I replayed the original Tomb Raider recently. It's an excellent game, still holds up perfectly fine once you get used to the tank controls. Dense atmosphere, great exploration, good puzzles that make use of Lara's standard moveset - everything can be solved simply by observing your surroundings and mastering the platforming gameplay. The story is simple and delivered in short, snappy cutscenes paced like a 90s action movie. Lara is a badass action heroine whose conversations with opponents are defined by witty banter. Exposition is kept to a minimum, there are no lore dumps, 99% of the storytelling is environmental.
The game's atmosphere is sublime. No other game - including TR's sequels which add more human opponents and have way more conversations in their cutscenes - manages to create such a feeling of isolation. You explore ancient tombs whose crumbling floors were not tread upon for centuries, all alone. The soundtrack is used sparingly, most of what you hear is merely the wind howling through these forlorn halls. There are no cutscenes within the levels themselves, no texts to read, no audiologs to find. There is only the tomb and its environment. You encounter lavish palace chambers, broken statues, titanic aqueducts and sphinxes, strange trap rooms, and wonder for what purpose they were built. But the game never pushes an answer on you. The level design stands on its own. You explore, solve puzzles, perform acrobatics, and finally retrieve the Atlantean artifacts at the end.
It's an incredibly subtle game that thrives on atmosphere and slow, deliberate moments of careful platforming and puzzle solving.
And then, when the franchise was taken away from the original developers and given to Crystal Dynamics, a remake was made: Tomb Raider Anniversary.
It has the same levels, the same story, the same moments... but only on the surface.
All the subtlety and atmosphere of the original was lost. Tomb Raider Anniversary is the perfect example of The Decline in action. A direct comparison between an old, beloved classic and its reimagining a decade later.
Remember the T-Rex encounter in Tomb Raider?
You enter a strange valley where you're attacked by little raptors. Then, suddenly, a t-rex appears in the distance and attacks you. You pull out your guns, jump backwards, and try to kill it before it gets you in its jaws.
An effective moment because of how sudden and unannounced it is:
In the remake, they turned it into a lengthy cutscene that robs it of all surprise. Even worse, it has QTEs, and after that it turns into a gimmicky boss fight rather than just a beefy enemy you have to shoot until it dies (ignore the bikini Lara, this is the best video I could find on YT).
Even the buildup to that moment has been made worse. In the original, you drop down into the lost valley and encounter one raptor, the first dinosaur encounter in the game. Then you encounter a second one as you go further in.
And then, immediately as you walk past the collapsed bridge, t-rex appears from behind the hills and charges at you.
Short buildup followed by a sudden surprise. Simple and effective.
The remake has you fight an entire horde of raptors, then control is taken away from you as the game enters a cutscene (this NEVER happened in classic Tomb Raider in the middle of a level) which introduces the t-rex in an overly bombastic way. He's not alone, he's chasing away raptors and throwing them around with his mighty jaws! And then Lara starts to run away and you have to press buttons in a QTE to evade the t-rex's jaws!!!
Utterly fucking terrible. In the original, Lara running away in panic was not cutscene-induced but a player-driven reaction to the sudden appearance of a giant fucking dinosaur.
The difference between the original's and the remake's t-rex fight is the perfect example of what's wrong with modern game design.
You just can't have subtlety anymore. Where the original just threw you into a situation and made you deal with it on your own terms, the remake forces:
1. a cutscene
2. a QTE
3. a contrived boss fight where you have to make t-rex run his head into pillars or some shit
4. another fucking QTE because they couldn't simply let the fight end normally
Utter fucking shit.
Also note the difference in length of the two videos. The original's encounter was quick and effective. A short moment of adrenaline, and then it's over.
The remake's t-rex fight is three times as long. Needless padding that stretches the fight out well past its welcome.
And then there's the storytelling.
Here's the original cutscene where you encounter Natla in Atlantis and she tells you about her plans. Create strong mutants and unleash them on the world to put evolutionary pressure on humanity again. An evil plan, but it kinda makes sense in some twisted way.
The conversation is quick, witty, and explains everything you need to know and no more.
In the remake, the cutscene is twice as long and instead of witty banter between protagonist and antagonist, we get overly emotional melodrama.
Natla doesn't just tell Lara "lol I wanna unleash mutants to force humanity into being strong again", she now desires power and wants to seduce Lara to join her. Because of course. You can't have a regular villain anymore, it has to be some emotionally manipulative cunt. "You're here because you belong here, Lara! That's who you are."
Lol wat? In the original, she merely was a hired gun sent to retrieve the scion for Natla, but then she got betrayed and decided to fuck up Natla's operation in revenge. Simple action movie plot. Villain wants thing, betrays hero, hero prevents villain from getting thing. No need for big emotional moments between the hero and villain who secretly have a thing for each other or something. But no, you can't have a simple action-driven plot anymore, everything has to be EMOTIONAL and DRAMATIC.
The direct comparison between the original Tomb Raider and the Anniversary remake is the perfect example of decline in action.
The game's atmosphere is sublime. No other game - including TR's sequels which add more human opponents and have way more conversations in their cutscenes - manages to create such a feeling of isolation. You explore ancient tombs whose crumbling floors were not tread upon for centuries, all alone. The soundtrack is used sparingly, most of what you hear is merely the wind howling through these forlorn halls. There are no cutscenes within the levels themselves, no texts to read, no audiologs to find. There is only the tomb and its environment. You encounter lavish palace chambers, broken statues, titanic aqueducts and sphinxes, strange trap rooms, and wonder for what purpose they were built. But the game never pushes an answer on you. The level design stands on its own. You explore, solve puzzles, perform acrobatics, and finally retrieve the Atlantean artifacts at the end.
It's an incredibly subtle game that thrives on atmosphere and slow, deliberate moments of careful platforming and puzzle solving.
And then, when the franchise was taken away from the original developers and given to Crystal Dynamics, a remake was made: Tomb Raider Anniversary.
It has the same levels, the same story, the same moments... but only on the surface.
All the subtlety and atmosphere of the original was lost. Tomb Raider Anniversary is the perfect example of The Decline in action. A direct comparison between an old, beloved classic and its reimagining a decade later.
Remember the T-Rex encounter in Tomb Raider?
You enter a strange valley where you're attacked by little raptors. Then, suddenly, a t-rex appears in the distance and attacks you. You pull out your guns, jump backwards, and try to kill it before it gets you in its jaws.
An effective moment because of how sudden and unannounced it is:
In the remake, they turned it into a lengthy cutscene that robs it of all surprise. Even worse, it has QTEs, and after that it turns into a gimmicky boss fight rather than just a beefy enemy you have to shoot until it dies (ignore the bikini Lara, this is the best video I could find on YT).
Even the buildup to that moment has been made worse. In the original, you drop down into the lost valley and encounter one raptor, the first dinosaur encounter in the game. Then you encounter a second one as you go further in.
And then, immediately as you walk past the collapsed bridge, t-rex appears from behind the hills and charges at you.
Short buildup followed by a sudden surprise. Simple and effective.
The remake has you fight an entire horde of raptors, then control is taken away from you as the game enters a cutscene (this NEVER happened in classic Tomb Raider in the middle of a level) which introduces the t-rex in an overly bombastic way. He's not alone, he's chasing away raptors and throwing them around with his mighty jaws! And then Lara starts to run away and you have to press buttons in a QTE to evade the t-rex's jaws!!!
Utterly fucking terrible. In the original, Lara running away in panic was not cutscene-induced but a player-driven reaction to the sudden appearance of a giant fucking dinosaur.
The difference between the original's and the remake's t-rex fight is the perfect example of what's wrong with modern game design.
You just can't have subtlety anymore. Where the original just threw you into a situation and made you deal with it on your own terms, the remake forces:
1. a cutscene
2. a QTE
3. a contrived boss fight where you have to make t-rex run his head into pillars or some shit
4. another fucking QTE because they couldn't simply let the fight end normally
Utter fucking shit.
Also note the difference in length of the two videos. The original's encounter was quick and effective. A short moment of adrenaline, and then it's over.
The remake's t-rex fight is three times as long. Needless padding that stretches the fight out well past its welcome.
And then there's the storytelling.
Here's the original cutscene where you encounter Natla in Atlantis and she tells you about her plans. Create strong mutants and unleash them on the world to put evolutionary pressure on humanity again. An evil plan, but it kinda makes sense in some twisted way.
The conversation is quick, witty, and explains everything you need to know and no more.
In the remake, the cutscene is twice as long and instead of witty banter between protagonist and antagonist, we get overly emotional melodrama.
Natla doesn't just tell Lara "lol I wanna unleash mutants to force humanity into being strong again", she now desires power and wants to seduce Lara to join her. Because of course. You can't have a regular villain anymore, it has to be some emotionally manipulative cunt. "You're here because you belong here, Lara! That's who you are."
Lol wat? In the original, she merely was a hired gun sent to retrieve the scion for Natla, but then she got betrayed and decided to fuck up Natla's operation in revenge. Simple action movie plot. Villain wants thing, betrays hero, hero prevents villain from getting thing. No need for big emotional moments between the hero and villain who secretly have a thing for each other or something. But no, you can't have a simple action-driven plot anymore, everything has to be EMOTIONAL and DRAMATIC.
The direct comparison between the original Tomb Raider and the Anniversary remake is the perfect example of decline in action.
