Tomb Raider - The Quandary

With yesterday's official announcement of Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, I had a brief thought about picking the game up with my own Playstation 4 purchase, since January was the intended get of that as well.  I thought about playing through the game for a third time, but on this new console, and partaking of all the same things which I was already aware of, that I'd already tasted of.  I thought of how good the game would look during particular scenes in 1080p rather than...I guess 720p on the PS3?  I honestly don't know what resolution it was.  Really, I thought of every moment of fun I had with Tomb Raider and the possibility of doing so again on the PS4 for a price.

I'm....not sold.  It's a weird barrier of entry that I didn't know I had, especially since I have gleefully partaken in so many HD Collections thus far into my gaming life with the advent of them on the PS3 and Vita.  But thinking about 100% completing Tomb Raider -again-, but this time on the PS4 where it looks better but has all the exact same content with nothing added on....just gets me thinking about paying the PS3 version again since I already have that.  I can try to validate it by saying that enough time has passed for the HD Collections, that they routinely offer a bit more content (at least trophies for all the 'ugh' you can throw at me for that, but also "Making of" and sorts of things that I don't believe were in the originals) or even that it's simply harder to hook up my PS2 instead of just playing it on my PS3, as lazy as that sounds.  It's certainly why I bought Persona 4 Golden for my Vita (extra content) rather than the version of Persona 4 that I owned for my PS2 for years prior and never played.

Part of the problem is simply how off-guard Squeenix was caught when it came to Tomb Raider and the expectations thereof.  For some odd reason, Squeenix anticipated the Multiplayer of the game would be a huge hit and that's why the DLC was staggered towards that rather than having at least a few people working on Single-Player DLC to add more tombs to the game or something along those lines.  The Multiplayer was, as we know, awful by most stretches and definitions of the word and thus the inclusion of the Multiplayer-centric DLC in the Definitive Edition has almost negative value to me and most people.  Not only is it unwanted, but it's almost representative of the fact that we never got, nor will we ever get single-player DLC for the game that was by and large fantastic in single-player.  It's not fair, of course, but that's just how it falls sometimes.

By all accounts it seems that the game will retail for $60 rather than....$40 or so, as a re-release might generally run at.  Most will just say "Well, duh, Squeenix" and some will claim that adding TressFX and native 1080p and all that, as well as inclusion of the DLC necessitates the 'extra' $20, but the fact remains that many, many people bought Tomb Raider for $60 already  Some are more than happy to do so again and I tip my hat to those people because even though I loved Tomb Raider, you clearly love it more than I.  And that's great!  It's a great game and deserves all the support in the world, it's simply that I cannot justify throwing another full price at it.  I'm not sure I could even justify it for Metal Gear Rising:  REVENGEANCE, even with all the DLC on-disk.  I would be tempted - I own the game and the DLC (but haven't downloaded it) - but I think I would even refuse that at $60, perhaps even $40.  And you all know how much I loved REVENGEANCE.

That is not to say that I won't eventually own Tomb Raider for my PS4 - I will.  I will be compelled to eventually for the lush visuals and the engaging gameplay and the wonderful character progression of Lara herself.  I will be compelled to once again 100% the game and, if there's a separate trophy list, potentially even bother with Platinuming it as I intend on doing with the PS3 version.  (The opposition, of course, is the dregs of Multiplayer)  I just won't be doing it Day-One.  I won't be throwing down $60 for Tomb Raider again until there is a 2 or a subtitle after those key words.  Even a single bit of new single-player content would have had me questioning this decision but Squeenix has made it easy to stand firm.  Though I still do find myself regretting that.

I really do kinda wanna play Tomb Raider all over again though