A big part of the Tomb Raider fans' disillusionment with the series is its incredibly tough difficulty level. Stages in the games often contain sections that go beyond being challenging and present trials that are so hard that once you accomplish them, they provide you with a feeling of relief that you'll never have to go through them again. Tomb Raider Chronicles, though, is a little less difficult than previous games in the line, making it one of the more playable Tomb Raiders in years. It's still an evilly tough game that will require regular peeks at a walk-through, but you won't need to sit with the guide on your lap this time. (Audio cues that chime in with hints when you dally in an area too long would make the series much more appealing to mainstream audiences again.)
Regarding the PlayStation version specifically, the graphics look better than ever before. The environments in the first Tomb Raider were very sparse and bland, but over the years the developers have been able to squeeze more and more out of the PlayStation. For a game on an aging system, there's a surprising degree of detail in Tomb Raider Chronicles - without a significant sacrifice of level size. The textures do appear somewhat muddy, but their variety and appearance are still impressive. On the control front, it's no wonder that that Tomb Raider was originally designed for the PlayStation controller. It's incredibly smooth and makes the Dreamcast control configuration - which is more than adequate - seem clunky by comparison. Save for the graphical and control differences, the game is an exact duplicate of its Dreamcast counterpart.
If parallels between the movie and game industries exist, then they should be readily apparent with Tomb Raider. If you are a big fan of a film, you'd probably enjoy a sequel that comes out the following year and treads on similar ground. But five like-minded films over a span of five years is a lot to ask from even the most reverent fan. The problem with such tried and true formulas - whether they exist in Hollywood or in Silicon Valley - is that they quickly become formulaic, and never has this been more obvious than in Eidos' Tomb Raider line. If you haven't played a Tomb Raider game in years, however, Tomb Raider Chronicles is a worthy enough "sequel" to the original and can deliver an adequate number of thrills, though nothing unique or surprising.
Tomb Raider: Chronicles (PlayStation):
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