YMMV / Tomb Raider

• Accidental Nightmare Fuel: While Winston Smith was clearly designed to be the comic relief, a lot of players were unintentionally creeped out due to the fact that he wordlessly follows Lara around at a slow but implacable shuffle, and makes weird noises that continue to dog your steps even if you find a way to get rid of him.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy:
  • Alister's death in Underworld.
  • In the comics, Chase Carver.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: The debate over Lara's effect on female video game characters will probably never be settled. Some say she was a pioneer in an era when female main characters (especially in action games) were exceedingly rare. Others say she did more harm than good through her perceived over-sexualization.
  • There's also several interpretations of the character of Lara herself, and whether she's borderline sociopath with no respect for the places she raids, or if she's just a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and Anti-Hero.
  • Regardless, her sexuality was often a talking point during the development of many games, typically balancing between making her more real/less archetypical and retaining her iconic nature as well as characteristic sexuality. This tended to show up in the marketing as well where on one hand, models were hired to portray Lara in real life (a precursor to modern cosplay sponsoring and such) and yet despite being little more than well... models to stand next to booths, they were often given actual training in Lara-esque skills. Conversely, her contemporary (Samus Aran) has done the reverse - she started off as a masked mercenary of indeterminate origin and gender and has, over time, become more and more sexualized with emphasis on that fact. Whatever Lara's effect, certainly there was one and if it was not solely her fault, then it was her generation and the next generation of characters that she helped lead the way for.
• Audience-Alienating Era: Definitely had one, but where it was varies a lot from person to person. Angel of Darkness is usually included.
  • It's very easy to point the Audience-Alienating Era for the marketing of the games. Everything done before The Last Revelation was just low-brow campaign based entirely on sex-appeal and extremely distasteful adds. Just check for yourself how the game was advertised◊ back in◊ the day◊.
  • While the older marketing was forced by the publisher, arguably LAU counts toward it, for actually having bikini outfits in-game.
  • The Survivor trilogy could be considered another major contender. The three games spend a lot of time subverting and re-inventing what Tomb Raider and Lara Croft are and while a lot of players enjoyed the fresh perspective and more down-to-earth and humanized take on Lara, just as many hated the changes made due to how drastically it altered her character and how much agency and control it takes away from Lara as a character. The gameplay focusing more on combat and action setpieces rather than puzzle solving and platforming also split players down the middle.
• Base-Breaking Character: Lara Croft's influence in the industry has been a point of contention among critics; viewpoints range from a positive agent of change in video games to a negative role model for young girls.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: A lot of people play the game through on all difficulty levels and get all the trophies-just to unlock the bikini costumes, and to angle the camera to get the best view of Lara's ass. Back when Core was still running the series, a Fan Nickname for positioning Lara in the corner was "boob angle", since the camera spun around for a while, after which it centered on Lara's bosom.
• Broken Base: The fanbase was incredibly divided upon the release of Angel of Darkness. Then Legend was released. The fanbase has never been the same since. More recently, the fandom has become very divided over the second reboot.
• Character Rerailment: Lara started off as a cheeky woman with a bit of snark. As the series went on, her snark increased and she became more aggressive and violent. When Legend was released, Lara's personality was dialed back a bit, making her cheeky and daring as she used to be while only getting aggressive and threatening when it was needed.
• Common Knowledge:
  • If you ask most gaming fans to name some PlayStation exclusive games, chances are the first Tomb Raider might be mentioned. While II and III were console-exclusive to Playstation at the time, the first was also on Sega Saturn; And not only that, was technically released on the Saturn before the Playstation.
  • "Uzis got nerfed with each following Core game" is a particularly persistent case. Uzis retain the exact same stopping power and fire rate through the first five games, and the only thing that's "nerfed" is the amount of ammo per pickup, which is steadily decreased with each following game (starting at 100 and ending at 30 rounds). What really happens is that enemies have more and more HP, giving the impression that Uzis deal less damage.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Contested Sequel: Go to any bigger internet forum or imageboard dedicated to video games. Ask what people think about "nu-Lara". Then step back and watch the ensuing brawl. Don't forget the popcorn!
• Designated Hero: A criticism of the later games on the PS1 is that Lara turns into this, with the enemies in the games including not just the usual criminals and animals that stand in her way, but also police officers and security guards. This eventually led to Ron the Death Eater, described below.
• Escapist Character: Lara Croft was probably one of the first female characters that Gamer Chicks could project themselves onto. While her feminist legacy is debatable given how much the character was twisted into a sex icon in later titles, the fact remains that Lara is an intelligent, capable and badass world-travelling asskicker who is never portrayed as vulnerable or a victim and always stays confident of her control of the situation.
  "She was Indiana Jones, but witty, measured, sophisticated. She shot first and asked questions later. She screamed only when seconds from death. She never, ever needed saving."
• Even Better Sequel: If any other game than the first will be pointed out by fans as the best in the franchise, it will be most likely either TR II or TR IV.
• Fair for Its Day: Lara Crofts's design recieves its fair share of criticism years after the series was created, due to her large breasts and the large degree of Fanservice around her. While today having a sexualized female hero in a male-oriented game is seen as objectifying, when Tomb Raider came out women were mostly portrayed as either generic damsels or were rather flat and stereotypical, barring a few choice exceptions. So having Lara be an intelligent, competent, and independent Action Girl protagonist was quite progressive for when the game was released.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
  • Referring to Lara as "Laura" is a pretty good way to annoy any dedicated Tomb Raider fan.
  • Insisting that every game in the franchise is set within the same continuity (there are in fact three separate ones within the "main" series due to two reboots) is likely to irritate quite a few fans. Even more so if you try to bring the movie and the comics into it. Note that this has not stopped even some fans from insisting that they're all part of the same continuity.
  • For Classic era fans specifically, claiming that Classic Lara is a cold blooded killer with no morality, empathy or personality to speak of. This was mostly kick started by various developer interviews for the 2013 game that refer to her as "Teflon Coated" and "Ice Queen" when discussing how they changed her personality and character arc^note This unsurprisingly backfired badly when applied to the pre-existing fandom, as the new development team was trying to "fix" things that weren't broken and also taking credit for that, too. Eventually, the marketing had to hastily backpedal from the misguided campaign, but not before creating a sense of alienation and disillusionment for the fandom of older titles. While Lara was often a morally gray character as far as getting her hands on artifacts, she was still very much a heroine who risks her life to save the world from all sorts of maniacs, cult leaders and evil scientists and was capable of showing kindness and compassion when the situation called for it.
  • It also applies to the LAU trilogy fans as despite it's generally lighter tone it still has several scenes that lean heavily into Lara's emotions such as Lara being forced to kill her mother in Underworld or Lara getting enraged when she finds out about the time loop in Legend.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Core Design fans versus Crystal Dynamics fans versus Crystal Dynamics 2nd reboot fans over which era of the franchise is better than the others.
  • Tomb Raider fans vs. Legacy of Kain fans, the latter of whom begrudge the series for receiving Crystal Dynamics' attention while Legacy of Kain has been languishing for years, though fans of both will agree that Marvel's Avengers is worse than either.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The first six games, made by Core Design, are either referred as "Core Raiders" or "Core-era".
  • The Continuity Reboot is known as "LAU", to make it possible to list all three (and identify their continuity) with a single breath.
  • The second reboot is known as the "Survivor" series or just the "2nd reboot".
• Franchise Original Sin: Despite claims that it was the second reboot which made the franchise combat-heavy, ever since Tomb Raider II was released back in 1997, the series had wide range of weapons and numerous human enemies to face. However, back then it was still predominately exploration, puzzles and platforming that were the main focus, rather than one elaborate gunfight after another connected by linear passages between them. It made the amount of combat less obvious, since most of the time was spent on looking for secrets and finding a way through some ruins, without ability to "cheat" puzzles with use of Survival Instincts. The gradual simplification of puzzles and platforming, while in the same time making combat more and more complex and prominent is discussed in detail here.
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • Lara and Natla.
  • Lara and Amanda.
  • And even more so, Lara with her doppleganger.
• Les Yay:
  • The closest Lara ever came to having a consistent love interest in her Top Cow comic book was Sara Pezzini.
  • The Flanderized Plucky Comic Relief versions of Larson and Pierre, seen in Chronicles, are inseperable for the first two levels, and Pierre inexplicably offers to buy Larson a milkshake.
  • The Crystal Dynamics trilogy is rife with Les Yay. Lara and Amanda particularly come across as having had a really bitter breakup in Underworld.
  • Lara and Sam in the 2013 reboot. With Roth as a surrogate father figure and Jonah a surrogate big brother and Alex a Dogged Nice Guy that Lara didn't even know about, Lara doesn't have any male as a solid Love Interest, so her subtext-laden Pseudo-Romantic Friendship with Sam doesn't require too much glancing through Shipping Goggles. It doesn't help that it's noted in game that Lara is more interested in studying than meeting guys.
• Narm Charm: Some of the dialogue throughout the whole series. Especially Legend contain several instances of narm charm by dint of dealing with the story of how Lara deals with the death of her mother. '''"WHERE" bang "IS" bang "MY" bang "MOTHER ?!?!" bang'''
  • Additionally, the noise Lara makes when she steps on Midas' hand and turns to gold can be considered this. It sounds like a cat, but it can be taken as Lara suffocating.
• Not-So-Cheap Imitation: When the original Tomb Raider I was still in production, there was a genuine fear of being tangled by LucasArts into a copyright hell due to similarities with Indiana Jones. Not only did the game become one of the hallmarks of its era, but it also spawned a successful multi-media franchise going strong for decades, and despite various hardships, completely eclipsing Indiana Jones by the mid-00s. Most humiliatingly, when LucasArts decided to make their own TPP Indiana Jones video game, they shamelessly ripped off Tomb Raider formula.
• Once Original, Now Common: As with many games from this era, it's easy to take for granted just how revolutionary a game like this was back in 1996, and how it influenced numerous adventure games afterwards. The very first game was a Trope Codifier for TPP games that spawned endless imitations, despite from modern perspective it's "just a game" and even within fandom it's often pointed out as not the best game in the franchise.
  • The Core-era games are often derided by people used to post-WASD control scheme for their Tank Controls. However, not only did they help to develop and codify how such control schemes operate, the games themselves were built around them, rather than simply having them due to some sort of limitation, while it was the copy-cats that were infamous for their clunky and needlessly convoluted controls.
  • Lara is frequently seen as little more than a sexist fantasy, not knowing that she was a huge step forward in strong, female leads in video games. For some idea of just where female characters were in gaming at the time, consider that Duke Nukem 3D was released in the same year.
• Pandering to the Base:
  • Anniversary is filled with references to the other games in the series, along with original Tomb Raider. It is worth noting that the game got a cold reception, and part of that came from what was seen as misguided pandering.
  • Underworld features a few Continuity Nods and some Continuity Creep to both Crystal Dynamics continuity and the series under Core Design.
• Ron the Death Eater: Lara herself gets this a lot, especially in regard for Core games. Fanworks tend to be a lot more liberal with the Alternate Character Interpretation mentioned above, many of them choosing the "borderline sociopath" option or even worse interpretations. Evil versions of Lara tend to be far more common than good ones in this area.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The modern controls in I-II-III Remastered has been lambasted by both critics and players alike, as this was one of the things that was advertised since the game was announced. Someone at Aspyr and Crystal Dynamics decided to transplant the same control style from Tomb Raider: Legend into the remaster and call it a day, and while they do work, it's pretty clear there was no playtesting involved. Both platforming and combat are awkward to execute, with half of Lara's moves impossible to pull off and the combat being a pain in the ass because Lara doesn't automatically target any enemies nearby. The worst part is the camera, as the damn thing doesn't like corners and will always freak out whenever you try to adjust it, especially during platforming. It doesn't help that there's no in-game tutorial at Lara's house, a manual for the modern controls or any proper explanation of how they work. Instead, all the instructions are explained on Aspyr's own website, the last place anyone would search for instructions. All of this ironically makes the otherwise infamous (at least among the younger players) Tank Controls truly shine by comparison, since the games were obviously designed and build around those.
  • While the controls were eventually fixed in a patch, the player is still required to look online in order to be told what changes were made to the controls in each game.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Tomb Raider II is significantly harder compared to the first game by adding more death traps and more gunmen. Tomb Raider III cranks up the difficulty further by introducing enemies that can poison you, throwing even more death traps at you, awkward camera angles for the sake of an "interesting" view, darker environments so it is difficult to see, and having the game's No-Gear Level take away all of your items (except for save crystals and a small health kit) whereas the previous two games lets you keep all your med kits and bullets.
• Sequelitis: Depending on who you ask, you can get few conflicting answers:
  • There is still quite a sizable part of fandom that considers any game after the original from '96 a blasphemy and pointless money-squeezing.
  • Around the 3rd game, game critics started to point out how the plot and game mechanics are repetitive. The 4th game took that to heart.
  • Chronicles was made for a quick buck, and Core openly admitted to doing so.
  • Tomb Raider: Legend was very divisive in this matter. While a critical smash, some fans were still off put by the changes to the series.
  • The Gaiden Game, which managed to unite the whole fandom against it. Some consider it even a case of Nice Job Fixing It, Villain.
  • The second reboot of the series. Which itself has sequelitis depending on who you ask, as Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider proved polarizing for many fans of the 2013 game despite getting generally positive critical reviews.
• Tainted by the Preview: Days before the 2024 remaster was released, several content creators obtained review copies of the game to review. One of the first things shown upon booting the game is a disclaimer warning players about how the games have sensitive and racist content ^note  This likely stems from Tomb Raider III where one set of levels has Lara gunning down a black cannibalistic tribe that attack her with spears and blow darts and the sole tribesman that Lara speaks to has a very exaggerated accent. Other possible sources are Dr. Willard's use of "retard" when describing Tony and the monks in Tomb Raider II being a near caricature of a Warrior Monk complete with battle cries. and that such content goes against Crystal Dynamics's values, but are keeping the content as is. People were quick to decry Crystal Dynamics, claiming that the company hates the franchise, were calling Core Design racists and how such a message should have never been made to begin with. Others pointed out that despite the message being a bit strongly worded, it was no different from Disney or Warner Bros. putting up similar disclaimers when they released old cartoons that had racist content.
  • There is also a small subset of fans who think the hate around the disclaimer is overblown (especially since it only plays the first time you boot up the remasters) but do think it coming from Crystal Dynamics, who had nothing to do with the remasters as well as rumors that they completely opposed the remasters happening at all, makes it come off as disingenuous. (Also accusations of being hypocritical as some consider Shadow of the Tomb Raider to heavily use the White Savior trope as well as indirectly imply the indigenous people as being very dim-witted considering Lara's Paper-Thin Disguise in that game.)
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Several fans of the Core Design games were not happy with Crystal Dynamics' Continuity Reboot with Legend and the subsequent drastic changes to Lara's personality and backstory. In addition, some feel this way about the second Continuity Reboot.
  • The classic series went through some shades of the trope; The first game was all about the tombs, but the second game introduced a few levels that were set in modern areas, like the opera house and the oil rig, and the fans didn't like Lara exploring anything that wasn't a tomb. The third game had even more levels set in cities and other areas where people inhabited, causing some fans to dub the game as "City Raider".
  • The health bar during boss fights in the 2024 remaster. It effectively makes any such fight a breeze, simply because the players know exactly how much HP the boss still has and if their attacks even connected at all (a pretty big deal in III). It's a very minor change that instantly garnered scorn. It can be disabled... but not in the options menu but rather by simply changing to the classic graphics.
  • The remaster changes the design of the woman on Pierre's jacket by covering her up with a bikini, which gathered complaints from fans who didn't like the change.

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