(The following review covers the Switch version of the game.)

For me, Tomb Raider in 1996 was the moment when gaming truly became ‘3-D’. As in, not a novelty, not a trick of 2-D tech, but a full-blown environment of polygons. Its opening level - an unassuming area simply called ‘Caves’ - has a main section which is an open, snow-filled cavern with a couple of drawbridges connecting its opposing ledges. You come into it after navigating a few tight corridors and suddenly burst into it, finding all this new space to roam in. You can run, jump, swing off the drawbridges, and move in any direction you fancy. Everything felt immersive and interactive - a real world. While it wasn’t necessarily mind-blowing in the way that Starfox, Doom or Virtua Fighter may have been for their times, it was definitely a ‘huh’ kind of moment. And it all happened with Lara Croft’s first grand adventure. After that, there was no looking back.

I’m obviously not the only person to have fond memories of the first Tomb Raider. We’re now nineteen games into a franchise that has spanned twenty-nine years - twenty-nine! - and there’s no sign of it stopping yet. Over that time, the franchise has undoubtedly matured. No longer is Lara the awkwardly marketed wet dream of an 18-30 male demographic. No longer are the games simply about tomb raiding. And while I've enjoyed the later games, I still kept finding myself thinking whimsically of that very first entry. The wonder of its levels. The treachery of its traps. The unabashed clumsiness of its controls. And I kept wondering if we ever would see a remaster - even if all it did was merely showcase just how dated it is now?

Step forward Aspyr (a company you can always back to do a good port) to bring Tomb Raider ‘96 back from the dead. And with the Remastered Collection I-III, they haven't just exhumed the first one - they've also gone and dug up the entire first trilogy. Revivalist masterstroke or nostalgic white elephant? It'd seem smarter to assume the latter. But as I sent Lara tumbling and gunning her way through Greek labyrinths, Tibetan monasteries, and Indian temples once again, I genuinely found to my astonishment that these games have actually stood the test of time. Even weirder, they also succeed because of some of their dated quirks, and not despite them.

The first striking thing about this Remastered Collection is the sheer purity of this update. Outside of an achievement system, photo mode and a New Game+ mode, there are no other major unlockables. What you see is pretty much what you get. The original title screens return, albeit with a bit of an HD cleanup. But the voice acting, soundtrack, and cutscenes all remain as they are. For better or worse, this is as close as you’re going to get to playing these games in their original intention on a current-gen console. And Aspyr has been smart to let this speak for itself, from its own era. It's all the better for it, in fact.

Of course, something did have to be done about those early graphics. As amazing as they were for their time, there was no way this collection could be called a ‘remaster’ without taking them out of their Lego-esque origins and putting a nice lick of paint on everything. And that’s essentially what Aspyr has done. Players of a certain nostalgia can still switch seamlessly back to the old 1996 graphics at the mere press of a button (slower framerates included). But they will also be impressed by how faithful the remaster still looks. There’s been no massive overhaul of the game’s original engine - instead, all of the old textures, enemies, and Lara herself have been given a major resolution upgrade. Unlike with Tomb Raider Anniversary for example, where the original levels of the first game were re-done from scratch, this collection retains all of the early games’ staunch blockiness. It just now looks a whole lot prettier to look at, given that it’s all in high-res now. 

More importantly, the lighting has also been heavily enhanced from the originals (a genuine blessing). The levels look a lot more naturally lit, making it much easier to solve certain puzzles that the originals would have intentionally obscured in darkness. It does mean that some of the levels don’t look quite so dramatic - for example, the ambience of Tomb Raider I’s Colosseum level doesn’t quite pop as much with the new graphics. But it’s a small price to pay for making this game more accessible to play. (And easier to find that one bloody switch hidden under the Anubis statue in TR1’s Egypt - but I digress.)

Overall, returning fans should find that the Remastered Collection strikes a fantastic balance between old and new. Underneath it all, this is still the classic Tomb Raider experience: every level has ledges to climb, impossible gaps to jump, and horrendous traps to evade. And of course, plenty of dangerous animals to gun down in the name of ‘survival’.

Gamers new to these old dinosaur-era games (and there literally are dinosaurs in them) will be skeptical, however. For starters, why does everything look so blocky? The textures might look clean and new, but almost every ledge you can get a hand on is a solid right angle; almost every large room is a cuboid. Some rooms literally resemble a bunch of blocks randomly attached to each wall. Are these games really historic gaming milestones, or just nostalgia pieces with ugly 3-D?

It’s easy to lose the immersion when you realize the limitations of the engine these early games were built in. But the beauty is in the engine itself. Every level’s features are designed around its chief limitation - the need to measure everything in blocks. Crossing bottomless pits, climbing onto ever-taller platforms - it can all be done if you can measure how many blocks it takes to perform each task. It's both amusing and oddly ingenious. And it makes roaming each level feel like a battle with geometry itself - or at least, early Tomb Raider’s Pythagorean understanding of it. 

The controls, admittedly, are still weird. You can choose to use the ‘original’ mode, which guides Lara around like a tank (i.e. pressing the back button won't turn her around). There's also a more ‘modern’ mode, which enables full-directional movement. I honestly found myself preferring the original tank controls. After all, the originals were designed with them in mind, and there’s an organic, if archaic, rhythm that takes hold with them. Every running jump across a gap, for example, is navigated by a careful walk to the edge of what you’re jumping across, hitting back to leap back a block’s distance, and then running with the jump button held down to hurl yourself across. Rinse and repeat - you’ll never fall to a horrifying, screaming death ever again. It's antiquated for sure, but it's also a core part of the old Tomb Raider flow. Rigid, but a method behind the madness.

And flow is definitely the thing about these old Tomb Raider entries. Once you’ve got the controls down and grasp how level layout works, you can really get into the zone with them. Most of the puzzles are repetitive, revolving around either finding keys or items to fit into certain slots around the level, or locating switches hidden away somewhere that when pulled, will also open locked doors. Obviously, there are more complex variations of these themes, but that’s mostly what they boil down to. The real pain lies in the traps - the balls, the pits of spikes, the horrible opportunities to die from exposure to various elements (even gold). If you ever wondered where the later games got their ideas, they are all waiting for you in this original trilogy. And in typical 90s fashion, they will often be sprung on you in increasingly cheap, frustrating ways. The ability to save at any point numbs the difficulty significantly, but you will still be saving. A lot. 

Another deep frustration - one that I wish Aspyr had also fixed - is the combat. When enemies are bearing down on you, you won’t just be fighting them, you’ll also be fighting the controls. The lack of ability to dodge effectively becomes apparent - there simply isn’t a button for that. Instead, the best option you have is to leap about the place while Lara somersaults and auto-targets her pistols on whoever she wants (again, no control over that, either). On later levels of each title, this becomes even more difficult because you’ll often be forced to fight in tight corridors where movement is limited. Such scenarios often lead to fast, very annoying deaths - again, thank goodness for saving at any time.

Fortunately, there are also some other reprieves. There is an arsenal of better guns you can get to make combat easier. Some of the enemy AI is also pretty stupid - I found battles with human targets to be pretty simple given all they did was stand still and try to shoot you. So even while the Remastered Collection’s dated mechanics can often leave you swearing, they can also work in your favour - a recurring theme, in fact, for this collection as a whole.

Plus, if you get sick to death of one particular level, there are literally three games on this collection to be played. I personally found Tomb Raider I to still be the best - the plot of Lara being sent to find pieces of an Atlantean artifact on behalf of a mysterious corporate magnate still packs a few twists. Its levels are not only gorgeous, but they’re the foundation of literally everything that has followed in this series. Tomb Raider II also makes some excellent work of its Chinese theme, with some jaw-dropping later levels (both the Temple of Xian and the Floating Islands in particular). And Tomb Raider III also has some highlights with its closing Antarctica chapter. But the latter two games also dabble too much in modern settings and dull combat with human antagonists, and just don’t have as much magic as the first. If anything, I would recommend getting this collection for the first game alone - especially if it drops in price.

Either way, what Aspyr has done with the Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Collection is commendable. Their decision to bring these first three games into the modern age just as they are - 90s warts and all - is this collection’s strongest point. Ironically it’s also its biggest weakness, but the showing of age can’t hide the fact that this trilogy is a true milestone in 3-D game development. Either way, if you’re a Tomb Raider fan new or old - or just a fan of new retro-style games in general - you’ll have plenty of fun digging up the joys of these old classics. At least until the remaster for IV-VI rolls around...