The Tomb Raider Remastered IV-VI collection consists of three games in the series. Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation tells the story of Lara Croft and how she accidentally unleashed an Egyptian God and now has to stop it. Not only does she have to race across Egypt to do it, but also has to deal with being pursued by her rival and former mentor Werner Von Croy.
Tomb Raider Chronicles story isn’t much of a story, but rather has Lara’s friends recalling her adventures over her career that were previously untold. The game breaks these down into four episodes that feature unique challenges and locations. Each showing various stages of her life and career, such as in Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness, where we we see Lara being framed for the murder of her former mentor Werner Von Croy. Lara has to navigate the underworld of Paris and Prague in an effort to prove her innocence.
With this second remastered trilogy, not much has changed in the realm of gameplay from the previous entries in the series. You still have Lara traversing areas, solving environmental puzzles, taking down enemies, and it all seems familiar yet still fun to experience. I do like how Chronicles tells stories from Lara’s past and kind of shows a history of her that was previously unknown. The way it’s broken up into sections is nice and doesn’t feel too overwhelming or like the game goes on forever. It’s interesting to see how Lara lived her life and the adventures she had, even though the premise of the game is a bit sad.
Angel of Darkness is where the game kinda takes a shift in my opinion when compared to the first four titles in the series. This entry has much more of an emphasis on urban environments when it comes to exploration, even allowing you to go into certain buildings to search for items and clues as to how to clear your heroines name.
With the focus of Angel of Darkness being urban and the exploration, it makes it feel more like an entry in the Syphon Filter or Metal Gear Solid series. It’s a direction that is both very refreshing and welcomed. It helps to breath new life into the series, and kind of sets the stage for future games in the series that would come after it; to a degree.
The last thing I will mention with the gameplay is with Last Revelations. With this title, we get the original game but also a bonus level called The Times Exclusive. This serves as a precursor to the events of Last Revelations main game and is really nice to see and play.
This darker trilogy of games can be played in their original form graphics wise, but can also be played with remastered visuals. The remastered visuals provide higher resolution textures, enhanced lighting, and makes signs easy to read which were previously illegible due to the primitive power of the original consoles the games were released on.
Character models are much more defined and the textures are sharp and detailed. The lighting in this game is where the set really shines. With the newly enhanced lighting, the games feel brand new and feel completely different. In fact, everything combined with the remastered visuals make the games, especially the first two out of three titles feel like brand new games.
With Angel of Darkness, it’s not as much of an impressive jump since it was originally on the Playstation 2. Specifically calling out the textures, as yes they look really good, but it’s more of them being cleaned up as opposed to looking completely new and changing the face of the game. On the flip side, the lighting in Angel of Darkness makes the game as a whole easier to navigate as it’s not as dark and makes the urban environments come alive.
As with the previous titles, the controls in these games have been overhauled along with the graphics. You can play with modern controls or play with the tank controls if you so choose. You can play the game with original graphics and modern controls. If you really feel like punishing yourself, you can play with remastered graphics and tank controls.
All three games perform very well which I would come to expect when playing these games on a modern platform. None of them have slowdown or flickering of any kind. They all feel like they were optimized to take advantage of the power of modern platforms and it goes to show how much care and dedication went into this remastered collection.
When it comes to audio in this trilogy, it seems very similar to what they did with the first remastered trilogy. We don’t have some big orchestrated sound track that was completely redone for this release. What we get here in the audio department is more of an audio clean up. The sound effects, the voice acting, and the music in the game all sound cleaner. Before they had a bit of grittiness to them but in this set, that’s no longer the case.
This is especially evident when it comes to the voice acting and the background music. With the original releases there was a bit of noise if you will in the audio. This seemed to generate a slight hiss and as a result made it sound a bit dull or slightly muted. You have none of those kinds of issues with the audio in this set of games. Everything sounds crisp, loud, and just really stunning honestly.
I was pleasantly surprised as how good the sound is with this trilogy, as I was when it came to the previously remastered trilogy. The audio had about as much care put into it as the graphics, which I truly appreciate.
I really like seeing these remasters make it to modern platforms to give gamers coming back to these games a reason to play them again, to experience them in a new and exciting way. It also gives a new generation the opportunity to experience the games as they once were and also with a modern visual look and feel if they so choose.
With this second installment of remastered games in the Tomb Raider series, I am hoping this will open the door for more remasters. I would like to see remasters for the Fighting Force games, or even the later Tomb Raider releases, or even remakes of the 2D handheld games.
The second Tomb Raider Remastered trilogy is a must play for those that grew up with these titles. If you happen to come across these games and are curious, also give them a play. These games are some of my favorite in the series, especially Angel of Darkness due to the entirely different direction it took from the previous entries.
Despite the dark nature of this trilogy, it’s definitely a must play for fans of the series. Even if you’re not a fan of the series but are curious, check these out. They are awesome games and the best way to play the games in the modern era.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.