TR5 No Scratch/Minimal Damage Playthrough

[Woops]

Can you record a video of that glitch? I'd be interested to see it.
Also, when you say "Tumble" you mean roll? Thanks.

[fallenangle]

Tumble/Roll - same thing yes. I tend to call it a tumble when used during a jump.

Sorry I have no means of recording it and even if I could I do not subscribe to any file/picture sharing web sites.

It has always surprised me that for a forum like this we can't post pictures here directly for purposes like this.

The glitch should* be reproducible from my description. If you jump with the action button press throughout you'll know if the position is correct because LC will stick on the edge, flickering in the jump/arms outstretched pose. You press roll and she ends up in the cave.

*Unfortunately I overwrote the save of the jump position where I could get this to happen every time. I've just tried to find that again and can't.

I have found that it is possible to jump from there to grab the edge which I thought it might be but had not managed. There is a precise position on the ground where you can do that too.

Pulling up into the cave either way triggers the bats but there is no use to this in avoiding them as the pull up animation takes too long. LC is often nibbled before she is even fully standing.

EDIT

Still can't find that start position for the jump which does what I described. I've found several places where you can bounce her off the bottom edge of the cave. This triggers the bats in the same way but I have not been able to exploit that successfully to avoid bat damage a you end up facing the cave and even with an instant side jump it is random whether you get bitten or not

I've found a sort of cheat which might prove to be an alternative successful solution: get LC to the very small 'safe' area at edge inside the cave entrance. Facing to the left along the line of the edge jump straight up; each time it edges LC forwards towards the angled join between the sloped area in front and the triangular flatter area she's standing on. If the angle is right when you get to that join she'll jump up and then slip straight down below the entrance to the cave.

The useful thing is that she is now half embedded in the rock wall on her right. You can trigger the bats here by going into crouch but this also ejects her from the wall, annoyingly, slightly backwards. But it does give you marginally more time to start your jump and run/sprint ahead of the bats.

I still have not managed it but I have, once, avoided all damage until the sprint part ended when one lone bat decided to go back for a final nibble. I was not pleased.

[fallenangle]

I'm totally bored trying to get past the bats in The Gallows Tree unscathed. It is just random as the bats behave differently each time. If that makes the cave tough then the monkey swing passageway is nightmare hard. I'm sure it is possible but after probably two dozen attempts waiting for the game to give me the chance it had stopped giving me any entertainment value at all.

I've accepted the best minimum damage I could manage in each area and moved onto the next level. Did that no scratch, no real problem although, again, the bats annoy as they can apparently not just fly through sold rock but also through water as well.

[tomee]

Just 2 dozen attemps?
Should you attempt TR2 no scratch in the future, beware of the mighty goldfish in Temple of Xian. I was stuck on this level for nearly 2 weeks, because I was also doing pistols only. It was madness. I just couldn't get it right for so long despite KNOWING it was possible to avoid it.

Good luck with the VCI levels. I feel Escape with the Iris especially is going to be a challenge.

[fallenangle]

Already done all the other TRs no scratch including TR2. That's pistols or default weapon only and all secrets too. I try for all pickups but I'm sure I miss some and also do not necessarily go for all kills. I always leave the first monkey in TR3 alive and there were Raptors in TR3 I simply did not trigger. Same sort of thing for the other games too. In this game I left the two snipers at the sub base alive too.

This TR5 run will complete my set but it is by far the most frustrating one trying to do it without damage thanks to those bats.

That TR2:ToX fish one was indeed difficult but I found that if I swum LC around the locked room in a certain way the fish would get stuck in the scenery trying to take the direct route to nibble her. It proved just long enough to be able to complete the task and get out undamaged. The fish I had trouble with in TR2 were the sharks and barracuda in one of the Maria Doria levels where you have to swim outside the shipwreck to get a secret and, I think, a key or other pickup.

In TR5 they just repeat the bat clouds too many times; it is a cheap device and another indicator the designers had run out of good ideas. There was one bat encounter in Labyrinth I was OK with because there is a solution which requires understanding of the level geography and how to use LC's skill set to avoid them. But even then you still have deal with the fact they will attack her in deep-ish water and there's that uncontrollable randomness too.

Those are the reasons I couldn't be bothered to try more than a dozen times with the two sets of bats in the Old Mill level, particularly the one which appears when you open the timed door. The camera position means you're attacked blind and even if you run/sprint down the slope they will still attack her in the water. I'm sure it is doable but by that stage I'd had more than my fill of cheap, invincible bats.

[fallenangle]

Gone back to this recently and I'm past most of those previous randomly possible/impossible level sections.

This time the automated gun corridor in The 13th Floor has been a sticking point. If you want the third secret you have to go back through it and there seems there might be a possible solution but, again, it is random. The gun will hit LC 9 times out of 10 mid-air even if she side jumps or leaps towards the first side doorway.

However I eventually got into there without getting hit using a dive but I couldn't find a way of getting out of there. You can minimise the damage by jumping to the left side of the corridor and not get any additional hits by sprinting right immediately and then curve left at the end so you're safe around the corner.

The gun takes time to rotate so that is actually quite easy.

Now I'm on to my least favourite 'no scratch' section with Escape With The Iris. You have apparently unavoidable drop damage at one point and that all leads to areas with various security guards who'll get usually get random hits on LC.

So more repetition to come. This sort sort of cheapness and seen that, bought the T-shirt gameplay in TR5 is what confirms this as still my least favourite of the old PS/PC era games including all the TR1 - TR3 PC expansion pack material too.

Don''t get me wrong, its a good enough game but............................................... ...

EDIT

I just don't enjoy the last three levels of this game much. There's unavoidable damage that annoys but it is the 'cheapness' of some of the gameplay that really provokes me. It all just feels like they were going through the motions and hadn't thought it all out as well as they should. Then there are the glitches in Red Alert, some of which are game ending.

A good example of the 'cheapness' are the guards you can chloroform but others you can't, the redundant extra bottles of chloroform (why?) and when you kill or disable them they and their gun disappears.

Arming LC with just the HK also smacks of being a lazy way of increasing the difficulty by preventing her from firing from the crouched position.

[xtimz]

Hi fallenangle, I forgot. Do you play on PC or PS? You told me, but I forgot.

[fallenangle]

PC now, almost exclusively.

It is just so easy - no disc and apart from the annoying double click server check to launch the game I can be playing it in seconds. On PC it plays just as it did on PS but looks better too.

Interesting thing I only learned on this playthrough (thanks to a post here) after years of thinking it was just a small 'normal' glitch is that the weird flickering you can get on PC with the image behind the in-game loading screen is caused by the graphics settings.

https://www.tombraiderforums.com/sho...d.php?t=226197