In 1996, an action-adventure platformer called Tomb Raider was released. Long story short: it became a legendary achievement and quickly became one of the biggest names in gaming, even rivaling Mario and Sonic. The game's lead artist, Toby Gard, wanted more creative control but it quickly became clear that the insane popularity of the debut game meant that instead of taking risks, doing more of the same would be the safer bet. That included turning Lara Croft, the lead character, into a super-marketable mascot, which had her advertise cars, food and TV channels. A prominent figure in the development of the first title, Toby Gard, who acted as the Lead Artist, did not see eye to eye with Eidos because of creative decisions and departed the development studio, Core Design, a year after TR1 released. He was headhunted by Interplay and Shiny Enterntainment but declined all offers and instead set up a studio called Confounding Factor with a few Core Design alumni.

Gard probably feared something like this

Now back at Eidos, the executives decided to strike while the iron was still hot: sequels, sequels and sequels. In the span of seven years Core Design released six mainline titles. The devs were exhausted and their last Tomb Raider title, Angel of Darkness, was a disaster both technically and financially. You'll be surprised to learn that in around the same timeframe Confounding Factor released exactly 1 game. You have probably never heard of it, it was called Galleon, it came out in 2004, and it was a total flop.

Toby Gard, ca. 2004 (Making of Galleon)

Galleon was announced in 1997, shortly after the formation of Confounding Factor. Initially planned as a PlayStation 1 title, it quickly secured a publisher in Interplay. Soon after, however, the targeted platforms began to change frantically: first PC, then Dreamcast. When Sega exited the hardware business, development shifted once again - this time to the GameCube, with the game aiming for its launch in 2001. That deadline was missed as well, and in 2003 Interplay dropped the project. Sci Games (ironically, they purchased Eidos in 2005 and merged with Square Enix in 2009, so the Tomb Raider connection runs deep) and Atlus eventually stepped in to rescue it: the former handling publishing in Europe, the latter in North America. In 2004, Galleon finally saw the light of day - exclusively on the original Xbox.

Early screenshot from the development of Galleon, 1999, PC Zone

So why talk about Tomb Raider so much? Well, Galleon, in my opinion, is Gard's spiritual successor to Lara Croft's PS1 adventures. The crux of the gameplay is traversal of the environment, in classic TR fashion. The main character, Rama, moves with a very deliberate feel: you push the stick forward and he starts to accelerate, each step giving the camera a very slight sway. The game employs tank controls - left stick moves you forward and backwards, whereas moving it on the X-axis pans the camera left/right. That makes it all feel like you're controlling a puppet rather than a human - at first you clunkily move the camera first and then start moving in that direction but with time one learns how to seamlessly turn Rama without stopping or even slowing down much - this does require certain finesse, however.

Essentially the way controlling Rama feels is as follows: you push the stick forward - he moves forward, if there's a small obstacle in front of him - he will vault over, if it's large, he will climb it, if it's too large, he will stop and the player would have to press the jump button. It is somewhat reminiscent of the more modern Assassin's Creed where you essentially push the stick forward to move but you also have to hold the "parkour" button to climb over obstacles which Galleon doesn't even require (unless it's a wall that is too high to vault over). It's very forward-thinking and might even seem too streamlined but the level design is varied and complex enough that these auto-actions don't feel like handholding at all. Additionally, you can wall-jump, do Prince of Persia-style wall-to-wall jumping to move upwards, backflip, climb certain walls, even do monkey-bar type climbing. A large part of the game takes place underwater; Rama can dive and explore underwater. Running isn't straightforward, the longer you run, the faster you are and that momentum is necessary to make longer jumps. As you can see, the movement system is very complex and unlike Tomb Raider, it isn't reliant on a grid-system. Even compared to Prince of Persia SoT, which was released a year before, Rama can do much more. That of course makes sense seeing how linear and downright cramped the environments in PoP are, whereas Galleon sports some massive levels with impressive vistas.

But it's not all perfect, of course. The complexity of the movement system means that very often, certain bugs crop up: seeing Rama bend his knees to accommodate for elevations is cool but, sometimes he does behave weirdly on certain surfaces like sliding off of an almost flat rock. Furthermore, unsurprisingly, the camera sometimes behaves in a very schizophrenic manner.

It couldn't really be a Tomb Raider successor without riddles and puzzles. They're very competent, both platforming and swimming are often required to find items necessary to progress. Since the environments are quite massive, an indicator is introduced that starts flashing when the item is nearby - a nice compromise that doesn't feel like cheating. Some logical puzzles appear as well and they are quite inventive. Because of the very flexible movement system I was able to solve a puzzle alternatively using freerunning and not an item in my inventory - and the game recognized it.

Rama is not alone in his adventures. You are accompanied by friendly NPCs who fight alongside you, as well as helping you solve puzzles and restore health. This is a clear step-up from the silent loneliness of classic TR games.

There's also combat. It's serviceable. There are no interesting combos, just basic light and heavy attacks and a janky grab move which nonetheless produces fun scenes when Rama throws an enemy into a group of hostile NPCs who go flying like bowling pins. The bigger problem is that enemies often feel like sponges, especially bosses. The human bosses are particularly dull, but there are also bigger creatures that you climb Shadow of the Colossus-style a year before SotC actually came out. You basically climb up their back or head and hit it several times. Still, it adds some variety. Compared to excellent platforming and exploration it is, however, less exciting, much like combat in TR.

As far as the presentation goes, well, It's a Dreamcast game. It has a great satuday morning cartoon style and very soft and pleasant presentation, but it lacks texture and bumpiness to the surfaces. Everything is a little too smooth. Although certain graphical upgrades have been made seeing as Xbox was much more powerful than Dreamcast and Gamecube. Pre-release footageFinal game. Note the improved faces and hair

For 2004 this was still underwhelming for people waiting for a next-gen adventure. Especially on the Xbox which had Ninja Gaiden and Splinter Cell. Some faces do look rough, but the scope, the size of the levels are on par with contemporaries and the advanced movement system to traverse these levels doesn't really have any equivalents.

Another interesting thing about the game, which is probably a remnant from the Dreamcast times is that, while being very lengthy, full of set-pieces and different gameplay mechanics (controlling a giant robot, shrinking to the size of an insect, fleeing a barrage of fiery catapult shells), it weighs in about 400mb. Part of the explanation is that all cutscenes are done in-engine and there are simply no FMVs, but that couldn't be the whole story. Dreamcast had a 1GB GD format, so they still had a lot of headroom. Some heavy optimization, surely. By the way, everything is animated by hand and in very good quality, again, reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons.

The reason I wanted to write a lengthy detailed review of Galleon is because it was unfairly overlooked. I think it is a proper adventure with a very fun story and characters. Moreover, in one of the reviews the writer said that the industry simply moved on and Galleon was left behind. To be honest, I don't think what we were left with ended up being better. After the studio was shut down, Gard went back to Eidos, to work on Tomb Raider Legend with Crystal Dynamics. In my opinion that game's traversal mechanics and movement systems are too streamlined, too simple and basically have you effortlessly making every jump. No momentum, no interesting traversal since the levels are extremely linear, perhaps the puzzles are serviceable, but without cool exploration it becomes less impressive.

This game was made by 23 people, and they were trying their best to push the industry forward. Maybe if Galleon shipped a few years earlier, closer to the release of 6th gen consoles, it would become a classic that would influence the adventure genre. As it stands, it's a damn good game with a few flaws. Emulating original Xbox becomes easier with each day but if you're like me, you can find an old Xbox on FB Marketplace or similar and buy the game since it's cheap or just softmod the console with a cable and a USB stick.

This game didn't deserve slipping into oblivion and if you like classic Tomb Raider or older games or adventure games in general, you have to try this one out.