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my mum passed away three weeks ago and i will never forget the christmas when she got me a playstation with alien trilogy, final fantasy 7, and tomb raider 2. we played tomb raider 2 all christmas and into the new year. she loved watching me play games thank you for this video, i will watch it with mum in mind

i was thinking yesterday that i hadn't seen a video of yours in a while. glad we're connecting via our minds

Its amazing how universal the memory of locking the butler in the freezer is pre youtube and all the social media

In a game featuring dragons and yetis, the most unrealistic part of TR2 is Lara running around exceedingly rusty ships completely barefoot and somehow not getting Tetanus.

There are dinosaurs in level 1, at the final zipline you can take a path to the final secret and fight two of them.

Cheers for the shoutout! It sounds like you're enjoying the remasters as much as I am 🥂💖

One of my favourite things about this series is seeing what happens in all of these games that I couldn't get past the first level as a child.

50:45 "Aww this boat is pregnant with another smaller boat!" I don't know why but that sent me.

Hey Josh, two things I'd like to point out after the Great Wall section: 1.: each level has 3 secrets and the game rewards you for finding all 3 of them in a single level by giving you health packs/ammunitions and sometimes even weapons. For example, if you find all 3 Dragons in the Great Wall level, you will get the grenade launcher early on 2.: you missed the secret easter egg/bonus area at the end of the Great Wall: before using the zipline, you can actually make your way to the bottom of the pit where you'll find not one, but two T-Rexes and the third Dragon of the level

8:30 his mother is very proud

I suspect locking enemies in rooms like the butler was never used because while every player locked him in the freezer, it was not intended and it never occurred to the devs.

"I am nine inches, which is also the height of this plushie." Bravo, Josh, tickled me silly. 😂

accidentally saving instead of loading and needing to restart the game taught me a valuable lesson. Leapfrog saves and keep a backup.

Oh dear god the Venice level had BOATS? i SWAM everywhere... no wonder i could never beat it.

"Mandatory damage" is such a strange concept. Most games have ways to prevent fall damage but Tomb Raider is just like "you will take the pain and like it."

The first game had loads of full jumps right from the early levels, it wasn’t mostly reserved for the later stages. Grabbing diagonal ledges was also fairly frequent in the first game as well. Walking through spikes etc to not take damage was also a part of the first game.

22:53 No don't tank the damage. You gotta get behind the enemies and stay behind them so they can't shoot you. This is where the mid air flip is key.

I remember my dad driving me over an hour away to buy a second hand copy of Tomb Raider II that we saw for sale in a magazine. The level of excitement in that journey and first booting up the game was through the roof.

Cannot believe you didn’t reference the two T rex’s on the first level. One of the best secret’s in any game, let alone the TR series.

Just have to say, I have been pretty sick recently and I have watched this video in bursts when I could. It has genuinely made me feel less bad. Even if only for an hour an a half, this actively made my life better than it would have been without it. Cheers Josh. You did good.

My dad, uncle and myself beat this together when I was young. Quite nostalgic.

Tommy Tallarico was actually the first American to ever work on the Tomb Raider 2 team.

Glad you gave Stella's tombraider walk through site a shout out, she's the best 😊

52:53 "Eels up inside you, finding an entrance were they can. Eels!"

I think you missed two important things about this game 1) you can actually avoid gunfire damage by jumping side to side or by rolling behind enemies (they turn slowly and won’t shoot while turning) 2) the game rewards exploration with guns and ammo (especially finding all secrets) which in turn makes combat way way easier. It’s entirely possible to beat the game and never fire lara’s default pistols past venice. The added firepower removes much of the frustration about combat and, personally, I even find it fun. I also had childhood nightmares spurned by this game, especially one in which I was swimming in this colossal, pitch black tank full of water and no matter how hard I tried, I never made it to the surface… the 40 fathoms level really made an impression on kid me lmao. Great video btw.

Oh my God it's the first Sequel video of any of the games covered in this channel! I can't wait to see more Golden Sun, God of War and Armored Core in here!

40:25 You know what I think? I think they had an idea for the engine to like, blow up or break or whatever, leaving a nice flat edge for you to climb, but at some point they forgot to actually make that happen. It makes more sense than having to figure out the engine has no collision.

I appreciate your consistently clean and sharp attire.

I helped my older brother kill the dragon back when this first came out. He cheesed it behind a column and wouldn't stop shooting after seeing that it revives. I asked him about the thing on its chest after it fell over for the fifth time and asked if that's the dagger from the intro movie. He said yes, and I said that he should try pulling it out because that's how the dragon died in the cutscene.

My father and I played these games together when i was young. he passed away a few years ago. fuck cancer. Tomb Raider 2 was our favorite.

I am so happy that Josh Strife covers up my favourite franchise. TR 3-4 holds a special place in my heart. They were the first video games that I owned and played non-stop with my late father, discussed with my friends at school. Figuring out a new secret path or ending a level felt sooo rewarding. I played through both games with my father watching and remembering old times 3 years ago. After his passing, I sealed these games as my memory relics. Everytime I want to remember times with him, I just pop in one of these and travel back 20 years in time. Thank you Josh.

40 fanthoms (73 meters for the civilized world), is not enough to get crushed to death by the pressure. Her breath-holding skill is quite impressive though, but not as impressive as the structural integrity of the Maria Doria! Love the underwater levels, but I agree it had too many enemies. It could've been an amazing claustrophobic, haunted tomb.

Josh danced with Lara Croft, noice.

I feel so validated that I'm not the only one freaked out by the deep water in Diving Area and 40 Fathoms. In fact, I also had recurring nightmares as a kid about Tomb Raider, only mine was being trapped in the opening part of 40 Fathoms, and even if I paused the game, the sharks would still eat me.

TR2 is my all time favorite game followed closely by TR3. Love this in-depth video.

Poor Josh wasn't clever enough to finish the video with "what? You want me to review Tomb Raider 3? Pfft, don't you think you've seen enough?" Escaping his cruel fate.

it's so lovely to hear about your thalassophobia in the level (diving area) that directly precedes one of the most famously thalassophobic places in videogame history (40 fathoms)

Watching new people play the remastered games and having issues with the tank controls makes me feel like a god, especially with the vehicles. If you play these games enough you start to understand the flow of the grid layout. Controlling Lara begins to feel smooth and extremely satisfying. And to touch on your point about being able to climb things that might not be obvious, I ran around Bartoli's Hideout for hours before remembering I could climb the bookshelves.

You can find your pistols in the tutorial and start shooting the Butler. He uses the tray as a shield. Theres also another obstacle course area that involves wall jumping, tumbling, etc. That said, while the tutorial does lightly touch on combat and slightly more complex vaulting and you just missed it, it just highlights a new problem. That the tutorial level is too large and unfocused to the point you can miss an entire section of it.

I remember the butler giving me jump scares as a kid when he comes in around the corners lol.

Good review. Back in the 90s being given unlimited saves was easier than extra level design with contextual clues (I guess) Missing the T-Rexes in the first level probably meant Josh never noticed that getting 3 secrets gives you ammo and an early weapon as well... que sera, sera...

the first three games are a massive nostalgia trip for me. just like tekken 3 , medievil or any ps1 game . the graphics artstyle makes me go blank and relive those moments when i played demo discs which had black backside.... or games in the small CD plastic box as if it was a music CD. late evening, warm tea, supper and tomb raider. amazing times

Fun facts: The stacking of crossbow bolts in the jade statues is a perfect example of an overflow bug. Because the enemy unit uses a variable for its health (probably an 8-bit unsigned integer), and each crossbow bolt has a damage value attached to it. When they come to life, and their collision detection becomes active, the game will try to do the maths and subtract lots of numbers that total more than the unit's health variable can hold. Once this exceeds the size of the memory allocated to that variable (8-bits, hypothetically), then it will either run into its neighbouring memory address, or throw a runtime error. Either causes a memory address violation, and will result in the OS's kernel shutting down the application, to prevent cascading issues. This kind of bug is by far, how most exploits/hacks are performed, the idea being, if you can find a way to sneak code through an overflow, in to a memory address that's privileged (admin/root rights), you can get that code run with the highest priveleges possible. The expansion/DLC/whatever, is the outcome of what's known as "kitbashing". During development, the design team will have a decent amount of access to the SDK that's been made for them by the engineers, which is kind of like a big ol' lego set. The designers will spend some time playing around with it, seeing what fun things they can make with the existing pieces, and sometimes they'll get canabalised into main parts of the game, or bundled into secret areas, expansions, etc. Kit bashing is actually where most of the cool stuff in games comes from (in my opinion), and engineers will deliberately restrict parts of the SDK from their designers sometimes, because constraints breed creativity.

This was such a detailed video on TR2, thanks for the in-depth thoughts on the game!! I really enjoyed hearing you speak on so many of the mechanics in a way that I hadn't thought about. Great video, subbed! Cheers!

One thing I noticed when I was younger I'm not sure many people know is that the audio track in the opening cinematic when all the arrows are shot is the same one they used in Braveheart in the first big war when they fling all the arrows at the Scots. I had to go back and forth between them over and over until I was sure. It's like the most random game trivia lol I always thought the second dude to get shot sounded familiar. Not sure if it's some bought clip or they ripped it off the movie.

Damn I loved tomb raider 1-3. I was 9 when TR2 was released and played it so much. It is incredible how patient we all were at the young age and took dozens of hours finding out where to go. I bet my older me isn't patient enough to beat the game. I currently also play older games from NES and SNES and my god I am so bad. Just tried street fighter 2 on SNES and I couldn't even beat the first enemy. Really shows how we were used to hard clunky things back then and aren't it anymore.

36:40 Nah Remaster didn't add that, it somehow lost the water effects in classic mode. You can see it doesnt include backgrounds distorting when behind water, the sheen that changes water color with a gradient, or translucent ripples. All these effects and sound muffling were in original game but are strangely absent in Remaster's classic mode are absent.

This is one of my favourite series on KZfaq at the moment. Thanks for the great second monitor entertainment.

That jump at the end of the bartoli hideout level is actually possible. It's in some guides as a shortcut (thanks Stella) and I did it myself while playing the remasters.

The Swan Dive might change jump distances somewhat, but it does also significantly increase fall damage if you do it onto land... It makes sense since Lara's diving onto ground face first using it.

I really enjoy watching your "was it any good?" collection and listen to your voice. Thank you for struggling your self through this variety of games and making this content!

I'm familiar with the Tomb Raider engine because I used to create custom levels +15 years ago, so I can help with the "water not changing levels visually". I will try my best to explain, but it will be difficult without visual support. Classic Tomb Raider levels are made with rooms. A room is a rectangular space surrounded by walls where the player can navigate. Rooms have a width, a depth and an height set in meters, and both the walls and the floor/ceiling are a grid made of of 2x2 meters spaces. In each room you can determine, for each space of the floor and ceiling grid, how many meters should that position pop out from the ground/ceiling, and what its inclination is. For example you can make a squared 2x2 pillar that sticks out of the floor by 6 meters, or a squared 2x2 stalactite that pops out of the ceiling by 2 meters. Then you can pick three consecutive spaces in the ceiling, make them stick 2 meters, make the two on the sides have an inclination of an additional meter and you've made yourself a nice arch in the ceiling. Inclination in ground tiles also determines if you can step on it or you will slide. Any inclination bigger than 1 meters will make you slide (If I recall correctly). Also you can't do any of this with the walls, only the horizontal grids. The walls remain flat. Rooms can be connected with eachother by setting portals, which essentially mean that you pick up some positions of the grid in the walls, the ceiling or the floor and you explicitly tell the engine not to render a solid there. If you're thinking that sounds pretty limited, that's because it really is. This engine was clearly designed for Tomb Raider I, where most of the game is underground, in secluded, small man-made areas with straight walls. Ideal for making temples and tombs. Big, open spaces were so uncommon that I think the most popular one, the place with the T-Rex, didn't even have a skybox and the sky was just pure black. Rooms couldn't be that big either. If I recall correctly (this was more than 15 years ago) the max size of a room was like 12x12, or 15x15, or 20x20, or something like that. So, how did they make colossal spaces full of irregular walls like "The Deck"? Well, they're constructed using dozens and dozens of individual rooms, carefully put and connected with eachother with LOTS of portals, so they give the illusion of being a single room. I can't even begin to comprehend how difficult that was, and the level designers really deserve credit for their good job. Specially if you think that they couldn't make a better engine because Eidos pressed for a sequel each year. And Tomb Raider 3 is even bigger and more open! As you can see, rooms have a very strict content and the environment doesn't have any physics at all. So how can you modify the level during gameplay if needed? Well, there's a trick: you can create a room in the exact same 3D position of an existing one and disable it at the start of the game. Then, when nedeed, you can disable the original room and activate the new room, doing, in essence, a switch. But here's the thing; when you press the bomb detonator in Bartoli's Hideout there's not really an explosion. There's only a lot of rooms switching to its alternative versions instantly. No physics, no real transition, no nothing. So they have to be clever about how they do it; they force the camera to look in the other way, put a sound and a flashing light, and let your imagination do the rest. That's why in Tomb Radier I, when you press a switch, a room suddenly fills with sand but you're not there to see it. That's why in 40 Fathoms you press a lever and now the boxes that were in the ground are now floating in the water, but you won't see them float up - nor they will bounce when you step on them. Or why in the same level you press some levers and coal moves from a room to another, but you won't see it fall. Or why you won't, ever, see the water level rise - at least in the game I've worked with. Because it isn't really rising. A room with no water is being replaced with one full of it. It is instant, immediate. They can't show you that without breaking your immersion. The closest you can get is in 1:09:44, when you press the box into the waterfall. See the stream disappearing immediately? Yep, that's a completely new room replacing the old. Room replacing is also very committing. I don't know if you've noticed, but in that same case, moving the box back doesn't make the stream return. It just stays dry for no reason at all. Most of the instances of room replacing are permanent because they're error prone. For example, if you kill an enemy in a dry room and fill it with water, the body will disappear because...well, it's a completely different room. But if you dry it again...The body is back! Where did you go, buddy? There are a few examples in the games, but I can't recall them. This room switching makes speedruns fun too. Watch a Tomb Raider 2 speedrun. Specially in the sunken ship levels, there are some rooms that start dry but need to be filled with water in order to progress. But speedrunners take routes the designers didn't think of, so they get to a connection between two rooms where they are supposed to be underwater by now but aren't. So, suddenly, there's a vertical wall of water, chilling, ignoring gravity. Lol. Finally, don't be disappointed on knowing about this. I think of details like this like little magic tricks the developers play on you; if you don't notice how they work, they've succeeded in their purpose. But if you do, you can better appreciate the details and the skill that went into them.

Tomb Raider 2 was the first game I received with a console for Christmas in 1997 as a kid. I remember how my younger brother and I spent hours trying to figure out the puzzles that Lara had been asked to solve. Watching your material brought back an avalanche of memories and slight disbelief as to how on earth I was able to beat this game as a kid. Watching you complete the levels, I realized the incredible difficulty and complexity, combined with the player's lack of proper preparation for the challenges awaiting them. I remember feeling extremely proud of completing this title, as it was the first game on modern consoles that I had the opportunity to complete. Thank you for allowing me to bring these wonderful memories to life. I used to be unaware of the imperfections and advantages of this production, which you highlighted in your material. I'll be looking forward to any material on TR3, which I also love. Thanks again for an amazing trip down memory lane. That was an astonishing piece of work Josh.

I think Tomb Raider 3 was the game where; in a Jungle environment, you're able to shoot something hanging from a vine that you need. When I got to this section after playing all 3 games with my Grandmother in a row, we got stuck on this puzzle for an entire morning+afternoon. We only realised it was shootable because I drew Laras guns and she aimed at it. This was a mechanic never used throughout the entirety of the other games.

I hope you do all these. I remember watching my dad play the 4th every night. I might have never played any of the tomb raider games if it wasn’t for him.

Cool! I never played or saw gameplay of Tomb Raider 2 :) Very thorough review and great analysis~ Lol, I can't wait for Tomb Raider 3 :P

I still love it. Playing the remake these days and already finished 1&2, working on 3. I miss games games like this. I’ve been lied to, told it was nostalgia. I miss old games.

When you brought up saving into a death loop you took me back to why I never beat this game as a teen. I was in the temple and got to the launch pads area. I saved right before and then attempted a jump. I did it wrong and as I was about to load up my save state I accidentally saved in a death loop. I was so pissed and didn’t want to restart the level all the way from the beginning. I basically moved on and didn’t finish the game till recently on the remastered. 20 plus years of built in revenge lol

In the ice palace, there is no soft lock off you jump from the palace back into the catacombs environment. They thought about it, obviously. The room looks like a copy-paste of the previous level, except for a block oriented differently that allows you to jump back onto the bridge.

It's probably worth pointing out that a common criticism of the remaster trilogy is that the modern control scheme locks out a number of Lara's movement abilities, and makes some platforming sequences impossible unless you switch back to the classic controls for the puzzle bit.

I'm glad you found out these are horror games! :D The jump scares, the dark levels, the walls of pulsating flesh, these games are creepy

TR1 was special but man this game made my skin crawl so much as a kid. It really was a unique experience that we older folks will remember in the 1990's/2000's. I watched my dad play this a lot and he got me into gaming, and because of this, TR2 has a special place in my heart.

I found the combat to be much better than most people give it credit for, even with the gun-having enemies. For each enemy-type you need to move around in a unique way in order to avoid their attacks - usually either circling around them or jump-turning over them. For gunner enemies, you can jump or tumble behind them and keep moving behind them so they're too busy turning around to shoot at you. I also like the instances where you can find a ledge or object to climb on where the melee enemies can't reach you, it makes you feel like you're outsmarting them and using Lara's maneuverability to your advantage. It ain't great - there's definitely moments where it's jank or bogus - but if you're just standing still in front of an enemy while you to shoot each other, you're doing it wrong.

I've played these games many times. When playing the remasters, my most eye opening mechanical discovery was that after you jump 1 tile distance back to perform a running jump, you can actually sidestep back and forth angling yourself ever so slightly so you end up a little ahead of where you backflipped. Then you can do the running jump but it starts a tiny bit more forward. You can do some pretty incredible skips with this.

25:55 you can actually grab that ledge, you just have to press action+forward instead of jumping

Played this as a kid. Completed it yesterday on the Remastered, and now JSH review! Amazing!

the first joke of the video is so absolutely amazing! I played it 3 times before watching the rest of the video

Imagination and memories are funny. I have a vivid memory of the fight with the huge bird-boy, but it was outside in those mountains under a clear blue sky, not inside the cave.

45:50 I thought I was the only one who was scared of giant faces in deep water! I thought it was too random and niche for anyone else to experience like "who would ever be scared of that?" 😂

My most played TR as a kid. With the remaster, after some initial issues with the clunkiness, I really grew to love this game all over again. It's so fun to explore these giant puzzle boxes.

7:55 So true. Still remember discovering it in a moment of serendipity in the monastery level. Was as surprising as doing the handstand pull up in the original.

1:26:40 - I think this is what they call bumpmapping, on the ladder textures. Also I don't envy you on 3. 1 - Hard to get around and the ancient tombs feel very difficult to navigate, but possible 2 - Felt a lot easier to know my intended path, much more accessable. Loved it 3 - Beating the first level was nightmare mode.

Absolutely LOVE the color combination of the rusty ship!

The way you slid into the frame in the beginning just raised this show from a 9 to a 10. Exceptionally entertaining as always.

This is still my favorite of the classic trilogy, followed by TR1, 3, 4 and 5. 40:22 Or make an angled jump to the nose of the plane from the left side of the walkway. it's trickier, but possible. The wings are probably what the game wants you to do, given that you turn off the engines, but it's not required. In fact, if you can do it right, it makes for a nice shortcut. 1:15:34 You can use the snow pile against the wall to get onto the bridge. You couldn't do that in the previous level, the devs purposely changed that. When I first played it, I actually got stuck in the Wreck of the Maria Doria, because I didn't know you could press the bathroom switch to both open *and* close the doors. I bought the official strategy guide to progress, something I then did for each subsequent game. Also, yes, I couldn't understand the henchman at the start, either. I learned what he actually said a while ago, though I can't remember where. The subtitles definitely help, though, as it made me understand some of the other cutscene dialogues, too.

41:06 That awkward moment when you sign up for a ship crew and you realize you need to be good at platforming to climb up the top bunk.

I’ve decided to agree with the entirety of the review since I like your microphone mug.

10/10 content. Your first Tomb Raider video is my most often revisited Josh Plays, and I'm excited to give this one more views. For constructive feedback, it sounds like your microphone volume really varies across the video. Particularly in the first half, I felt like there were some very loud to quiet transitions between gameplay footage voiceover and you talking into your cup mic. I'm excited for sweaty vest gamersupps

I love the way you breakdown the whole game from start to finish.

The framerate is sooo bad in the original.. wish you stuck with footage of the remaster.. other than that excellent video! Love this series

Back then, whenever I tried to find a solution, I felt stupid for not being able to figure it out on my own! That's why I appreciate your analytical approach to game design in your reviews - it made me feel better about failing as a kid, but also still love TR2 nonetheless. So... Hey, now I just have to wait another six years for you to cover successively all the TR classics, yay!!

What a great trip down memory lane. I think this was maybe the third or fourth game I ever beat as a kid, and I remember being so proud of finding all the statues on some of the later levels. It's interesting to see just how much of the game I'd forgotten and recognize a few scenes which somehow stuck with me despite a complete loss of context.

I love your coffee cup mic set up! ☕🎤

Hi Josh, I have been watching your content for several months now and this is my first comment. I can't express how much I love what happened in 0:35 here!

OMFG, Josh. I just started playing the remastered versions a week ago and a huge part of even checking for the classic Tomb Raider games in the first place (nostalgia thoughts got to me) was your review of the 1st one. Seeing this upload as i take a break from playing "Wreck of the Maria Doria" level, really feels like a blessing. Love you and your content really bad 🖤

You're a GOAT for adding the ad timer

Just rewatched the Tomb Raider video, and got this one reccomended to me. So happy you continue this series.

I never saw you mention the T-rex in the beginning of this game, because that to me, alongside the dragon, actually was the scariest bit of the game as a kid x'D

My first game, my favorite game, and one of my favorite channels!! Dream come true, thank you JSH!!

Italian dude totally sounded like "rigatoni ganno ma kiri!" 😂😂

I have so many fond memories of this game. Awesome to see you cover it!

This is the only Tomb Raider I finished to the end... and was the first game I bought the guide book for. Don't think I could have without it.

I was just rewatching all your videos. now I can end my day right

As much as these are classics and are the reason we have Tomb Raider these days, watching these videos makes me very thankful that we got the 2013 Reboot Trilogy. Say what you want, I love the 2013 Reboot Trilogy.

57:52 she didnt being that old flight jacket. The pilot was wearing it when they flew to the oil rig.. it shows her finding it in the cut scene.

So good! I've never played the originals but you made me want to buy and try. Thanks Josh!

Among the first few games I ever played, thank you for showing me what actually happens past level 3.

The snow mobile legit sounds like a gas powered RC car 😂

Saw the mug-mic. Never subscribed faster. Well played good sir. Well played.