Tomb Raider II – Core Design/Westlake Interactive/Aspyr - 1998 - First time playing?: Beyond the first few levels, yes

It's been over a couple of years now since I reviewed Tomb Raider I for this site, and there's been some exciting developments for the series since then. The entire lineup of classic Tomb Raider games, spanning Tomb Raider I to Angel of Darkness, have since received modern remasters for current gaming platforms, and these remasters have been developed and published by… Aspyr? That’s the same publisher that handled the Mac ports of Tomb Raider back in the 90s, and now they are responsible for bringing the series back out of dormancy following a quiet patch of no releases after 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider. So now, retroactively, these Classic Mac OS versions of Tomb Raider, which are otherwise solid but do nothing particularly better or worse than the Windows originals, are far more significant. There's a good chance those remasters, the primary way that people today experience Tomb Raider, would have never existed if not for Aspyr getting their start with the series all the way back here, starting in 1998 with Tomb Raider II. Yeah, Tomb Raider II was actually the first Tomb Raider to come to Mac, with Tomb Raider I’s release coming shortly afterwards, which is also why the Mac version of Tomb Raider includes the Unfinished Business expansion. Tomb Raider II’s expansion meanwhile, named The Golden Mask, wasn't included on Tomb Raider II’s CD, but was later released as a free download. We’ll just be looking at the base game for this review, though I may add an addendum for the expansion when I get to it.

I've put off fully playing through Tomb Raider II for entirely too long. I've made my adoration for the first Tomb Raider clear on this site already, and I've beaten both it and Tomb Raider III multiple times now with all secrets. But what about the game between the two? I've started it a few times but always got distracted before I had a chance to get further than the first three or four levels. Now, that's not to say I have negative feelings towards Tomb Raider II. It's quite a deceptively different game from its predecessor, in spite of its similar appearance on the surface. It may feel the same at first, owing to using the same engine with very similar controls, but Tomb Raider II is vastly expanded upon compared to its predecessor. Twice as many weapons, more varied environments, new moves, introduction of vehicles, much, much more action, and by far the most significant change in the whole game bar-none, Lara Croft’s braid is finally rendered in her in-game model. We've peaked, it's never going to get more next-gen or more realistic than this.

If you’re after a brief on what Tomb Raider as a series is all about, I’d recommend reading my review of the first game before this one. In summation however, the series is a mixture of platforming, puzzle solving, exploration, third-person shooting and resource management, depicting Lara Croft’s globetrotting adventures in search of legendary artefacts that may or may not be capable of destroying the world should they fall into the wrong hands.

Legend tells of an emperor in ancient China who fought to conquer the lands with the Dagger of Xian, a mythical blade that is capable of summoning a dragon should you plunge it into your heart. Now sealed away by the warrior monks who defeated the emperor, centuries have passed and the dagger has become little more than a myth. A suitable mystery for Lara Croft to get to the bottom of. She's not the only one interested however. A sinister cult known as the Fiamma Nera, led by Marco Bartoli, will do anything to get their hands on it first for their own nefarious purposes, and are more than happy to gun Lara down to wipe out any potential competition.

Starting out, something you're immediately likely to notice is the jump in difficulty from the first Tomb Raider to Tomb Raider II. As opposed to the first game opening with a fairly empty, spacious cave with minimal enemies and a lot of opportunities to get a feel for the controls, Tomb Raider II opens by taking the safety of your small, cramped starting area away from you by spawning a fast and aggressive tiger to hunt you down shortly after entering the level. Furthermore, getting out of the tiger pit immediately requires a fair amount of platforming that expects a good understanding of the game’s methodical jumping controls. It doesn't stop escalating either, with a section later on in the level that throws you into trap after trap that you need to quickly escape from one after another before you're either crushed or skewered to an instant death. The infamous T-Rex from Tomb Raider I even shows up in an optional area by the end of this gauntlet of a level. Tomb Raider II is clearly designed with the expectation that you've played Tomb Raider I first, which is one of the reasons I recommend the first game as the best starting point. Every sequel moving forward is just going to get harder and harder than the last, so brace yourself; we’re still essentially in “easy” territory by Tomb Raider standards.

I do think that the game is mostly fair, however, at least as long as you’ve played Tomb Raider I before trying II and have a good understanding of the mechanics and general level design tropes. Tomb Raider I’s core is still here and more or less unchanged, with the new mechanics being added on top of the base established by its predecessor. Movement, jumping and climbing all feel nearly identical, though there’s a few small tweaks that, while minor, do end up making the game much smoother to play. Namely, the roll maneuver, which functions as a quick turn to have Lara instantly flip around 180 degrees on the spot, can now be used in mid-air and while swimming. The various death traps throughout also feel suitably telegraphed and not like the game is just blindsighting you with sudden unavoidable instant deaths. Just as before, taking the game slowly, looking around your environment, considering every bit of the terrain that you can utilise to your advantage, what Lara is capable of in said environment with her moveset and figuring out the potential ways to circumvent the most dangerous segments of the levels remains a rewarding and satisfying experience.

Well, with one exception. This game has springboards on loan from Sonic the Hedgehog, and while they are absolutely hilarious, they are also a constant source of confusion and sudden death for me every single time they show up. There’s not really any kind of safe environment to practice using the springboards in the game, as Lara still takes fall damage and the springboards send you flying fifty feet up into the sky, meaning that if you misalign any jump at any time, you can kiss all of your unbroken bones goodbye. Whatever the trick to consistently using the springboards safely is, I never figured it out. Sometimes they launch me straight up, sometimes they send me flying straight ahead. There’s a section near the end of the game where you’re required to bounce on four springboards in a row, and when I thought I had figured out how they work finally, I then reloaded my save to try it again using what I thought was the exact same inputs and ended up dying again and again and again due to overshooting my jumps and crumpling into a mangled mess on impact. I’m sure I’d have an easier time figuring them out if not for the fact that literally every springboard in the game is potentially deadly, so trying to experiment with the physics is inherently going to result in a lot of game overs and reloading saves before you can learn what not to do.

Something worth noting about Tomb Raider II’s difficulty escalation is how saving was handled in the PS1 version. The PC versions of all classic Tomb Raider games allow you to save anywhere, at any time, as many times as you like. No matter where you are, just bring up the save menu and now your current position is snapshotted for you to return to whenever you want. The console versions did things a bit differently however. Tomb Raider I on PS1 and Saturn limited how and where you were allowed to save, through the usage of save crystals, an item found placed throughout levels that allows you to save your game when touched. Save Crystals are consumed when used, thus limiting how often you can save as well as where you can save. As Tomb Raider I came out on consoles before it made it to PCs, it's clear that initially the game was designed around the limited save system, with the difficulty balanced appropriately. Tomb Raider II meanwhile, both on console and on PC, allows you to save absolutely anywhere as many times as you want, and it's clear that the game is now designed with the expectation that the player is likely to save before trying anything dangerous. As a result, do-or-die deathtraps and hectic enemy ambushes are far more common. It's harder, but at least in the case of the PS1 version, much less punishing. It’s thanks to this system that the springboard segments are manageable.

I'm torn on this, to be honest. On one hand, limiting the amount of times you can save a game via the usage of finite rare items is one of those retro games tropes I'm honestly glad we don't generally use in games anymore. On the other hand, the tension is much, much lower when you can save anywhere, which somewhat hurts the somewhat survival horror-adjacent atmosphere of Tomb Raider. For instance, resource management is heavily softened by being able to save anywhere, as if a combat scenario goes badly enough that you'd need a medkit, you can now easily just reload your last save and try the fight again until you get through with less damage. Then again, any time I remember how brutally difficult the PS1 version of Tomb Raider III was due to the limited save system, suddenly saving anywhere sounds like the universally better system. You can still do self-imposed challenge runs where you limit how much you can save on your own terms. I'd like to do such with Tomb Raider II when I'm more confident and not doing a first-time playthrough for a review.

To be clear, I do greatly enjoy Tomb Raider II and recommend it, but I am a little mixed on the heavier action focus. Combat was the weakest part of Tomb Raider I in my opinion, so giving it heavier focus with hordes of hit scanning enemies by level 2 isn't exactly how I hoped the series would progress. With that said though, once you stop trying to play the game like Tomb Raider I, the game starts to click more. Unlike either Tomb Raider I or III, Tomb Raider II is far more generous with resources and you're given access to stronger guns much sooner, allowing for more frequent usage of your full arsenal, in contrast to how reliant on your pistols you had to be in Tomb Raider I. You fight far more humans in Tomb Raider II, and they frequently drop medkits or ammo when killed, so fighting enemies provides what you need to be able to effectively fight even more enemies. This also works to make combat all the more satisfying; not only do you have the immediate reward of being able to explore the area without being shot at, but you also now have extra resources on top of it. The previously mentioned tweaks to the roll mechanic also further assist you in quick dispatching of enemies, further reducing the time it takes to line up shots and making it easier to get behind your targets to get in some free shots outside of their line of sight.

Lara is still equipped with the mainstay dual pistols, shotgun and uzis of Tomb Raider I, however the magnum has been replaced by the automatic pistols, which frankly are just reskins of the magnums anyway so don't worry about it. In addition to those four, you now also have the M16, a much beefier and more powerful rapid fire weapon than the uzis, although one that Lara can only fire at a standstill. Even more powerful is the grenade launcher, an explosive heavy damage dealer that is even capable of gibbing enemies. The scarce ammo for these latter two guns however will result in you not getting much chance to use them until very late in the game, so they're more or less filling the role that the shotgun, uzis and magnums filled in Tomb Raider I. Those three guns used to have too little ammo available to justify using in the early game in Tomb Raider I, but that's not as severe an issue in II anymore.

The only gun that kind of sucks is the harpoon gun. It's slow, hard to aim, inaccurate, needs to be reloaded, does poor damage and gets extremely limited ammo in spite of its weakness. The only reason you'll be using it? It's the only weapon that you can fire underwater, and Tomb Raider II has introduced quite a few more underwater enemies, with the scuba divers being the absolute worst to deal with. In general, water tends to make combat all around more frustrating. It’s common to swim through a lengthy underwater tunnel, only to surface at the other end and find that three armed goons are already firing at you relentlessly before you’ve even had a chance to start trying to climb up onto the surface so you can fight back, with the action of climbing also having a fairly lengthy animation that gives your enemies even more of a chance to get free shots in and turn you to swiss cheese before you’re even on dry land.

Make no mistake however, Tomb Raider II isn't just a run & gun now. There's still plenty of platforming, puzzle solving and exploration to scratch that adventuring itch. The levels are massive and sprawling as ever, still satisfying to figure out how to navigate safely and find secrets in. These mechanics aren't exactly expanded upon the same way that the combat is, but they're not reduced either. It's more or less the same deal as Tomb Raider I, lots of switches, block puzzles, platforming across jagged terrain with jumps, ledge grabs, shimmies and so on, hidden ammo and medkits to reward going off the beaten path, all the same ground that had been traversed by Tomb Raider I, although generally more challenging now, like everything else in II is. The combat is enough of a game changer that Tomb Raider II doesn't feel stagnant overall, but if you're specifically hoping for, say, new acrobatic moves that allow you to traverse platforming segments in new and interesting ways, you're not getting too much of that here. Tomb Raider III does a better job when it comes to that.

Well, okay, there is one notable new ability. Lara can climb ladders now. Actually, I changed my mind, Tomb Raider II, you don't need to add any new platforming abilities. You can cut the ladder climbing, please. This is honestly a nitpick, but ladder climbing is painfully slow. I mean, it's not so bad, at least the ladders are generally short enough that the ladder climbing speed doesn't grate too much. Oh wait, I forgot this Metal Gear Solid 3 esque ladder.

Damn it Tomb Raider II.

You may have also noticed from these screenshots that there's not a huge amount of tombs in this Tomb Raider game. Tomb Raider II’s environments are a bit more varied, with much of the early stages set in Venice being notable for how alien to Tomb Raider I they feel. These aren't ancient lost civilisations or subterranean caves or anything like that, this is just modern Venice. That wonderful mysterious and isolating atmosphere of Tomb Raider I isn't nearly as present here as a result, but more variety is the trade-off. Where the atmosphere started clicking with me however was in The Wreck of the Maria Doria, a level set in the remains of an upturned sunken ship. The imagery here is absolutely superb. Everything is upside down, with mounted tables now hanging from the ceiling, while all the windows outside the ship peer into the bottom of the sea, making for a wonderfully atmospheric level.

The variety also isn’t just limited to set dressing, as there’s also a couple of vehicle levels present in the game as well. First off there’s the motorboat which you’re given access to in Venice, and later on there’s a snowmobile you ride through Tibet with. Unusually, these aren’t used much for racing or vehicular combat like you’d expect, but instead they’re used for solving puzzles and even aid in platforming, with several sections of the game involving launching yourself off of a ramp with a vehicle to clear a gap Lara couldn’t otherwise. The vehicles both feel a little odd at first, primarily as a result of the closed in and boxy environments they show up in, but both vehicles otherwise work fine for their in-game purposes and result in some memorable puzzles and setpieces as well. That final stretch of the motorboat level requiring you to utilise every jump and shortcut to make it through a timed gate before it closes is especially satisfying and fun.

So, to wrap up, does Tomb Raider II surpass Tomb Raider I? In some regards, yes, in others, no. I prefer the atmosphere, story and lighter combat of Tomb Raider I, but I also genuinely like Tomb Raider II’s additions such as the expanded arsenal, control tweaks and vehicles enough for it to help make up for those other shortcomings. On the whole, II is a smoother playing game, as long as you can handle the difficulty spike, as a result of those small tweaks. It’s also a slightly bigger game as well, with larger levels throughout, a much expanded upon Croft Manor for you to explore and find secrets in, and also just a higher level count in general. Tomb Raider II successfully avoids sequel stagnation and feels like a genuine evolution of the series, even if it does so in small steps, and while the shift in the tonal and atmospheric direction may not be my preference personally, it further helps to expand the scope of the series and level design to further prevent that stagnation and make Tomb Raider II feel more refreshing and like less of a retread.

Either way, I had a really good time with Tomb Raider II. I really love this series a ton, and as a result of that love, I’ve made it a long-term goal of sorts to aim to complete every game in the series, including getting every secret in every single level. I’ve done so in Tomb Raider I and III already, as well as Tomb Raider Legend and Tomb Raider 2013, and now I’m happy to add Tomb Raider II to that list, having found every secret in the process of making this review.

Wait.

Damn it Tomb Raider II.

- Page written by MSX_POCKY, 26th October 2025

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