Levels listed...
TR5 - 31
TR4 - 3141
TR3 - 177
TR2 - 133
TR1 - 61
72368 reviews (20.4/level)
3532 (99.7%) walkthroughs
445 Hall of Fame levels
1221 levels rated >= 8
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release date: |
13-Aug-2020 |
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# of downloads: |
157 |
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average rating: |
5.84 |
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review count: |
14 |
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review this level |
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file size: |
24.30 MB |
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file type: |
TR4 |
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class: |
nc |
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author profile(s): |
email(s): |
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| Reviewer's comments |
"Always great to see a builder return to the scene after a long time and also great to see an
Ireland level, as there are rather few of those. Overall, I kind of liked the atmosphere
created and it is a fairly quick affair of about 30 minutes to play through it with a few
secrets thrown in for good measure. But I found what spoiled the fun a lot was that Lara
seems to spend more than half the time in the level on her knees - meaning, she has to sneak
through a myriad of crawlspaces, some of which are cleverly hidden. There is also the
general darkness, but especially with the fixed version it is really not too bad. So if you
do not mind literally crawling your way up to that church, jump right into spooky Ireland
for a quick (re)visit." - MichaelP (19-Jan-2024) |
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"Returning to the scene some 17 years after he made not much of a splash with a couple of inconsequential beginner’s attempts, the builder must surely have set a record, as some reviewers surmise (though Richard Ba is a close runner-up; and yours truly intends to break that record at some point in the future). As one would expect, the builder acquits himself much better this time around; but, on the other hand, not quite as well as one would hope.
First off, Ireland typically comes with Young Lara, but detractors of the latter (you know who you are) will be pleased to learn that in this case, it’s Adult Lara who does the revisiting. In the end, it doesn’t make much of a difference, though. While you do get weapons—rather too many, in fact, plus a useless lasersight—and a few enemies (and shatter objects) to use them on, the combat aspect is underdeveloped. The enemies—a motley crew of mostly supernatural characters—never pose much of a threat, even though they tend to attack out of the blue in confined spaces; and each and every one of them is entirely silent. The only other health hazards are an unmarked spike tile that everybody could have done without, and a few flame pits. You also get flares, but judging by the earlier reviews, their presence in the revised version is of much less consequence than their absence was in the original.
Gameplay is largely limited to exploration, which here means finding your way around one area after another in search for the next lever to open the next door. The path isn’t necessarily obvious, which adds some interest to the proceedings, and it helps that it’s interspersed with a (little) bit of halfway decent platforming. Gameplay is linear throughout, and there’s but little backtracking; clearly too many crawlspaces, though. These latter should have been replaced by more platforming in open areas, so as to make gameplay as well as the visuals more appealing. There are only two secrets (fair), both located in the.same area, although there are also one or two occasions on which pickups might as well be tagged as secrets but aren’t.
Apart from the soundless enemies, atmosphere is about right. Texturing is acceptable, though it doesn’t aim any higher than that: heterogenous groups of textures are often juxtaposed for the sake of variety (I guess); other times, there’s wallpapering (first cave area). Seamlessness was obviously not a priority; textures are routinely stretched or squashed, some oddly rotated (a stone wall by 90°) or oddly placed (one interior is covered in two varieties of roof shingles), and far too many distorted. Lighting is subdued, somewhat murky and fairly flat, but it works in this context (and is apparently an improvement over the original version). Contrary to some reviewers, I found the cameras mostly helpful.
The thing I most object to is what I first interpreted as attempts at railroading gameplay—probably under the influence of Legend et al.—by means of invisible walls. However, on reflection I think these were born of desperation more than anything else: the builder noticed at some point that it would be easily possible for players to reach certain areas where he didn’t want them to go, and rather than choosing more subtle means of preventing access to these, he took refuge to the blunt instrument of invisible walls—immersion be damned. There are other indications of a rushed job—an illegal slope here, a wafer-thin wall there—, and the ending is somewhat unsatisfying (you’re instructed to ‘make your way to the church uphill’, and the level ends as soon as you’ve done so), but at least it’s not as abrupt and arbitrary as in many of the builder’s other levels." - Mulf (28-Jun-2021) |
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| "I usually never liked Ireland levels, and this is not an exception. The architecture and texturization are not bad, as the use of cameras and sounds, but the gameplay was very tedious, the rooms are too dark, there are too many crawlspaces creating a slow gameplay, and there are not entertaining tasks or puzzles to solve. Even more, there are some areas you can explore only to get unnecessary items (what the sight is for?) and sometimes the cameras point to doors or places you've not visited yet. I don't want to discourage this builder, I think Dennis has got good skills with the level editor and has a great potential, but in this case the level was not entertaining for me. Sorry." - Jose (04-Nov-2020) |
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| "I'm playing this level after the fix, having much better experience than the previous reviewers so I'd recommend them to update the ratings. The goal in the game is simple: get to the church, but the way there is interesting and complicated. Maybe too many crawlspaces and broken triangles, but it has the spirit. Short, immersive, enjoyable." - DJ Full (28-Oct-2020) |
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| "The Black Isle levels are among my all time favourite
official levels and probably the only Young Lara examples I
actually like. This visit unfortunately involves more
crawling through the less attractive inside areas rather than
the often hauntingly lovely outside ones. Nevertheless, the
builder has done a good job of recreating the feel, with
those oh so atmospheric sound files, and the whole thing is
solidly built. Gameplay is very simple and largely concerned
with exploration in a quest to arrive at the church. Short,
undemanding and pleasant enough. I’m awfully glad however
that I arrived late enough to benefit from the revised
version." - Jay (05-Sep-2020) |
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| "I was surprised by the fact that this builder released a
level after 17 years of absence which is indeed a record,
but the level itself wasn't a solid comeback imo. The
gameplay is very basic, you pull some switches to open
doors, crawl on a lot of crawlspaces (maybe too many and
unnecessary), and jump here and there on the rocks,
basically something you'll see on a debut level. I
would've enjoyed any kind of puzzle to get the cross as
it feels too random placed like where it is.
Cameras are kinda useless as they're pointed too near the
target, which doesn't let the player see where the next
area to look for is.
Lighting is good and so is the atmosphere, which reminds
a lot of TR5 Ireland mood, but the texturing has a lot
and a lot of errors, almost every room has squished or
stretched textures and lots of cracks, maybe the builder
could've also used more textures to give variation to the
environment since the set of textures allows that.
All the enemies have no sounds, and I was expecting more
of them since the builder provides many guns and ammo to
the player.
The last thing I want to mention is the outfit which is
very unfitting, both for the mood of the level and the
non-classic feeling, classic-HD combined together is
never good imo.
I would love to see more levels from this builder in the
future and I strongly recommend using Tomb Editor for the
next releases. Less frustration and more satisfaction.
Found both the secrets, 25-30 minutes." - LoreRaider (19-Aug-2020) |
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| "Probably the largest time period of any two subsequently released levels by the same builder, but perhaps he should've waited some more before releasing this one to the public. I honor that some things like missing flares are adressed, but even so this game is fairly dark and gameplaywise absolutely uninspired. The starting area is actually intriguing, but half of the time you are spending in crawlspaces (that endless turning around is so tedious after a while), the other time navigating around the dark passages, with occasional jumps (I would not call that platforming) and without any interesting tasks, of course no puzzles either. Object design is very sparse while the atmosphere works well enough in a few areas, mostly outside, but the corridor-esque architecture is a huge let-down in these regards as well. And the game ends after 20 minutes in a fairly abrupt fashion but maybe there will be a follow-up, with the reported problems being cared of, of course. Found only one registering secret, the others have the same number (?)." - manarch2 (18-Aug-2020) |
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| "This level is much too dark for my tastes, and the builder has failed to provide a single flare pickup. I provided an unlimited supply for myself very early on, and this enabled me to make slow but steady progress. There are some good gameplay ideas here to go along with the suitably spooky atmosphere, but there's definitely an overuse of crawl spaces. Your goal is to make your way up to a church, and when you accomplish that objective after close to an hour the level abruptly ends. There's considerable potential here if the builder will pay more attention to the lighting concerns and unnecessary tedium mentioned in the other reviews." - Phil (17-Aug-2020) |
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| "This builder seems to have responded to the
(probably justified) criticism in the
previous reviews of this level being
insanely dark, containing no flares and as a
result, being a total drudge to complete.
Thankfully, this revised version is
definitely more enjoyable to go through.
Admittedly, the light levels are still more
gloomier than I would have personally
preferred but the cave systems are much more
comfortable to navigate and the gameplay is
more player-friendly. The numerous
crawlspaces were a bit of a turn-off (I
always consider consecutive crawlspaces a
bit of a cheap "gameplay" tactic) and the
secrets were just lying there for the
taking, but the atmosphere was sufficiently
spooky (aided by those unsettling Black Isle
audio files and some effective enemy
placements), the construction was solid and
I actually enjoyed myself more than I
expected." - Ryan (17-Aug-2020) |
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| "An updated version has been released. I played both and I can confirm that the lighting is much better now, there are more flares to pick up and the missing sounds are at their place. Anyway the game is still short and poor. I suggest the author to rename the level adding a suffix like "Demo" or "Prologue", because at the end of the game everybody wonder why Lara should go to the church, to do what? Finished in 20 minutes and found two secrets. There's nothing more to say, textures are not monotonous because the game is too short to be monotonous. As I already said, it's like a demo for me, and I hope to see the rest." - Teone (17-Aug-2020) |
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| "Well, generally looked like an easy pleasant level with a
progressive path it took me 28 mins, 0 secrets found. The
gameplay was average, it works, it leads the player
comfortably, but nothing special to mention, enemies are
fine, although objects I missed a bit better presentation
(Finding a puzzle in a random hole, to be used in an
unexpected door that I found by chance...), Atmosphere is
were I find the most bitter point, I think lightning is
good, but the environment, is most of the time through
similar corridors and cliff pits, I don't recall any
meaningful zone that gives identity to the level. So what I
most enjoyed was the easy and progressive approach." - Adngel (16-Aug-2020) |
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| "Found this creation very uninspired and repetitive... I
love Lara's outfit and the slipping animation, but this
TRLE is mostly boring and exausting specially in that
crawling labyrinth. Lighting was not really a good point;
all those Fog bulbs were unnecesary imo. Great to see the
author back on business after all those years, but I think
he/she can do it better :) Be careful with DOZY cheat btw,
you forgot to disabled it!" - Jason L (15-Aug-2020) |
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| "I'm sorry, but I didn't like that level. I disagree with
the previous review. The lack of lighting means that
there is no fun at this level, but irritation at certain
times. The textures of the rooms are very similar, and
together with the light problem, the cameras do not help
the player in level progress. It's a short level, which
even presents some good ideas. Many authors make the
mistake of, when trying to make a level of "suspense and
frightening", apply practically zero lighting (and in the
case of this level with practically no flares).
I suggest the author to make an update in the level or in
the next projects to be more careful when it comes to
lighting, adding flares at least, because the gameplay
looks good, but it was badly affected by the lack of
lighting. The author returns after years without
building, which is great, but I hope he will consider my
suggestion for his next levels. And please: Flares!!
Unfortunatelly i can't recommend this level." - Mister-B (14-Aug-2020) |
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| "A surprisingly excellent release from Dennis after a 17 year absence from the community, with gameplay and level design crafted in a very logical and organic fashion (not once proving frustrating throughout the 32 minutes it took for me to complete).
Other design areas are equally as impressive (with effective lighting that's dark but not overwhelmingly so, complimenting the applied Ireland textures, objects and atmospheric tracks beautifully). Enemies are sparse but well-placed (managing to get a few clever jump scares out of me as I made my way through the island to a church, of which one wonders what Lara's reasons are for going there in the first place).
Overall, a very satisfying raid that I highly recommend for anyone desiring something that's not too hard but not necessarily easy. Hope this is a sign of good things to come from the builder going forward." - Ceamonks890 (14-Aug-2020) |
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