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Gameplay:
This platformer instantly brought 'Prince of Persia' to mind. There's a lot of puzzles, and they're good ones too, but not many enemies. This is okay thought, they got just the right mix (maybe just a few too many switch puzzles). One thing I noticed is when you die you start back at the title screen instead of your last save point, this can slow down the gameplay a bit but it's nothing too major. I gotta say, a bit of blood would be nice. Overall, Tomb Raider is a pleasure to play with a good storyline. The levels are very well designed and put together. They are very appropriate for the game and have just the right amount of bats and scorpions and stuff in them.

Graphics:
Absolutely AMAZING! The pre-rendered cut-screens, title screens, and logos are perfect! Not only this but the in game graphics are totally unreal! Lara is 48 pixels in height and has 2500 frames of animation! Never before has a Game Boy sprite been so in depth. She has animations for literally everything. This includes animations for things like walking, running, jumping, falling, bumping into walls, flipping over an enemy while you're shooting at them, and more! Of course it's also got, uh, well, lets just say "bounce-factor" all the time, what's a Tomb Raider game without it? (Hey Lara, sow us your pixels!). The backgrounds are also imaculate. The tweaks and details are all there, like if you shoot at a bat, the auto-aiming gun actually points at it, when you blow up a wall with dynamite,there's a decent explosion, or when you swing across a cavern on some vines, little leaves fall off of them. These are the kind of things that make a great game AMAZING.

Sound:
The sound is great. The sampled gunshots and explosion sounds are cool, as well as the fluttering of bats.
Apart from a tune on the title screen, during cutscenes, and when you start a level, there's no music. This was dissapointing, but I guess not much music is needed for a puzzle platformer? I dunno, maybe they tried it and it didn't work? But I guess no music is better than crap music

Controls:
At first the controls seem pretty complex, but after a while they will become like second nature. I was pleased with the wide variety of movements and overall feel of the controls. Sometimes jumping on the move can be a little difficult, also I tended to loose control occasionally (There probably isn't anyway to change this, they did pretty damned good). However, the controls, in whole, are excellent.

Final Comments:
Only if, this game had some good music, it would have been absolutly perfect. *Sob* It was just sooo close to being the ultimate Game Boy platform game *sob*. Hey, but don't get me wrong, I recommend this game to all.

Score:
Gameplay
Graphics
Sound
Controls
Personal Opinion

Game designed by:
Core/Eidos

Published by:
THQ

Genre:
Platform

Players:
1

Save:
Battery (1 slot)

Released:
2000

Reviewed by:
GameBoy Guru
(gb_guru@mbox.com.au)