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Old 24-03-24, 03:42   #1
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Default Why did Anniversary not sell well?

I finished Tomb Raider Anniversary yesterday after I took a long break from the game. My question is why didn't sell well? Was it marketing? Game bugs?

I did get frustrated with the game but I managed to over come those challenges such as Adrenaline Dodge etc. I've heard things such as Anniversary had cut content from the original Tomb Raider 1 but I'm not sure if that is true.

I would like a detailed response/answer to this.
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Old 24-03-24, 04:17   #2
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The biggest reason was because they hardly marketed it at all. This was before remasters/remakes had become as popular as they are nowadays, and I'd say Eidos was mostly banking on the positive reception of Legend to guarantee sales for Anniversary.

They also completely missed the actual 10th anniversary and had to work alongside another company to even get it out the door. But all in all, I'd say it was just a cash grab to help contribute toward Underworld, much like Chronicles was for AoD.
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Old 24-03-24, 09:07   #3
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It was a smaller, last minute project with barely any marketing at all. I would say "less" than "not well" because Eidos never complained about TRA's performance and I guess it didn't need to do a lot.
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Old 24-03-24, 16:45   #4
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Default The answer is obvious now that the Aspyr remasters are out

Anniversary was a bad remake in all ways except the fluid and surprisingly comfortable control scheme, and occasionally the ambient music. The Cistern comes to mind as a highlight. It almost captures the glory of the original with St. Francis Folly, but the rest of the levels are a letdown. Egypt and Atlantis were hit especially hard, what made them great was mercilessly stripped away.

The negative features include
  • Legend-Lara. A bland personality not worthy of the mantle of the original, cooler Lara. Crystal just had to swap the classic round red sunglasses to what was trendy at the time, which was oval or rectangular lenses in blue or green.
  • More Legend-timeline crap forcefully inserted into the story.
  • De-saturated color palette.
  • Levels have been shrunken and seem less expansive than the originals. Especially evident in the almost completely re-designed Palace Midas and the tiny "City" of Vilcabamba. The original CoV, despite being limited in actual size, made the impression that you only saw a tiny part of a much bigger whole. You get no such feeling with TRA. Transitional corridors with time sinks such as spiked pits added between big areas that need to load "invisibly" in the background.
  • Gamey "arena" added for the T-Rex encounter.
  • Traversal-related items such as swing poles added to places where they don't make any sense, they make Anniversary levels seem even more "gamey". *White lines and other visual indicators to mark climable ledges*
  • Combat with animals feels artificial and repetitive. It goes "Lara gets knocked down, animal waits patiently for her to get up again. Repeat until Lara shoots it down." The anger-meter dodge maneuver gets old fast.
*This was a necessity. The level geometry was no longer grid-based so without them it would've been harder to determine what ledges Lara can grab and if she even should, which would've resulted in excess reloads and frustration.


Pretty bad considering that a "mere" remaster quickly became more popular than Anniversary ever did. Despite the lack of polish in some areas, Aspyr went in the right direction and most importantly - they respected the games' original look and feel. Crystal's remake ditched all that was good and timeless about the original, and replaced it with their Legend formula. They ruined TR1 by chasing current trends and at last even they can't ignore the fact that what they introduced into Tomb Raider, no-one really cared about. It was all in vain. The main selling points of LAU were HD graphics and unlockable outfits, and possibly the goth-chick villain Amanda.

Last edited by Jackanory; 25-03-24 at 17:15.
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Old 25-03-24, 01:00   #5
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Jackanory was adrenaline dodge in the original game? I haven't played any Tomb Raiders prior to Angel of Darkness. And if Anniversary was a separate game away from Legend and Underworld series would have it made a difference?
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Old 25-03-24, 01:10   #6
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Jackanory was adrenaline dodge in the original game? I haven't played any Tomb Raiders prior to Angel of Darkness. And if Anniversary was a separate game away from Legend and Underworld series would have it made a difference?
No it wasn't, Anniversary was more actionized in the vein of Legend's gameplay and more streamlined in gameplay and particularly level design, that was the bulk of people's issues with it coming off the original. That's not to say it was a bad game, plenty of people enjoyed it of course. A lot of people just feel it was streamlined too much compared to the original game.

It being tied to the Legend timeline wasn't really a issue on its own, it's more that it tried to hamfist the original timeline's storyline into Legend's canon and as a result it probably affected development decisions, like Natla retroactively becoming Lara's archenemy in Anniversary and subsequently Underworld.

Then outside of the game itself, there's also the issue that they never really wanted to make it in the first place supposedly, and that it was really only done to keep Core's own 10th anniversary game from seeing the light of day. It's well known at this point that it was a sour point for quite a long time.

Last edited by Jathom95; 25-03-24 at 01:24.
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Old 25-03-24, 01:22   #7
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Jathom95, thanks for the reply. I'm no expert in the earlier games in terms of origin, game play etc. I also don't want to go down the rabbit hole of which Tomb Raider game is worse because that is just a matter of opinion.
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Old 25-03-24, 01:33   #8
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Jathom95, thanks for the reply. I'm no expert in the earlier games in terms of origin, game play etc. I also don't want to go down the rabbit hole of which Tomb Raider game is worse because that is just a matter of opinion.
You're very welcome. Yeah, I can understand that, it's a lot of history and over the years there's been a lot of things, true or untrue, thrown around and it can get a bit confusing.

I have my own thoughts about the series from Legend-onwards, but I don't begrudge anyone for liking what they like with these games. At the end of the day, that's what they are. And we can always be critical and constructive, and have mature discussion on those topics in the process.
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Old 25-03-24, 10:44   #9
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Default Questions from Jackanory response

1.Levels have been shrunken and seem less expansive than the originals. Especially evident in Palace Midas and the "City" of Vilcabamba. Transitional corridors with time sinks such as spiked pits added between big areas that need to load "invisibly" in the background.

Were the spike pits in the original or were they used as you said "to load invisible" parts of the game in the background?

2.Traversal-related items such as swing poles added to places where they don't make any sense, they make Anniversary levels seem even more "gamey".

Were there some swing poles in the original or none? Or did they just add them to seem more "gamey"?

3.Combat with animals feels artificial and repetitive. It goes "Lara gets knocked down, animal waits patiently for her to get up again. Repeat until Lara shoots it down." The anger-meter dodge maneuver gets old fast.

Is this referring to Adrenaline Dodge as well? Because it was being a boring repetitive mechanic without any variation between the bosses and animals? And that there weren't really in other ways in combat to make the game more interesting in that regard?
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Old 25-03-24, 17:39   #10
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And if Anniversary was a separate game away from Legend and Underworld series would have it made a difference?
No. Not if it was developed by Crystal.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Synapse View Post
1.Levels have been shrunken and seem less expansive than the originals. Especially evident in Palace Midas and the "City" of Vilcabamba. Transitional corridors with time sinks such as spiked pits added between big areas that need to load "invisibly" in the background.

Were the spike pits in the original or were they used as you said "to load invisible" parts of the game in the background?
I don't remember any examples from the original peruvian levels, but it doesn't matter. These time sinks were everywhere in TRA, not just in that hub. In Egypt you had those narrow corridors with crushers or swinging blades, or those timed scarab-switches, and all hubs had those empty narrow corridors between bigger areas. I do suspect that they were used in the same way as elevator rides were in other games.

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2.Traversal-related items such as swing poles added to places where they don't make any sense, they make Anniversary levels seem even more "gamey".

Were there some swing poles in the original or none? Or did they just add them to seem more "gamey"?
No, the original TR had no such traversal mechanic, you can only grab horizontal ledges. TR2 introduced ladders and other climable surfaces on blocks, TR3 surfaces that you can monkey-swing under. TR4 introduced climable vertical poles and ropes.

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3.Combat with animals feels artificial and repetitive. It goes "Lara gets knocked down, animal waits patiently for her to get up again. Repeat until Lara shoots it down." The anger-meter dodge maneuver gets old fast.

Is this referring to Adrenaline Dodge as well? Because it was being a boring repetitive mechanic without any variation between the bosses and animals? And that there weren't really in other ways in combat to make the game more interesting in that regard?
Anniversary combat is repetitive because you have no melee moves or grenades like in Legend and Underworld. You can only shoot, attempt to dodge the regular way which is ineffective, or shoot at enemies to anger them so that you can perform the anger-dodge and kill them with one subsequent hit. Some enemy encounters in TRA involve a QTE event. I'm neutral towards those, they offer a different type of challenge which admittedly is far simpler than the combat/traversal type that tests your skill. QTEs only test your reaction speed but can be equally fun if the prompts are randomized. In TRA they're not, but the QTEs are so few anyway that it's not a major problem. Only certain boss-enemies involve them.

Last edited by Jackanory; 26-03-24 at 16:46.
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