Levels listed...
TR5 - 31
TR4 - 3141
TR3 - 177
TR2 - 133
TR1 - 61
72342 reviews (20.4/level)
3532 (99.7%) walkthroughs
445 Hall of Fame levels
1221 levels rated >= 8
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release date: |
02-Aug-2022 |
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# of downloads: |
114 |
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average rating: |
4.91 |
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review count: |
8 |
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review this level |
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file size: |
135.00 MB |
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file type: |
TR4 |
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class: |
Ireland |
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| Reviewer's comments |
"Perfect example of how a conceptiually unique and interesting level design fails completely
when given to the casual players out there. The builder invents a full scale new enemy here
that you will have never experienced to that extent in any other custom level: the camera
angle. It is not only massively overused, but on top of that apparently used in a way that
it always provides the player with the LEAST helpful view of the surroundings. Add to that
the excessive darkness, which at the beginning you address at least half way reasonably with
a torch, while at the end when it is pitch black the only light source is the friendly fire
wraith that is chasing you to burn you to a crisp - yay, such fun... (not). Not quite as
bad, but still annoying are the knights that keep bothering you as you grope your way around
the place. So, in the end all that saves it somewhat is the relatively short duration of
less than 30 minutes - well, not counting the probably very many reloads that will extend
your gross gaming time. Intelectually interesting, but if you want fun and entertainment,
give this a wide berth!" - MichaelP (14-Jan-2024) |
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| ""Short" and "very challenging" - not two
attributes I would group together, but
unfortunately that's somewhat artificial in
this case. The challenge mainly comes from
the infuriating fixed camera angles that dog
you throughout the entire game, which makes
movement through what should ideally have
been a short level next to impossible
particularly in the rooms with sloped jump
sequences. You do have a torch to aid with
the encroaching darkness, but even that is
somewhat of a handicap as it impedes the
jumps. Textures looked all right insofar as
I could see, but the enemy attacks were
rather too annoying for their own good
although the wraith chase could have
actually been made enjoyable if the way
forward was signposted more clearly. For
completionists only." - Ryan (08-Apr-2023) |
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| "This game got an eyebrow raise out of me when I saw it was both flagged as "short" and "very challenging", not a combination you see often...and yet it's one I full heartedly agree with. However I don't think the source of challenge comes from the right places. Instead, the main cause is the constant use of fixed cameras - there are very few places where there isn't a fixed camera preventing the player from getting a good look around. Of course there are no binoculars either. Sometimes the camera is pointing away from the next trap or platform that Lara will reach, and this is the more obvious issue, but there is a more subtle and frustrating lack of depth perception that makes it difficult to distinguish ledges and other geometric shapes. It's hard for me to put into words but basically the less angles at which you can view something, the less you can figure out how it fits into a 3D space, and the fixed cameras in this level exacerbate that feeling. There are some very silly moments as well, like the camera looking up at Lara from below so all you see is the bottom of the stone slab she is on. I jinxed myself when I thought "at least I don't have to deal with combat in this kind of scenario" - despite this being a Young Lara kind of level, there are several enemies that will nag at the player. The first is a rather speedy horseman that will hack away at Lara until she manages to find a jumpswitch that is out of camera shot within a maze. The second is a pair of knight templars, thankfully slower, which will bother Lara as she pushes some blocks around. The third is a fire wraith that becomes Lara's sole source of light as it chases her through a pitch-black maze filled with pits to jump over. I know I haven't mentioned the visuals much, that's because the level is so dark that I couldn't see most of it, but at least Lara is able to carry a lit torch for part of the time. Besides a brief pushable puzzle, there wasn't much I could look forward to here, although I did get some sense of pride for having completed the adventure. 40 minutes." - JesseG (10-Oct-2022) |
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| "I decided to give this one a try after seeing some interesting reviews. The goal is to
basically traverse some gothic castle environments to get the book artifact thing. The
only problem is, well, no doubt the absolutely abysmal camera perspective the designer
decided to go with. When done correctly, camera angles give a unique video of a small
portion of a level and don't impede the flow of the game, or the ability to explore and
see the important stuff, maybe from an interesting perspective. But this game has the
camera focused spot on Lara (for the sake of review, calling her Lara), at constantly
changing angles. Throughout. The whole. Game. This makes it impossible to see where Lara
has to go next, and basically you have to guess jumps trial and error, often leading Lara
falling to her death. If this wasn't bad enough, there are multiple jump levers conceiled
by the poor camera angle. I understand the point was to make the game feel unique compared
to the vanilla TR4 engine, but this completely ruined the whole adventure, leaving me
frustrated. If you are able to somehow look past the camera issue, the game is pretty
average as far as puzzles go. The designer also decided to incorporate some of TR's most
contraversial features, including but not limited to: long hallways, reliance on torch (if
it gets put out, you're essentially done for), too dark to see rooms, spontaneously
combusting after pulling switches, and of course, mazes (even one that was underwater).
Enemies were annoying to get around if anything. The one component that really did shine
through was the lighting and textures, which were very well done except for the quicksand
which had a poorly-looped animated texture. Also, while I hated the gameplay of running
around yet another maze, in the dark, I did think using the fire wraith to light up your
path forward was cool; it was funny, because Lara caught on fire, which was annoying, but
it turned out to be fortuitous in the end as I could actually see what was going on, and
kept alive with the unlimited medpacks cheat. This would have been a lot better if
catching her on fire was disabled.
To summarize, abhorent camera angles ruined an otherwise OK game. At least Lara's hair was
cute." - dragooncroft (09-Sep-2022) |
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| "This level, while technically not badly done and often atmospheric with good usage of enemy attacks and audio tracks, didn't manage to convince me as the design choices are really questionable. Jumps into nowhere caused by nasty fixed cameras and darkness, as well as almost invisible jumpswitches or mazes, are not my favourite type of gameplay. The general idea of a kind of RE remake is nice but builders have to make sure that players can solve the problems without a lot of trial and error. The looks are okay overall but rather simplistic and the texturing leaves something to be desired at times. I was more than glad to finish this one after 25 minutes with three rather easy secrets found (only two registered)." - manarch2 (15-Aug-2022) |
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"After having played this level, I must admit that I don't really understand some of the very low scores other reviewers has given. If they can be understandable in the "gameplay" category, as lots of improvement are indeed possible, I genuinely think that the other categories are all quite decent. I begin to suspect that the perception of gameplay affects the score of every category when other people set their rating and that only a few of us try as much as possible to be objective. This level takes the gamble of being quite out of the ordinary for a Tomb Raider adventure and perhaps it is disconcerting to others, but to me it was a novel experience that I enjoyed quite a bit. But maybe I'm the outlier, I've got 45 minutes in-game time and spent at least 135 minutes of real time to finish this; I wonder how manarch2 can be this fast.
The whole level makes a very intense use of fixed cameras and the player will almost never be able to freely see the surroundings. At times, Lara has to make a leap of faith and jump in the direction of the camera, where the player doesn't see what's hiding, but it is generally the only logical way to go. There are issue, though. When Lara stands on a bridge_flat object the camera from below is activated and the player can't see at all how Lara is oriented and is unable to see where to go. This would need to be fixed. The cameras were sometimes clipping the level and showing "the black nothingness".
I think the idea of having to take care of the torch is really cool, but an careless player could easily be left in the dark. I wonder if TRNG or TombEditor would allow to engineer a Game Over screen should the torch be lost or thrown in the water at a time it is still needed. The first maze was rather stressful, mainly because there was something I was fearing for this level: an enemy. Lara don't have any weapon and is thus at the mercy of the first undead she sees. It then became a bit infuriating because there was something to do when the player reaches the center of the maze, but the enemy is completely in the way and prevents any action. Having a simple box to make this place a "safe place" would make the gameplay more enjoyable without making it less stressful. I have to agree with other reviewers that some elements were made too well hidden. The camera was unfortunately too often used to conceal important things like switches more than to highlight them or, better still, make them viewable discretely in the corner of the field of view. Generally, I think most cameras would have needed to be set a bit better, notably by having a change before Lara was on the same square of the current point of view. I also spotted a paper-thin wall in a small underwater maze and, given the configuration of the rooms and cameras, complicated things a bit, the player being easily disorientated. This underwater maze was also too long in my opinion: the cameras don't allow the player to correctly move Lara and thus it's easy to get stuck and have her be suffocating before reaching the surface. Fortunately, I found enough large medipacks.
Having three opaque doors at the end to be activated by three different levers was a bit confusing, as it was hard to know how many levers were necessary. I personally found last the lever that opened the first door. Having see-through grates instead of doors would have been a better design, there. Having the fire wraith serves as a source of light at the end with a latin sentence that could be roughly translated as "your enemy is your friend" was rather ingenious in my opinion. However, I would not have placed a deadly pit in the middle of the way. A simple hole would have already been enough of an obstacle during a chase with an enemy that can set Lara on fire. Or I would have made them slightly visible. In this final endeavour, I found myself going backward more than once. Having a slight glow or some very faint spots of light would have been better to help the player be orientated, to let them have some small clues about which direction to go. Providing a map of the different maze beforehand could also have been a good idea as the fixed cameras have a natural tendency to disorientate.
I believe the author used AI-upscaled textures as the textures from TR3 Gold were slightly distorted. I think it suited well this dark and twisted atmosphere. Generally, the atmosphere is very well crafted and the choice of textures and objets was on point. I only spotted a few places where textures were misplaced. The lighting is dark, but is an essential design of the gameplay and thus has to be accepted as it is.
To summarize, this level is a short but challenging adventure in a gloomy atmosphere. I think there are some innovative ideas worth experiencing, but you should install this knowing what you're embarking yourself into. Recommended for experienced raiders who are not afraid of reloading, getting to the end is definitely satisfying." - TimJ (15-Aug-2022) |
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| "In this level, you are not allowed to freely look around, but instead, the game utilizes
fixed cameras in a similar way as the old Resident Evil games. Although I think that this
is an interesting idea, I didn’t like the way how the cameras were used to hide things
from the player. For example, the cameras are often placed in such a way that you are not
able to see the ledges where you are supposed to jump on. Because of this you have to jump
to random directions outside the camera view and hope that you will land on something.
There are also jump switches, which you can see only if you jump up on a very specific
spot. I would rather see tasks that involve puzzle solving skills or platforming that is
based on correct timing and controlling your moves, instead of tasks that you accomplish
by randomly trying out different jumps. The environment is built fairly nicely considering
that this is author’s debut level, even though the level consists of several simplistic
corridors and small chambers that contain stretched and misaligned textures in many
places. I also noticed that audio tracks play every time you step on the squares that
trigger them, which could be solved by selecting “one shot” option in Tomb Editor. Despite
the flaws mentioned here, the level has some nice ideas, and hopefully, author will keep
building and refining the gameplay in future releases." - Samu (13-Aug-2022) |
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| "This is absurdly bad omg... Almost unplayable because of the darkness, cameras, traps and torch combined. And then, there's... the maze... [thunder sfx]... Near the end I was wondering where the author put the finish out of being bored by his own thing, so I used trview, only to find out I've encountered a softlock, and the door will never open, trapping me in the non-final corridor... forever... Strongly advised not to touch this game until it is fixed. The day it is, I will update my rating, but please ping me when it happens." - DJ Full (12-Aug-2022) |
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