Tomb Raider (1996), developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive, is the first installment of the Tomb Raider media franchise. In this game, the player follows the adventures of Lara Croft, who (as the title of the game suggests) explores a series of ancient ruins and tombs in search of an ancient artifact. The main mechanics of the game include exploring, solving puzzles, and navigating the surroundings to get to the next level.
From start to finish, I was incredibly engaged. I vaguely remembered when I was a child and used to replay this game and others with my older brother on his PS1, and he told me that I used to think the controls were too hard to use and that the overall game was too hard as compared to Super Mario Bros and other games. Coming back to this game all these years later, I am beginning to see what my younger self was noticing. This game is not as “cartoony” and unrealistic and other platforms such as Mario. Lara seems like a real human with weight and human fragility, and the game certainly makes you feel as if you were an adventurer who was making dangerous jumps and was under the threat of death any minute. It didn’t feel as if I was a superhero like Spider-Man, doing movements that seem ridiculous, even when suspending my disbelief. The game gave me a sense of vulnerability, and an actual sense that I must be as careful as I can be with every step I take since any mistake could easily result in death via the various traps and puzzles.
I have recently been replaying Uncharted 4 to remind myself what the current adventure/explorer games look like as compared to the original Tomb Raider. I felt more challenged by Tomb Raider than I thought I would. Since in the more recent version of these games, most of the ledges that you can jump on have a different color than their surroundings, so it’s quite clear where the player is supposed to go and the general path ahead. However, in Tomb Raider, none of the ledges are highlighted, so the player must deduct where to climb and the perfect positions from which to jump, since the game is not nearly as forgiving regarding the margin of error for jumping as other platformers I have played. There was a bit of a learning curve, but the game made me play more purposefully, while still getting the sense of the Indiana Jones level spectacle and curiosity that the game embodies.
While I wouldn’t define this game as an “open-world game”, I would say that I had much more freedom of movement than I thought I would. This quite helped with the immersion into the game, since I felt quite challenged by the puzzles and navigation, and not as I was being handheld by the game, and left me with an overall greater sense of fulfillment after I completed a level when compared to other games I have played as of late. Every level has a different means of approaching it, and felt relatively well-paced. I thought the game would feel much more dated and not up-to-par given modern video game standards, and yet I felt as I was the main character of an immersive film where I was taking control. As I noted before, it is particularly interesting to play this game after I have played the Tomb Raider (2013) version, Uncharted, and other games that are similar and see how the genre and mechanics of games have evolved in the last 25 years and see how much is quite similar to this 1996 version.
Coming back to this game helps to understand why the Tomb Raider franchise has become as large as it has, and why Lara Croft is now one of the most well known figures in video games. While it was not perfect, I appreciated the efforts the game made to make the player feel in control and as if the character had weight and was moving (as much as video game characters can without the gameplay becoming boring), and the various challenges that were presented by the puzzles, combat, and platforming. At some point, dying seemed to become a mechanic in this game, due to the learning curve and the number of times I would have to attempt a level to get it right without dying or missing crucial jumps. However, overall, it was a great deal of fun to have another look at the first piece of the Tomb Raider franchise.
