Tomb Raider Legend UNappreciation
 

Tomb Raider Legend is a Tomb Raider which, in general, was a successful video game. However, there are also many people who don't like it. The change with respect to previous Tomb Raiders, introduced to the game, which I dislike the most, is the significant reduction of the difficulty level. This is why I decided to post this thread. I've checked if a similar thread has been already created, but I haven't found anything. So this is what I dislike in the game:

• major flaw in the story: how was the sword broken into pieces that appeared in different places around the world if it was intact in Nepal when Lara was young?
• extremely easy gameplay in which you don't even collect any items and use them afterwards to make progress
• binoculars with the RAD mode which make puzzles immediately solved
• quick time events in which you just thoughtlessly press buttons that appear on the screen
• motorbike sequences which are too simple and boring (as far as I remember you don't even have to press the Up arrow to drive forward and you can never reach the target if you don't defeat the enemies :p)
• dialogues with Zip and Alister which:
  • help you make progress in the game making it even easier
  • give you information about the places Lara visits so you don't have to use your imagination to understand them
  • cause the game to lack the atmosphere of isolation which classic Tomb Raiders have
• rewards that are almost everywhere and there is no difficulty in finding them (except the golden ones)
• only two very different types of regular enemies: similar people and similar animals

I was very put off when that sales person said that this game would be a "rollercoaster ride"...I thought, that's the exact opposite of what a Tomb Raider game should be! And yet, that's what this was. Short and packed full of combat and ledge climbing...and not much else, certainly not much of a sense of exploration in the level design.

This was also the time that Lara's consistency went out the window. How high does Lara jump? Well, now it depends on whether the developers "want" her to jump toward something or not. It's like Lara's controls change to fit the environment around her instead of the other way around.

living for this thread. i'm playing TR: Legend after a TR: AoD replay, looking at the differences with a critical eye for the first time. and it seems like Crystal did a lot of research on how to refine AoD's concepts while trying to improve on where it went wrong. but in the process, they forgot... actual tomb raider gameplay. like don't get me wrong i love the combat and climbing but they didnt put any, you know, good tomb type areas in. it's all very linear with backtracking and it... kind of sucks. someone on reddit recently described TR:L as "so awesome, it's like a playable action movie" and tbh? tea. unintentional tea but tea nonetheless. TR makes a good action tale but for a game it needs exploration and puzzles. even TR 2013 had more exploration with its collect-a-thon

I really like the game but I will list what I didn't like :

- TOO SHORT.

There there.
... Oh ok, here some other ones but the main has been said. :D

- Unfortunately too easy and handholding
- Almost exclusively human enemies
- Introduction to magnetise grab
- Too linear
- Next Gen on PC is quite ugly

This is my biggest frustration with post-Core Tomb Raiders. Yes, the "blocks" system was unrealistic and cartoonish, but it made platforming feel like a skill you could master. Over time, you kind of...internalize the arcs and distances of Lara's different jumps, and you use that info to "plan out" more difficult platforming segments.

With the newer games, it seems as if Lara's "magnetized". Jumps that're well within Lara's grasp...she'll flail and fall to her death if it's not part of the dev-approved "path" - jumps that seem utterly impossible, well...if it's what the game wants you to do, Lara's grappling hook will shoot out twice as far as normal, and she'll soar towards her destination like Leia floating through f'ing space.

Also, I don't like Tomb Raider being so serialized. Aside from AOD, all of Lara's previous outings were self-contained stories. There were easter eggs and background references, but a newcomer could start with any of the first four games and not be missing vital info.

The CD Trilogy goes too far in trying to turn Lara's adventures into a single epic story about family and prophecy and "living up to her father's legacy". The fact it dragged TR1's story into this whole "grand narrative" is also a pretty sore point for me.

you know that's entirely fair. i really don't like lara directly following in richard's footsteps. that's one of the reasons i prefer the survivor timeline's parent story. like sure it's over the top at the start of rottr but she chose to investigate his research instead of it becoming some stupid ass story of needing to find her mummy

Oh, definitely. I'm kind of a weirdo as far as TR fans go, because rather than my preferences going Core>Legend Trilogy>Reboot or Reboot>Legend Trilogy> Core, I'm actually closer to Core>Reboot>Legend.

I can understand why the Legend Trilogy wanted to make things interconnected, but for me it feels a little forced. Having the villain of TR1 be the villain of TR:Underworld just seems...fanfic-y to me? It's all just tied together in such a neat bow that it feels artificial.

(I also have a problem with the fact that they made Larson more "human". Don't get me wrong, turning a goofy goon into someone more realistic is generally "good writing", but that whole scene where he's like "C'mon Lara, we're old friends, I know you're not just gonna shoot me in the face." and then Lara just...does made me pretty angry at her.

Which is...I'm pretty sure not the writer's intention.)

wow actually yeah, im the same way. Core > Survivor > Legend. like anniversary is my fave TR but i cant deny TRI is better technically. i don't understand their decision to make larson a more in depth character. it's pretty obvious what happened: chase carver in the top cow comics (love your top cow lara avatar btw) was pretty clearly based off of larson. so larson in the legend timeline was based off of chase in turn. and it didn't really work because chase wasn't that great of a character... i felt no sympathy for him and cheered when he died lmao

I have a love-hate relationship with Anniversary tbh. Some parts of it improve massively on the original, coming so much closer to what (I assume) was in the original devs' heads in terms of scale and visual beauty. It's also a hell of a lot of fun to play!

That said, certain changes (like turning the T-Rex encounter into a QTE) just baffle me.

Regarding Larson, and my feelings towards the Legend trilogy's writing as a whole, I think it falls into an odd kind of "middle ground".
The characters are more complex, and from a purely analytical standpoint, you could argue that everyone's personality/motivations are "better", but those changes often clash with the baggage left over from the originals.

There's a moment in...I think Legend(?) where a panther(?) leaps out and attacks Lara. After you've killed it, she makes a comment about how it's a shame to kill such an impressive animal.

Which is cool! Lara feels remorse for killing an animal! That's interesting!

But because it's a Tomb Raider game, there are at least two dozen more panthers that you've got to kill, and it feels...weird.

The Legend trilogy's Lara is more complex and "human" than our gun-toting badass, but she's forced to do a lot of the same things her cartoon self did, and that can cause some tonal awkwardness (I really hope this makes sense, lol)

EDIT: You're absolutely right about Chase, not sure why I didn't notice that before. (Especially with the note in Larson's bio I seem to remember about Larson secretly having feelings for Lara...) As for Larson's death, I'm not gonna say I was crying for the dude. It was just a very surreal moment of "Damn, Lara, that was cold!" XD

The intro that plays when you boot up the game kinda sums up how I feel about it: it's tacky. Easily my least favourite game in the franchise.