Mr Viral
Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition Review
No one asked for Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition on Switch, but I’m not going to look a gift tomb in the mouth.
After all, the 2013 reboot of the iconic Tomb Raider franchise is one of the most important games in my life.
Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition was the first game I bought for my brand new PlayStation 4. Squeezed into our freshman dorm, my bestie and I logged dozens of hours replaying Lara’s quest to free herself and her companions from a crazed cult of sun worshipers.
Trapped on a cursed island, Lara endures an Uncharted-style gamut of cinematic adventure-adventure stunts that leave her battered, bruised, and fighting for survival.
As a budding games journalist, I interviewed Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s Senior Gameplay Director Daniel Chayer-Bisson, and its Senior Producer, Mario Chabtini, at 2018’s PAX West, where I earned my best friend’s ire for exposing them for playing Tomb Raider on easy nine times.
Since buying that first game, I’ve played most of the older games in the franchise. That’s where I fell for with the original Lara Croft: the unselfconsciously thrill-seeking adventurer who does it all for the love of the game.
Despite a storied history of over-sexualization, I loved her as one of gaming’s earliest female video game icons. For nearly a decade, my license plate was L CROFT.
All because I saw a woman’s face staring back at me on the cover.
So, no pressure, right?
Graphical Downgrade
It’s been 12 years since this game came out, and it looks worse on the Switch.
Mentally, I’ve been dancing around how to say it. I’m playing on the original Switch, after all, and comparison videos show the Switch 2 version running at a much better frame rate.
But it doesn’t look better.
The cutbacks seem to be geared to make the game run on the original Switch console. If you’re not going to utilize the Switch 2’s next-gen specs, why wait so long for the port? Why not just bring it to Switch five, seven years ago?
It’s not as baffling a decision as bringing the notoriously story-heavy Mass Effect 3 to the Wii U, but that choice has floated to mind.
A properly pretty port just for the Switch 2 would give Nintendo another exclusive to tout. Instead, Tomb Raider looks just good enough to get by. There’s really only one reason to play it.
In the Palm of Your Hands
Tomb Raider is an amazing handheld experience. Exploring the cursed island of Yamatai is a great second-screen option for watching a TV show. It’s an easy title to plug away at; time disappears into it like sand.
Controls-wise, Tomb Raider feels natural on the handheld Switch. The one drawback is how the smaller screen exacerbates the game’s graphical issues with hair, shadows, lighting, and water effects. Occasionally, this extends to textures not loading in.
I’d recommend Tomb Raider on Switch for the handheld experience alone, but that argument falls apart when you remember that Tomb Raider is available on PC and verified on Steam Deck.
If you’ve got no other way to play Tomb Raider handheld or at all, the Switch is a fine way to experience this story. But if you can, play it on Steam Deck — it’ll look better. It’ll probably play better, too.
Growing Pains
It pains me to say it, but I don’t like this story anymore.
I still love the setting. An island of swirling storms that refuse to let crash survivors leave is evocative, and exploring the world remains fun. I love the characters, too – for as long as we get to have them.
I’m tempted to revisit the underrated sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, which takes all of Lara’s most interesting archeological instincts and codifies them into a streamlined version of Tomb Raider 2013’s already clean gameplay.
There’s a reason I and countless others have compared this game to Uncharted. Players jump and crawl through spaces, shoot their way through endless enemies, and react with timed reactions set to elaborate set-piece cinematics.
Lara’s archery is as fun now as it was a decade ago. Progression is locked behind various weapon upgrades, and fast travel enables going back to earlier regions to unlock more resources. Going back to earlier areas for uninterrupted engagement with Tomb Raider’s mechanics is the best part of the game.
But the specter of ludonarrative dissonance – yes, that’s right, I said it! – looms over us still.
To Kill or…
I don’t care that Lara’s killing people. She’s certainly justified, considering the circumstances! But fast traveling for more resources means leaving Lara’s friends in danger to go on a hunting sojourn, collecting artifacts, documents, and those ridiculous GPS caches.
(By the way, are those geocaches? Is Lara dropping everything to go geocaching? If so, it’s the most in-character thing she does all game. Suddenly, I love it. No one tell me it’s not that, please.)
Narratively, the game is a relentless bummer. If someone’s emotionally important to Lara, don’t get attached to them. Actually, don’t get attached either way – friends’ lives, hope, and meaning are snatched from Lara at every turn.
It’s not death that hunts Lara, but pain. Lara suffers from a grim double standard to prove her value as a badass action hero. For women to commit violence, violence must be done to them.
As female agency in action media improves, this trope becomes frustratingly common. Time and again, Lara sustains gruesome injuries beyond anything her male counterparts are expected to survive.
Endless death animations painstakingly eroticize Lara’s agony, a reminder that the changes made to modernize Lara’s identity only strip the fun out of her oversexualization. What’s better, a busty, self-actualized protagonist, or a misery magnet with a smaller cup size?
I Love Tombs!
There’s an infamous line early on where Lara declares she hates tombs. While you understand where she’s coming from, how can you get farther from the original character than that?
At the time, fans hoped, even expected, Lara to grow into the blithe Tomb Raider we know and love. She never does. Now, not later. Sure, she becomes self-assured as she seeks out adventure in later titles, but it’s always for a cause. This Lara never plays for sport.
I haven’t been a big fan of Aspyr’s recent remasters of the early Tomb Raider games, either. I’m tired of looking behind, anyway. What I’d like to see next is a brand-new title in the Tomb Raider franchise – one with an approach as fresh as Tomb Raider’s was in 2013, but with the Lara I know and love.
Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition just doesn’t cut it anymore.
***A Nintendo Switch code was provided by the publisher***
The Good
Clean gameplay
Fun mechanics
Compelling setting
Great characters
Good on handheld
65
The Bad
Graphics downgrade
Outdated design
Cringe violence
Huge bummer
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