters, you can revisit even more locations, adventure across even more landscapes, dodge, roll and sneak through even more traps and puzzles in the third instalment.
The Lost Artefact additional content for this title was a stand-alone spin-off PC game, whereas the other two games' bonuses were effectively extra chapters, where Lara investigates a fifth meteorite artefact from the highlands of Scotland through to the Catacombs of Paris!
Tomb Raider 3 goes back to its roots when it comes to gameplay, revisiting its more puzzle-heavy roots and relying less on gunplay than the first sequel. It also uses a less linear form to levels with bigger areas to explore which in turn gives you more than one way to complete each mission.
I preferred Tomb Raider II out of the three because it has a great balance of evolving the original games progression mixed with gun-toting action, and far fewer instances of getting lost or distracted!
The ability to have the original "polygon-look" and the remastered content switchable at any time is a masterstroke in this trilogy, and ever since I first saw this treatment in the unreleased XBLA GoldenEye 007 remaster, I have wanted to play a game that evoked the ability to stand in an area you recognise and instantly revisit the nostalgia of witnessing it in its OG glory without having to fire up some old hardware, or an emulator alongside what you're doing, to compare it.
The three games are a perfect package with the definitive way to experience them all right now on modern consoles. Each game builds in the other, each takes the story further and each has a sublime quality to it that, in either mode, looks and plays superbly, even with the OG tank controls!
The only caveat I have to this rather incredible remaster is that though there are 80-100 trophies per game to unlock, there are notably no platinum ones for PS5 players. I have no idea why the platinums are absent on the PS5 version, whereas the PS4 version has one per game, perhaps this will be addressed post-launch? We shall see!
If you're a Tomb Raider fan then this is an absolute no-brainer to relive three fantastic games, with some stellar QOL updates, at a phenomenal price of just £22.49 for the lot if you're a PlayStation Plus member!
