Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft does just enough with the original Tomb Raider games to make them a great fit for the Nintendo Switch. The ability to instantly flip between the original and remastered graphics is entertaining, but the real fun lies with the games themselves. And these are the three best Tomb Raiders ever made.

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is the best example of a remaster I think I've seen in years. Where some titles have played fast and loose, with full overhauls of their game mechanics or visual styles, Aspyr has taken a classic trilogy and revamped it as a love letter to its origins, bringing memories of old back to life. As more and more titles get the reboot or reimagining treatment, it is refreshing to see an old classic come back in a new style.

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft does exactly what it says on the tin, presenting the first three adventures of the famous heroine with some optional improvements to help them shine a little brighter. These games have a feel and logic of their own, and those wading into them for the first time might find the games hard to wrap their heads around. For better or worse, this is the original Tomb Raider trilogy, and if you’re going to play them this is the best way to do it. There are a few bugs to address and it really needs a brightness setting for the modern visuals, but otherwise I can’t find much to complain about here that isn’t endemic to the original games.

Aspyr has done an excellent job bringing Tomb Raider I-III up to modern standards without breaking what made these games unique and challenging at the time. That said, even with the modern controls and updated graphics, these are still tough and unforgiving games that won't suit everyone—an excellent relic of the past uncovered in the best way possible.

While the controls and combat can be frustrating at times, this is due to the Tomb Raider I-III Remastered collection being the faithful trilogy of remasters that it should be, allowing you to revisit where the iconic franchise all started.

These classic games remain as ingenious, memorable and frustrating as ever.

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is one of Aspyr's most accomplished projects to date, successfully giving three of gaming's most iconic titles a much-needed lick of paint while upgrading the controls to give newcomers a welcome leg-up. Some of the lighting is a bit off with the new visuals, and the need to manually save your game is a big no-no in 2024, but if you're curious as to how Lara Croft got her start in gaming, then this is easily the best way to experience the original trilogy.

It is interesting both as a compilation of classic games and for the fun it contains, but we must keep in mind that they are still the original games, with many of the technical and playable defects (logical for the time) that they had.

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is a game created by fans for fans. The team, consisting of modders and enthusiasts, aimed to bring Lara's original adventures into the modern world. However, the gameplay of these '90s gems has not aged well, and our impressions of them have been largely influenced by nostalgia. While the modern controls and graphical upgrades suggest that this is a contemporary game for a modern audience, it's more likely that the games will be primarily enjoyed by those nostalgic for the original titles.

Your enjoyment of this collection will depend entirely on why you’re playing it. If you want to play using the original graphics, with optional modernized controls, at a high resolution, and with widescreen support, this is essentially perfect. But if you’re looking for a remastered experience, Tomb Raider I-III is both an artistic mess, and a remarkable misunderstanding of some of the original visual game design. So come for the genre-defining original trilogy, but I wouldn’t recommend staying for their remastered incarnations.

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered could have easily been a massive hit if the developers had just added more quality-of-life options and tweaked some issues that plagued the original. If you’re an old fan, I would definitely recommend it, as it’s the best way to experience the original Tomb Raider trilogy.

It’s difficult to recommend Tomb Raider I-III Remastered as a thing that people should play. The games in the collection – especially the first one – are classics, though they’re not classics for the way they pushed gameplay or storytelling forward. They’re quite deficient in these areas. Tomb Raider is a classic because it helped redefine the nature of what a digital character could be. Sure, we had Mario and the Final Fantasy characters well before Tomb Raider, but those were closer to mascots. In Lara Croft we had a kind of human-proxy superstar for the first time. To many people, the gameplay didn’t matter. Not when rumours were spreading of nude codes for this new superstar.

Tomb Raider I-II-III Remastered is such a gorgeous version of the three first games of the Tomb Raider saga. However, the changes in the controls were disappointing and handled with no care, besides the camera that's almost impossible to tame at some moments. In the end, the experience relies on nostalgia more than anything else.

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered is a mixed bag of a remastered bundle. While it offers players new quality-of-life updates and great new features, the experience is marred by frustrating movement and an unreliable camera.