So, what you playing at the mo? Retro Edition

Played the first two London levels in Tomb Raider 3 and the level design is really starting to fall apart. Some good ideas but some really bad stuff as well.

The first Thames wharf stage is a pain in the ass. It's a good idea with having the level loop back on itself but it means doing the same slow climb back to the start of the stage multiple times when you complete an objective, or worse, miss something important. Took a while hour to complete which was a ridiculous amount of time.

The level has you making your way to a cathedral in the distance which was meant to be a stage but it was cut because it was too tough but left in as a secret stage if you get all the secrets. It's very obvious that it's been cut as one of the secrets gives you a Cathedral key which has absolutely no use and might have been left in as a hint about the level. The stage also ends with a Cutscene fight around a bell in some random house. It was very obviously meant to take place at the top of the cathedral as it's so out of place.

The next stage is Aldwych subway station. It's another massive level that loops on itself. There's some good puzzles but also loads wrong with this stage. There's a very easily missed key due to a poor camera (I walked by it three times), a secret with nothing in it on the PC version. There's a row of ticket machines you have to get a ticket out of but only one works and it has a small area where you can interact with it. There's no indication which machine works. There's also two doors where you have to be in very specific spot to interact with and it's so bad I thought the game had bugged (as did a lot of people online when I searched). There's a puzzle where you have to find an elaborate golden hammer and then use it to break a lock (Lara just does her open lock animation which looks stupid). There's also a subway train you ride to another area which is very unconvincing and has you enter and exit through a trap door.

This level took about an hour 40 minutes, mostly due to walking passed the key a lot and thinking the game was bugged. To put it into context no other level took more than 40 minutes outside of London.

After this Ive got the delightful Lud's Gate, a level that is far and away the longest in the game with an underwater maze that drove me nuts on the PlayStation.

Shiren the Wanderer broke my heart last night.

Got up to the final floor, had a plan for the final boss but it all fell apart spectacularly.

The last 5 floors are just brutal with some hard hitting enemies and you basically need to use every advantage you have to get through. There's no messing about on those floors to level up and collect items, if you find the exit then move on. I was kind of running low on food and health recharges by this point as well.

So floor 29 the penultimate floor was a disaster, a massive monster room (basically a room filled to the brim with monsters and loot). I dealt with it well in fairness, had to use all my crowd control items in the process and basically run for the exit once I saw an opening but I had the tools I needed for the final boss.

The final boss has so much health and is surrounded by the most annoying enemies that you kind of need a plan to finish him off. My weapons were pretty terrible but I had a lot of money by the last village to buy some nice items My plan was to use a victory herb, which I spent a lot of money on, to get a few turns of invisibility, and then throw monster meat at him. Monster meat will turn you into the monster associated with that meat if you eat it but will also do the same if you throw it at an enemy. So I would turn the final boss into a weak enemy who I could finish off in 2 hits.

I enter floor 30 and the boss is in an awkward position. So instead of popping the victory herb and making the most of it I walk over to another enemy to thin the herd a bit before the boss approaches me. Said enemy throws me to the opposite end of the map in front of another enemy. I take this guy out and lose a bit of health but I'm ok. In the mean time a floating undead enemy approaches me. These guys usually hot you with random magic effects that can move you about the map or teleport you. They aren't too bad and you can even get status buffs off them.

However these guys are different beasts on the final floor. They can hit you with some really nasty status effects, including a new one I found out about last night. Anyway, I hit this guy with a postpone staff which sends enemies to the exit of the level and paralyses them. There's no exit in the final area so it just paralysed him. Not a bad outcome. So I walk over to beat him to a pill and after the first slap he comes out of paralysis and hits me with a Bind status. Bind basically means you can't use any items and Shiren relies on you being able to use items. So I spent the next few turns trying to use the victory herd praying that the status wore off and getting beaten to a pulp by the boss and his friends. The worst thing is I had the tools to beat this guy if I wasn't an idiot.

It's rogue like so this happens. And it wouldn't have been the end since there's 3 post game dungeons to tackle.

Finished the kitchen god dungeon of shiren's post game. Very interesting dungeon. You start with a knife that will randomly turn an enemy into a piece of meat. Eating this meat is the only way to replenish hunger in these dungeons and will also turn you into the enemies whose flesh it is.

It's a neat survival twist on the main gameplay where you have to really keep your hunger topped up but also exploit the enemy abilities. My tactic for the final few levels was to use one of the pumpkin enemies who can attack from walls and not suffer any retaliation and can also clip through any barrier. Made the final few floors trivial.

Then I almost screwed myself over. Found the npc that would give me an item and end the dungeon. My inventory was full so I ate the first enemy meat I had. Unfortunately when you eat enemy meat your character will attack automatically with their special attack on that turn. So I had eaten tank meat and sent an artillery shell at this npc who then aggroed. Luckily they respawned on the next floor and forgot about the artillery shell to the face.

I constructed a pretty bad ass sword and shield in Shiren. Didn't get all the special abilities on them but got enough and a few of them aren't even available other than the far reaches of some of the tougher dungeons. I went into the 30 floor Ceremonial cave dungeon and absolutely bodied it. The final boss was fun but couldn't keep up with my damage output.

I then decided to take on the Tainted Path dungeon. This is continues on the main quest dungeon from its final floor of 30 and extends it to 99.

Started off relatively easy. Then around the 40 hour mark it gets a lot hairier. I can wipe most enemies out in one hit and they can only do 1 HP damage but the enemy designs are such that you can't be too confident.

The gaze enemies are still present that can hypnotise you to carry out a random action and can trap you in a long loop of this. You could end up throwing your equipment and losing it so these guys are very dangerous.

There's also these little Mandrake looking plant guys. These just poison you in the base game which reduces you strength stat permanently unless you have an antidote handy in the next few turns. In the later dungeons they will put you to sleep and then try to confuse and poison you multiple times. I got caught a few times by these. One poisoned me 6 times which lowered my strength to less than half but I had an antidote handy. Sleep is a minor inconvenience but in these later dungeons it can be a death sentence. There's also mage enemies that are annoying at low levels up at high levels they can also put you to sleep. They also have the ability to drain levels from you. Even worse is they can turn you into a riceball. This means you can't use items and bonuses from equipped weapons and armour are negated for 10 turns. This is absolutely lethal if any other enemies are around and you are asleep and have basically my Defense buff from a shield.

There's also the danger of enemies that can slap your sword or shield straight out of your hands. These only appeared on one floor near the end of the main game but are common here. At least it means you are scrambling after your sword or shield you put hours into levelling up. At worst they can slap it into an abyss and it's gone forever.

So far I've been lucky and gotten all the was to floor 74 before taking a break. However things have gotten very dicey size the 60th floor. These floors introduce high level dragons that can breath fire at you from anywhere as long as you are in the same room as them. Their fire breath does fire damage which ignores a lot of your shield Defensive buffs and it's therefore one of the few attacks that can trouble my Defense and does about 10% of my health in one hit. Now this is perfectly manageable in the usual small areas the game takes place in but some levels are giant rooms while every 10th floor is a boss fight in a massive roo. With no walls. If there's multiple dragons you will take multiple hits before you can even get to them. Your best bet is to get the hell out of there. These guys are giving me massive trouble and I've only survived by using a scroll to confuse every enemy in the room and running for the exit.

I looked at what other nightmares are ahead and it seems that the final 10 floors have the maximum level dragons that can hot you from anywhere on the floor.... Even through walls. So I guess I've 14 floors to prepare for these guys and come up with a strategy to get past them.

They screwed up Bushido blade 2. It feels different than the first game and nowhere near as much fun.

The Indiana Jones game is really rough. It was a different Dev team than the star wars ones.