Tomb Raider - Caves

I'm going to explain what this series of videos is, and how I played the game. Tomb Raider on PS1 featured a save system that clearly laid out the game's expectations in regards to challenge and punishment for death. It even turned saves into a resource to add an additional layer of resource management to the levels. The PC version doesn't have this, it just lets you save whenever you want, and this is the system featured in the TR1-3 Remaster (until you unlock NG+). As such, I was unsure how much the game expected me to save. I could absolutely trivialize the levels if I wanted and that didn't seem right. I couldn't look up where the save points in the PS1 version were without spoiling the game, so I had to guess what the intended challenge was. The game is broken up into levels....presumably you save between levels. This felt right. However, as the game progressed, levels became very long, and incredibly punishing. It'd take ages to practice later parts of a level if you needed to go through a 30 minute run up each time. Yet it still felt right to do the levels in one go. What I ended up doing was save once or twice in longer levels, only to practice the later sections. Once I felt confident, I would attempt to beat the level in one go. HowLongToBeat says an average run of TR takes 11 hours. My playthrough was closer to 70 hours, and I loved it. This is such a good game, and running through the levels in one go accentuated all of its best aspects. The levels are excellently designed, and I don't think I would have appreciated that as much, nor been as immersed, if I had broken them up. If you're a patient player who enjoys replaying content and feeling yourself get better at it, this is how I'd recommend you play. These videos are of my successful runs, and I'll include my thoughts on each level in the descriptions. That being said, I didn't decide to start recording my runs until the levels started to get really long, and there's no level select. As such I started a new playthrough after beating the game to capture my missing runs. All of the Peru levels are post-completion Nero runs, as is Colosseum, so you can expect my gameplay to be more refined in those. I certainly wasn't this clean, nor did I have as good a handle on Lara my first time round. Also this is not a 100% run, I find whatever secrets and pick ups I managed to find. I hope you enjoy. I find these kinda soothing to put on the second monitor over a podcast...maybe throw a video of Subway Surfers on the side to achieve maximum brainrot. With that out of the way, I can comment on the first level. It's good. It's a good first level. It's very chill, and completely linear, mostly allowing to get used to the controls. Contextually it's also a good build up. This is Tomb Raider, but we're not in a tomb just yet, we're making our way there. However there are some indications that we're close; some manmade structures and such. The second secret I managed to find did set an expectation the game rarely lives up to though. You find a pick up in front of a huge bas relief. The relief has no mechanical significance, it's just a cool asset to look at and it feels mysterious and tomb-y; it feels like the kind of discovery a tomb raider would want to make. Unfortunately most of the secrets in the game are merely hard-to-find pick ups. You'd imagine a tomb raider would be more satisfied discovering a lost statue or artifact rather than some bullets. Then again as an exploration/survival game it's a good choice to hide resources to encourage exploration mechanically. This example is the perfect solution; the pick up is more for the player's sake while the historical artifact is more for Lara's sake (though the player can appreciate it too). I get it would be a lot of work to create unique assets to accompany more of the pick ups, but it is a shame more secrets don't attempt this. Coming back to this level after beating the game I realized that the wolves (the second easiest enemy in the game) actually have the same movement patterns and attacks as the Mummies and Atlanteans (the hardest enemies in the game). It's a cheeky, well executed bit of asset reuse and it completely went over my head. Wolves are pretty chaotic but they're small and die quickly so they don't pose too much of a threat if you know what you're doing. I missed a secret in this level. I think I know where it is, I just don't know how to get up there so I left it. Of course in my first run I probably had to heal at some point, but now I'm a seasoned vet I was able to get through unscathed. A habit I picked up after the first playthrough is stopping occasionally to use the look function. I want to make it evident that Lara is taking in her surroundings; it feels a bit incongruous for her to speedrun through an area she's never been to before, and solve puzzles she doesn't understand. It also shows off the beautiful level design a bit more. I think I might be a showcaser at heart.