Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness Remastered - PS4
Neither Completed, Nor Retired
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness is the 6th and final Tomb Raider that was developed by the original British developer Core Design. It is the only game of the original 6 Tomb Raider games that I never completed.
I never did get very far in the game as it felt like I had to wrestle with the controls for Lara to do simple moves as opposed to the first 5 games where the controls felt like second nature to me.
The Angel of Darkness was the first Tomb Raider game developed for the (at the time) new PlayStation 2 console and, even after 3 years of development, the controls never seemed to have been implemented very well and it just felt awkward to play.
I heard on a stream on the channel Tomb of Ash where the developers were commenting on an AOD Remastered playthrough that they implemented a hybrid of traditional tank controls and 3D controls and the result was botched controls.
I am happy to see that the Remastered team have somewhat made the controls more bearable than the original PS2 version. Just like the previous Tomb Raider remasters there is an option for both tank controls and more modern controls.
I have only really used the tank controls in the remaster, but it feels like an improvement over the original controls. The tank controls of the remaster feel more in line with the PS1 tank controls. Thankfully I can now use the Dpad for movement in the remaster, for some odd reason you could only use the analogue sticks for movement in the original PS2 version even tough Lara still had tank movement which made even basic walk forward and backward very frustrating.
For some reason the PS2 version moved the jump button to circle rather than square, but thankfully the remastered version corrected this and a number of other changes in the tank controls option. However it is not perfect and moving Lara backwards for a long jump is slower than the PS1 games and in AOD she does not quickly hop backwards, but takes a few steps backwards instead, but with the adjusted controls it is more tolerable than when I originally played it on the PlayStation 2.
When the Tomb Raider 4 - 6 collection was announced I was excited to play Tomb Raider 4 and 5 with remastered graphics, but I was surprised Angel of Darkness was included as I thought that game needed more time to be worked on with more than just the graphics needing an upgrade, but I thought to myself that I would at least try a little to see if the team had made any improvements to the 6th Tomb Raider entry.
After completing TR 4 and 5 Remastered I finally set my sights on TR 6 and let me to you it did not start off very well - I nearly gave up at the very start of the game. You see at the start of the area Lara is running from the police and reaches a building the has an option to barricade the door and delay the police from entering.
As soon as I entered the building I started to pull the object that blocks the door but too my horror Lara was not responding and every time I tried to move the object the police would enter and thus the game would give me a game over screen. What is also frustrating about this part is that Lara would surrender herself when the police burst in through the door if she was still at the door, even if it looked like Lara still had time to run away - so instead of being able to move Lara way the game would take control away!
I finally decided to just try and run away and not think about the barricade on a reload of the game and everything seemed to go according to plan where I had to go to the 4th floor and retrieve a key for a 2nd floor door - then on return to the 2nd floor I took the now working elevator, but for some reason a police officer now stood in front of the door I had to access. You would think I would be able to stealth myself around the officer or take him out with hand to hand combat, but no it would be game over ever time you are even near him. I do not remember this happening in the original version - and this was the point where I nearly gave up as the game effectively soft locked on me.
I read online that the police officer only stands outside the door in the remastered version if you do not barricade the door, so reluctantly I thought I would try the sequence one more time. So I reloaded an earlier save and tried moving the barricade a few times and still kept failing. Sometimes when I tried to pull the object backwards Lara would instead push the object before pulling it and thus took too long before the police entered the building and triggered a game over screen. Finally, I figured out you can easily pull the object backwards, but unlike the previous 5 games she does not lock (at least animation wise) on to the object indicating she is ready to either move an object backwards or forwards.
So, after I managed to block the door and repeated the steps that were required and to my relief the policeman was not outside the door on the 2nd floor and I was happily able to progress to the next area.
It appears that the police officer standing outside the door maybe a glitch unique to the remaster and at the time I remember thinking how surprised I was and I feared that I was going to enjoy the remaster even less than the original version. However so far (as I write this I am still early in the game) as mentioned earlier I think the controls have been improved for the remaster and I am enjoying the remaster a lot more than the original vanilla version simply because of the new controls.
*Update*
As of writing on 15th August 2025 patch 2 has been released and a read in the notes that a softlock has been fixed in the apartments area - this could mean that the glitch I encountered has been corrected.
*September Update*
Still, despite improvements I still think it is the worst Tomb Raider game of the first 6 Core Design developed games. I will continue to play this game bit by bit but it may take me a long while to complete as I prioritise other things over The Angel of Darkness.