nov 8th 2025 || Ah, I still remember when I got this game as a kid. A classmate knew I liked Lara Croft, so she lent me her copy. I went home and started the game... and I was so scared! The game is much darker than any other Tomb Raider, and for an eight year old (me at the time) it was truly frightening, especially the opening scene! After starting it, I had nightmares for weeks, just couldn't sleep at all!
But worry not: young Nathan pushed through and actually managed to finish the game, thought it took him a year.
As I've been replaying the remastered version, all I wonder is: how the heck did I manage to finish this game when I was eight, with no access to guides or tutorials or the internet? No idea. I guess I was more patient as a kid. And more free time. A lot of free time.
Despite its flaws, TRAOD always had a soft spot in my heart: the music, the atmosphere, the interactions... it's truly a little work of art. The controls in the original killed the game: it was almost impossible, or at least incredibly frustrating, to play. But the remastered gave this game some dignity and some playable controls, which is why I'm enjoying it A LOT! There are little tombs for being a Tomb Raider game, but if you know me you know I really like city levels in Tomb Raiders, so I don't mind.
Some puzzles are interesting, others not so much, but overall this remastered version has improved the game a lot (though they could have done way more, especially with the graphics, which are almost the same as the original, and some NPCs even have the same exact model.. a choice!)
The remastered is making me want to move this game up in my top tomb raider games (which you can see here)...
My favourite level might be the Louvre: but I won't make any jokes about recent events...

Random fun facts from when I was a kid playing this game

-"crowbar" in italian is "piede di porco", which literally means "pig's foot". I had no idea what a crowbar was at the time, so I spent an entire day looking for a pig.


-the friend who lent me her copy was very confused about the game and had asked me to write her a little guide. So I did: grabbed some sheets of paper, a pen, and started writing everything: "go to this area, climb this thing, turn this way...". I gave it to her once I'd reached the Louvre. A week later she told me that her mum threw it away by mistake. She asked me to write her the guide again, and that's when I learnt to say "no".

-I learnt where Prague is thanks to this game (mind you I was 8). But that's a common experience with Tomb Raiders: you learn geography!