Lara Croft hit the Game Boy Advance like a Gretchen Wilson song.
Shootin’ pistols, humpin’ walls, jumpin’ through fires...hey, who knew Lara was a country
fan?
It’s Tomb Raider: The Prophecy, ya’ll.
So this 2002 release was a Game Boy Advance exclusive.
And actually, it would be the only Tomb Raider game to go with an isometric perspective until
The Guardian Of Light eight years later.
And if there’s one thing that defines The Prophecy, it’s that isometric perspective.
And bad grammar.
And flipping switches.
And dogs.
So there is a story here, but it’s never really all that clear.
Something about magic stones that can summon a monster, which in turn brings about the
apocalypse.
Eh, whatever.
People are always so worried about the apocalypse.
Who cares?
We’re overdue for a good plague, anyway.
A mild apocalypse would suffice.
But no, there’s Lara Croft.
Freaking...overachiever.
Neither apocalypse nor C cup for Lara Croft.
So the game has a kind of old-school flair to it, which I really like.
And it suits Tomb Raider well in this particular application.
So there’s plenty of platforming and puzzle solving and shimmying across ledges, and at
least in theory, it works great on the GBA...but the problem with this game is really two-fold.
One, the perspective doesn’t always work.
And two, the gameplay never evolves.
To speak to the prior, there are more a few times when the game’s graphics fail its
perspective.
Which is to say discerning ledges from backgrounds can be problematic.
But the bigger problem is that...Lara’s objectives never change.
From beginning to end, it’s just...flip switch, find door, disable trap, find door,
shoot dogs.
It all works perfectly fine and is actually good fun at first.
But it gets repetitive really fast.
And some of those sound effects.
Ugh.
This is a classic example of a game that...you know, it starts off with some fun ideas, everything
is going fine, you wait for it to take that next step, and it never does.
It never changes gear.
And technically, you know, you can definitely get to your destination that way.
But you’re gonna be in the same lane the whole time, and someone is probably gonna
give you the finger.
That’s Tomb Raider: The Prophecy.
The gaming equivalent of a good-looking mom who sadly drives a minivan.