As a fan of the Tomb Raider series, I'd only recommend playing this game if you already love the classics and are curious to see the end of an era. This game will demand that you put up with a lot of annoyances and it will be a frustrating experience at times.
I strongly recommend playing with the RESTORATION PROJECT installed, it fixes a lot of stuff, restores missing content and adds much needed context to several plot points.
Before I mention why The Angel of Darkness is not a good game, I'd like to list the things the game actually does great.
First, the obvious is the graphical leap from the previous game. TR6 looks beautiful in general (for a PS2 game at least), after all, it was developed for a new console and enjoys the use of a brand new engine.
Second, forward jumps don't feel as restrictive as in previous games where you always had to adhere to the grid system in order to perform precise jumps. I'm not complaining that the classic games use a grid system to measure jumping distance (in fact, I really like this system), but it felt "nice" this time to do long jumps with barely any running distance or measuring, Lara pretty much can long jump with half the distance previously needed.
Third, they added a couple of new moves and combat options that are actually pretty cool. The most useful are probably the short hop, and the ability to just run directly to a ledge and grab it while facing forwards instead of just falling to your death. Lara will turn around and grab it safely.
Fourth, the music is incredible. I'm not kidding, I really think this game could very well have the best music in the classic series. The main theme alone is arguably the best one up to this point. After I beat the game and checked the extras features, I realized the music was performed live by the London Symphony Orchestra, and no wonder why the music conveys that dark, cinematic and intrigue feeling found in several compositions.
And that's where my praise for TR6 ends, anything else found in the game is a mixed bag. The worst part is that it starts with the most important part, the gameplay.
The controls are terrible, or more exactly how Lara moves, she moves like a sack of potatoes. The Restoration Project fixes the controls a bit offering improved controls but the core issue still remains. Everything in this game is slow, I don't know why Lara is so sluggish this time around. Every time you need to do something is always the same, complete stop, do the action slowly, continue. This is hard to explain since you do the same in older games but it's a different type of sluggishness. Pulling yourself up a ledge is slower, jumping and grabbing a ladder mid height is slower, pulling out your guns is slower and sometimes it feels like the input is ignored. TR5 or any previous game felt much much faster and responsive.
Stealth mechanics are such a disappointment. The game tried to include stealth options but are barely used and almost completely unnecessary. I used stealth takedowns to save ammo in a couple of occasions but it barely matters, the game has so much ammo that being conservative with resources is irrelevant and there is no punishment whatsoever for going guns blazing every single time. The new commando crawl is cool and all but its only real good use is to cheese the last boss. Hugging the wall looks badass but it's more jank than anything, another sluggish mechanic that serves no purpose besides minor segments. And sometimes you end up sticking to the wall on accident when you're trying to stealth kill an enemy.
The new shop system is almost completely irrelevant. Early game you're presented with the option to sell stuff you find in the world to a couple of stores, those items serve as currency to purchase ammo, weapons or healing items. It sounds great but it's another system that is relevant for a brief time and never shows up again. In fact, you can completely ignore it and be fine since you'll still get plenty of ammo around, and eventually you will find weapons in the levels themselves.
I'm glad it's there but it could've been much more, I'm mostly annoyed because in part is tied to the inventory. The worst part is that if you forgot to sell a random item you found, it will be stuck in your inventory for the whole game, in fact, this is true for every single item you found. It doesn't matter if it's a clue for a level you beat 3 hours ago, better carry those 5 pieces of paper, 7 ID cards, and some random photo around right? What if I want to check the last item I picked up? Yep, you have to go through all your inventory, again.
Some of the things I've mentioned might sound like nitpicks but every single thing start to add up to dull the experience, and I don't want to make this sound like a rant, it's mostly stuff I started to notice while playing. I haven't even mention the bugs I encountered or the several times I went out of bounds randomly. I love the fact that the premise is about a darker and deeper story, but sometimes the story felt disjointed and the exposition lacking which ruins the pacing. In this regard, I appreciate yet again the Restoration Project for trying to glue the story better with small changes and a better journal that makes sense. And especially, the new "The Story so far" feature in the main menu. The story is actually GREAT once it clicks.
Some levels were fine, others felt incredibly dull and boring. At some point, I thought that the game should've started like 5 levels in instead, where you're actually doing platforming puzzles and exploring interesting environments, like a Tomb Raider should. But I don't know, this is quite subjective.
Most boss fights were boring, the first one was the most interesting, while simple, it had something going for as a small puzzle. The second one was just an annoying bullet sponge.
I liked the addition of a second playable character, though he doesn't really do anything different than Lara does, besides some magic stuff in cutscenes.
I had fun at times, but I was also equally bored in some segments. I'm not the type of player to complain for no reason, in fact, I always try to put effort to enjoy the vision the developers originally intended for their games. But it is a fact, and a shame that Tomb Raider 6 was rushed to meet impossible deadlines. Looking at the game as a whole, it was incredibly ambitious, it had the potential to be one of the greatest games in the early 2000s but at every corner you could feel something was off, small things diminishing the experience, or big things completely ruining it.
So there you go, play it if you are a big fan like me. But don't go into it expecting a masterpiece. I played a bit of TR6 back in the day but never had the chance to finish it since my computer couldn't handle it. Maybe it was for the best. And please, don't forget the Restoration Project, without it, Lara doesn't even have her signature dual guns.
I'm still sad that the classic series ended like this :(
I'll just keep listening to the main theme in loop to find some solace.
