Tomb Raider Legend Review: Your Every Breath Belongs To Me

Let's get into it, straight away. Similar to every review of mine, my "Big 4" points of interest of video games quality checking are going to be here, as well (Gameplay, Story/Writing, Graphics/Art Style, Audio Design).

Gameplay in Tomb Raider: Legend is fluid, smooth, and graceful. Lara is much, much more of an acrobatic character to play than I'm used to, because I mostly play as the brick shithouse, tank characters. But, Lara's ability to float around her opponents and out-maneuver them for a victory on a near constant basis is nothing short of stupendous. So fun to play.

The story of TR:L is pretty good as far as a video game standard goes. Keep in mind, video games don't have "Star Wars" or "Raiders of the Lost Arc" or even "Citizen Kane" yet, so even the best games' stories would realistically be considered B-movie levels of quality. If you go in knowing that, and just enjoy what is right in front of you, this story here is not bad at all. The writing is dialogue heavy, which is the toughest thing to write in my opinion, and is realistic provided you can accept the idea that all these old stories of Camelot and whatnot are not only factual, but incomplete. There is more to these old stories than we even thought. That part of this story is cool and I dig it. I'm also into history, so if you are into history too, it'll be right up your alley.

The art style is half-way between "cell-shaded" and realistic. I really think that was a bold and ingenious idea that was implemented perfectly. Full cell-shading in games can be cool, but the luster wears off quite quickly in my opinion (look at the Borderlands for an example), and full photorealism is great but if most of the game's budget goes there, the story and everything else in the game will suffer. This blend of the two styles with the expressive faces of all the characters really make an interesting range of visuals to enjoy. The graphics are above average in terms of photorealism for games of this time, but the "next-gen" (better) graphical settings will start breaking the game and cause crashing on PC after Ghanna.

Nearly every bit of music in this title is phenomenal. The audio design is way above average, reaching into superb at times. I never heard about this particular Tomb Raider game until kinda recently, so I had no idea I was missing out on such a great soundtrack. Every song here is upbeat, heart-pounding, and high-energy, while at the same time being rhythmic, warm, and soothing. I can tell ya, that takes time and effort to get that to mix right. Well done. The weapons sound impactful without being needlessly scary, the grenades and explosions are satisfyingly thumpy, and melee attacks are meaty. Everything you want, nothing you don't.

To conclude, I liked nearly everything here except for a few of the puzzles didn't want to cooperate with me, the bosses had far too much health and became a marathon of attention for no reason, and some of the basic features like locking on to fire guns was lacking. Many times (especially the last boss) there were times where the game just refused to lock on. And with no dedicated lock-on button like in Kurohyou or Dark Souls or something like that, it became mighty frustrating. Other than that, the puzzles were fairly challenging and still fun to complete, the graphics/art style are far above average, nearly every song on the soundtrack is a fucking banger, the gameplay is killer, and story is pretty damn good. Well worth your time.