Review: ‘Tomb Raider Reloaded’
Even individuals who don’t play video games have heard of Lara Croft, better known as the Tomb Raider, and with Lara still being prominent in the gaming industry, CDE Entertainment has released Tomb Raider Reloaded, their take on her exploits on mobile. Croft explores a lot of ruins and other perilous areas in this 3D top-down level-based adventure. She has only one weapon to protect herself against foes, supernatural or otherwise, while she seeks for wealth and artefacts. You’ll take what you can from each effort to enhance your loadout and boost your chances of succeeding.
Crystal Dynamics is incredibly excited about the future of Unreal and how it will help us take our storytelling to the next level. That's why we're proud to announce that our next #tombraider game is being built on Unreal Engine 5! pic.twitter.com/UFMiWzJAZc
— Tomb Raider (@tombraider) April 5, 2022
Tomb Raider Reloaded is a linear dungeon crawler that combines strategy, roguelike aspects, and bullet-hell action in stages inspired after its source material’s renowned levels, such as Saint Francis’ Folly, Tomb of Qualopec, and Lost Valley. Each of them has 20 to 50 chambers where you can level up, customise Lara’s powers with randomly picked talents, fine-tune your offensive capabilities, and collect riches from your foes’ bodies.
Lara Croft L's; Tomb Raider Reloaded edition. Share some of your epic fails with us! pic.twitter.com/FO1kww3fkT
— Tomb Raider (@tombraider) February 17, 2023
This is arguably the closest Tomb Raider has ever gone to being an arcade game, a distinction Tomb Raider Reloaded can be proud of. It harkens back to some of the older games, which were divided into chambers for navigating, puzzle-solving, or waging war. This game accomplishes this by dividing each location into many levels. You never have any idea what you’re going to get the first time you go in.
Its bright, expressionistic art style and unending menu seem like any other mobile game, but the correlation to Vampire Survivors is not superficial. Its one touch controls, rotating upgrade unlocks, and automatic firing are reminiscent of a licensed version of the wildly popular indie game, even though Reloaded was in development long before Vampire Survivors’ release.
So happy seeing everyone hyped for Tomb Raider Reloaded! Let's raid, y'all! pic.twitter.com/NNSUVg4fAe
— Evan Maxwell-Walker (@SoulGlitc_h) February 14, 2023
The gameplay is reliant on a single input: a moving wheel that navigates monsters, traps, and puzzles. After you stop travelling, you automatically target and begin firing at the nearest adversary. Even if your only defensive capacity is to run away from enemies or projectiles, it’s a basic concept that appears to be done well, at least in these early stages.
— MasterGamer (@MasterGamer2853) February 16, 2023
Then, despite appearances, the levels are not produced at random. There will be no surprises because each region will always contain the same levels with the same buildings in the same sequence. After you’ve learned this, all it takes is some memorization and patience – assuming you have the necessary resources. Lara needs all the stuff she can obtain to have a chance, and the store drops aren’t as lucrative as they may be. As a result, you must use your precious and limited Tickets to grind levels in the hopes of obtaining enough treasure and experience to go to subsequent sections, which will hurl more and more monsters at you.
Tomb Raider Reloaded holds a lot of promise. Ultimately, it should place more emphasis on smoothing out the last of its gameplay flaws and less emphasis on the advancement hooks.
