I finally did it, I played the second Gameboy Color Tomb Raider game and now I can finally say: it's okay.

Because of my review of the first game I can actually skip a lot of the explaining, it controls exactly the same as the predecessor. Lara has no new moves but there were already plenty and not much more possible with the few buttons on a Gameboy.

So what is this game about? The Curse of the Sword, of course! Like in most classic Tomb Raider games the story is not really that important, there is a sword that one of Lara's friends (really nice that she is less of a sociopath in these games) found and put in a museum. Bad guys try to steal the sword to resurrect an evil witch and Lara is cursed after being cut with it after unsuccessfully chasing the robbers. Save your soul, Lara!

A big difference between the first game would be the many different environments Lara has to traverse, starting from a museum (that serves as a tutorial where Lara is unarmed) leading to a chase over rooftops, an abandoned subway station, docks and finally a jungle with a cave where Lara faces the culprit behind the robbery.

The levels are designed more horizontally and less vertical and the puzzles are better connected to their environment. You need to use the elevator in the museum but it has no power? Time to look for the machine room to get the electricity flowing. Another improvement are little arrows that show you things you can interact with or paths to another part of the level and the camera shows you what the button or lever you pressed actually did. The first levels are full of fun improvements, the second has you running over rooftops trying to reach the helicopter of the robbers before a time limit runs out and a fun little boss battle at the end.

After two long sprawling level and a little side trip in a small submarine the game sadly runs out of steam. The last third of the game is completely devoid of any puzzles whatsoever, after a long and frustrating climbing passage (maybe a little less frustrating when you're not an idiot like me and you know that you don't have to take leaps of faith and can just look ahead while pressing the "Start" - Button) there is a very short and linear level leading to the final boss encounter and a rather underwhelming ending.

It's a fun game and an improvement over the first Gameboy Color game, but the weak last third of the game really drags it down.

pro:

• nice looking and very diverse environments
• nice animations and colors
• big sprawling levels

contra:

• pre-rendered cutscenes of varying quality
• still very pathetic combat and dumb enemies
• a weak last third of the game

There is one last original Tomb Raider Gameboy game left and I think now I'll have to play that one as well, even though it was not developed by Core Design...