I suppose this has been said before, but I wanted to thank ArenaNet for the new map, which is amazing, especially the Temple of Abnegation event chain.

Whenever a new release comes out, I'm usually a bit intimidated by the sheer number of achievements. Lately, it's been even worse, to the point where playing the game was starting to feel like a chore.

I decided to give the new chapter a try, and now I'm hooked again. It's absolutely gorgeous, and I loved the atmosphere of the temple. Exploring an ancient ruin while fighting enchanted weapons against the clock and trying to avoid a curse that's slowly killing your character was such a great experience.

And then you reach the final chamber... only to discover a hidden cellar with a beautiful and genuinely fun jumping puzzle! It felt like Guild Wars 2 and Tomb Raider had crossed over.

I can't remember the last time I had this much fun. Anyway, back to the game!

Hi everyone!

With Legacy of Atlantis on the horizon, I decided to replay Tomb Raider: Anniversary. I absolutely loved it back when it released and even completed it 100%.

I'm a fan of both the classic games and every era of Lara since then. I try to appreciate each game for what it is rather than compare them constantly, so I didn't go into this replay expecting to dislike Anniversary. Quite the opposite, I was really looking forward to revisiting it.

In the end... I'm feeling pretty conflicted.

I still enjoyed my time with it, but some aspects haven't aged as well as I remembered. Of course, the game came out in 2007 (which makes me feel old...), so I'm not going to spend pages talking about dated mechanics or the fairly simple story. Instead, I wanted to focus on what Anniversary does well, what it doesn't, and what I'd love to see in Legacy of Atlantis.

Let's go!

The Good

• The soundtrack is absolutely fantastic. Yes, it moves away from the original game's music, and I do miss the iconic main theme with the Gregorian chants. But several tracks like Adam, Natla, and the Centaurs in particular are incredible. My dream soundtrack for LoA would combine Anniversary's orchestral quality with modern arrangements of the original TR1 score.
• Croft Manor is excellent. It doubles as a fun level and a great tutorial. Personally, I'm getting a little tired of the movie-inspired mansion and would prefer something closer to the classic version, but the level itself is fantastic (and the music is wonderful).
• Most relics are hidden intelligently. They feel integrated into the classic puzzles rather than randomly placed, and they're challenging without becoming frustrating. (Yes, I'm still salty about that Midas Palace secret hidden behind a tree in the original.)

...and unfortunately, that's about it.

The Bad

• The gameplay. My God, the gameplay.

I'm not even talking about the controls, whose flaws are well documented. Sometimes Lara sticks to every wall within ten metres like a magnet; other times she simply refuses to grab a ledge for no apparent reason.

What really surprised me, though, is how empty the gameplay feels.

Combat boils down to waiting for the adrenaline mechanic. You shoot until an enemy gets angry, conveniently waits its turn while the others stand around, charges at you, you trigger the slow-motion dodge (which often clips you into a wall), and that's it. Rinse and repeat.

Exploration isn't much better. It often feels like 90% of the game consists of moving from ledge to ledge, with the camera being a bigger threat than gravity. Climb up. Drop down. Jump sideways. Repeat.

Even the puzzles become repetitive. Tihocan's Tomb feels like a larger version of Poseidon's room. Ironically, for a remake of one of the games that helped define 3D exploration, Anniversary sometimes feels almost two-dimensional.

• The game lacks visual identity.

This is probably the most common criticism of Anniversary, and I never fully understood it before replaying it.

The graphics themselves have aged surprisingly well, but the art direction hasn't.

The original game used limited technology to create memorable, colourful temples full of personality. Anniversary often replaces them with grey corridors, brown hallways and beige chambers. The Lost Valley still has an impressive skyline, but compared to the original, it feels strangely lifeless.

• Too many levels are reduced to their "iconic moments".

People often mention the missing Cistern before Tihocan's Tomb, but I think it goes much further than that.

Almost every level has been condensed down to its highlights while much of the journey between them disappears.

I completely understand restructuring certain locations to make them more believable (Midas Palace is a good example) but, to me, a remake should expand and enrich the original, not simplify it. Some levels now feel like shadows of their former selves.

The Wish List

Peru

One thing I didn't mention earlier is the atmosphere. And that's exactly what Peru is missing in Anniversary.

Despite the technical limitations of 1996, the original game still manages to tell a story through environmental storytelling. Skeletons, footprints, abandoned structures... little by little you piece together what happened. The Incas survived and flourished in Vilcabamba before eventually being wiped out by wolves and dinosaurs.

Anniversary doesn't really tell that story. You simply move from one objective to the next. The sound design is another huge loss. In TR1, silence was one of the game's greatest strengths. The sparse ambient sounds constantly reminded you how isolated and vulnerable Lara was. That feeling almost completely disappears in Anniversary.

I also find it funny that, in the developer commentary, they poke fun at Toby Gard for not including an Incan village in the original game... only for Anniversary's village to end up being tiny as well.

The original simply didn't have the technology to portray the last Incan stronghold properly. Anniversary did. From what we've seen so far, LoA seems determined to address exactly this issue, which is very encouraging.

Greece

Overall, I think Greece is more successful than Peru, but it's also much more inconsistent.

Some levels are brilliantly reimagined, like St. Francis' Folly. Others, like the Colosseum, feel heavily stripped down.

The gardens in Midas' Palace remain one of my favourite locations in the original game, as do the aqueducts that eventually let you look back over almost the entire level from above. Sure, I've always wondered why someone decided to hide a lead bar on top of a temple, but that entire sequence is sorely missed in Anniversary.

I also seem to be one of the few people who genuinely loves Tomb of Tihocan in the original.

I understand why Anniversary merged it with the Cistern, but I think that decision hurts both the pacing and the world's internal logic.

In the original, Greece gradually unfolds: first ancient temples, then an old underground water system, and finally the realization that this forgotten network concealed Tihocan's resting place.

I'd love LoA to expand on that idea. Imagine an entire level focused on uncovering an entrance deliberately hidden by monks centuries ago before finally discovering Tihocan's tomb and facing the Centaur.

Egypt

Egypt probably suffers the most from Anniversary's colour palette. Thankfully, everything we've seen from LoA's trailers is incredibly reassuring. I absolutely love the direction the developers seem to be taking.

My other big hope concerns level design. In the original Sanctuary of the Scion, the Scion itself is actually very close to the entrance. After passing the Obelisk, the final gate is already right there. The entire purpose of the level is to retrieve the Scarab needed to unlock that gate, meaning you spend a huge level only to return to where you started.

I always thought that was brilliant level design, and I was disappointed that Anniversary abandoned that concept.

Atlantis

I actually think forcing the player to lose their pistols in Natla's Mines and not being able to rush to the end without them is one of Anniversary's better changes. Almost everything else, however, is a downgrade.

I'm one of those players who absolutely loved the body horror of the original Atlantis. Anniversary's version is cleaner and technically prettier, but it also feels strangely sanitized. I think this comes down to one major difference. In Anniversary, Atlantis feels like just another ruined location. In the original, it is Atlantis.

You find a throne room. You explore what genuinely feels like the remains of a once-living civilization rather than another abandoned temple.

That's probably my biggest wish for LoA: build Atlantis as an actual city, a place that once functioned, where you can imagine people living before everything went horribly wrong.

Final Thoughts

So that's the end of my replay review, sorry for the wall of text!

I know some of these criticisms are hardly original, and on other points I'm probably just echoing opinions that have been shared by the community for years. Despite everything I've said, I genuinely enjoyed replaying Anniversary. There are plenty of ideas worth preserving, even if there are just as many that I hope LoA chooses to leave behind.

Hopefully theycan deliver what, for me, would be the definitive version of Tomb Raider I.

Hello everyone,

I started reading the books slowly but surely a little less than a year ago. I faced and survived “the slog” without ever really feeling the infamous slog myself. Sure, some of Perrin’s chapters were a bit boring, and the succession war had an ABSURD number of characters, but I never truly felt bored.

So I was really excited to finally reach the end of the slog and see what everyone was talking about. Yesterday, I finished Egwene’s chapter “Honey in the Tea,” and I have to say: I can’t remember the last time I was this hooked by a book.

Egwene is an absolutely fascinating character, and even though the chapter is not exactly packed with action or battles, the way she slowly weaves her web while being Elaida’s prisoner completely blew me away. What I loved even more is that her ability to manipulate and influence people doesn’t come out of nowhere,it feels like the natural culmination of her experiences as a damane, a Wise Ones apprentice, and Siuan’s student.

Watching her go from a prisoner everyone tries to humiliate to someone who doesn’t destroy the White Tower, but instead gradually unites it around herself, is incredible.

From what I understand, Egwene is… not exactly popular here (to put it mildly), but this chapter alone completely renewed my excitement for the series. If the rest of the book, and the remaining books, are this good, I’m thrilled!

Alors question complètement idiote et peut-être à côté de la plaque mais la curiosité me taraude...

Depuis tout petit je fais des rêves assez convaincants parfois très scénarisés. J'en oublie sûrement mais à mon réveil je me souviens systématiquement d'un ou plusieurs rêves que j'ai eu durant la nuit. Je repense beaucoup à certains rêves que j'ai pu faire, voire certains que j'ai fait étant petit.

J'ai rarement fait des rêves lucides et des fois cela peut être farfelu mais très souvent cela vire en des récits épiques du coup avant de me coucher j'ai limite presque hâte de rêver pour voir ce que mon inconscient me réserve. Quand j'en ai parlé à mon mari il m'a dit que lui ne se souvenait quasi jamais de ses rêves et j'ai eu l'impression d'être un peu bizarre pour avoir ce type d'idée.

Est-ce que d'autres personnes ont ce rapport là aux rêves ? Est-ce que vous pensez à vos rêves la journée ? Est-ce que certains vous ont marqués ?