Game Review--Lara Croft Go (PS Vita)

Lara Croft GO made it to the Vita after debuting as a very unusual kind of Tomb Raider game.  Lacking third-person gameplay or camera angles and making Lara and other creatures move in turns, it is a much more explicitly puzzle-based game, as each level and each part of a level is its own self-contained puzzle where a very precise set of movements and activities is often the only way to advance to the next section.  There is a mild story, but there is no thorough plotline with subplots, explicit themes, or characterization of any kind beyond the gestures made by Lara Croft herself (and, if the creatures are characters, a recurring antagonist creature as well).  This game is a slower-paced, unconventional part of the series, and not expecting something quite different can stop mere preference-based objections from interfering with enjoyment of what it does offer.

Production Values

The art style is more stylized in this  isometric, turn-based Tomb Raider game than is the case in the other recent games of the main series (the reboot series or the previous titles).  Initially a mobile game from 2015, Lara Croft GO was brought to the PS Vita and PS4 the following year, and it does look and play like a game right at home on iOS or Android, which in one sense then naturally lends itself to a PS Vita port thanks to the Vita's portability and touch screen.  Though the environments do not become especially varied until the latter half, the colors are vibrant, the animations are fairly smooth, and the art style is very fitting for a game with an overhead perspective.  If anything, one of its mild drawbacks here is the way the left analog stick can be very sensitive when it comes to moving Lara even if players meant to go in another direction or not move so many times.

Gameplay

As mentioned earlier, this is a turn-based game, and Lara must walk within set pathway or navigate through slightly open areas with their own limited number of stepping points.  When Lara moves, so do enemies that have a fixed path they repeatedly travel in, certain enemies that Lara got too close to (they follow her), and any boulders that have been pushed using mechanisms in the landscape.  Aligning the movements of some enemies or boulders with Lara's own, as well as taking some uncharacteristic moves to ensure that she is not crushed or otherwise killed when necessary, is vital to getting past many sections.  New mechanics like carrying torches that scare away enemies or parts of the floor collapse if stepped on twice are gradually introduced and incorporated into the increasingly precise puzzles.

Story

Lara Croft searches for an artifact that requires her to place three keys, all as an enormous snake pursues her throughout a series of connected regions.  Lacking dialogue and just focusing on its protagonist as she moves from one area to another, resolving puzzles and challenges along the way, Lara Croft GO only has a minimal story at most, which works for the style of gameplay and graphics that it features.  This is not so much a negative characteristic of this particular game as much as it is an inherent limitation of what can be done with a general game of this type.  The isolation and speechlessness of the events lends itself better to a spin-off Tomb Raider offering that is very unlike the main entries.

Intellectual Content

Solving environmental puzzles is the lowest of the more abstract applications of reason, but the puzzles of Lara Croft GO still bring some level of intellectual depth, even if it comes out far more in the later parts of the game.  The early puzzles are not especially elaborate or complicated.  It is when enemies, moveable pillars, time-sensitive boulders, and collapsible floors or walls, among other things, are combined in various ways that the gameplay becomes deeper despite there being no explicitly philosophical ideas the game is supposed to convey.  When it does become tougher, but even before this point, there actually is a constantly accessible hint system that will trace out Lara's next necessary steps if a player truly gets stumped, sidestepping the need to even consult the internet for a puzzle walkthrough.  

Conclusion

Expectations might thoroughly impact someone's enjoyment of this game, not that its positive qualities are undermined or affirmed by how much someone enjoys it.  As a mobile spin-off that came to the PS Vita, Lara Croft GO is not bad, just very different from the typical Tomb Raider game.  Of course this is not as good as something like Rise of the Tomb Raider, but it is a very distinct kind of game, a more relaxed but still puzzle-oriented strategy game of sorts.  Dialogue, other human characters, and stronger themes beyond the minimalist approach to the events are not necessary for Lara Croft GO to succeed in its smaller, less conventional goals as part of the Tomb Raider franchise.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Creatures like snakes, giant spiders, and reptilian beasts can bloodlessly kill Lara, and she can kill them using her guns or spears, or by letting large objects like boulders crush them.