History YMMV / TombRaiderII

* ThatOneAchievement: While most of the secrets in the game are not too difficult to find, the Gold Dragon in Ice Palace stands out for being extremely well hidden, with the moveable block it's hidden behind being very well camouflaged against the wall. That's not even mentioning how you ''then'' have to figure out how to get over to it after finding the block.
** In the 2024 remaster, there is an achievement where you must make sure all the monks survive. While helping them is not too difficult for an experienced player, there are few situations where monks can get killed and there is nothing you can do about it, so if you do not have a recent save, you are not getting the achievement.

** Floating Islands is considered to be hell for many. The first half of the level takes place over a BottomlessPit and your only sources of safety are the aforementioned floating islands. Ancient warriors disguised as statues can come to life and ''fly'' to you, especially if you're on an island. The second half of the level is not much better since you are dealing with more of the warriors, lava pits everywhere, and tricky jumps.

* AssPull: Obtaining the key to hut in Tibetian Hightlands involves traveling to the far end of the level, set off a small avalanche and then salvage the key from under the rubble. There's no clue leading to the key being actually there except some basic premise of searching every nook and cranny of the level hoping that you'll eventually find the key.

** The Jade Statues in the later Great Wall levels. They're huge, tanky, shred Lara's lifebar like cheese and have a scripted instant kill move if you make contact with them below a certain level of health. Their only saving grace is that they can only dish out melee attacks but don't think that means you can snipe them from a distance because [[YouWillNotEvadeMe THEY CAN FLY AND WILL FOLLOW YOU EVERYWHERE!]]

** The reason why the very first level, "The Great Wall" is so tough and demanding? That's because Lara returns there at the very end of the game, opening the gate that stopped her originally and following to the final levels. So it's less of an EarlyGameHell and more of a glimpse at how challenging the final levels are.

* ScrappyMechanic: The springboards found in the Ice Palace and the Temple of Xian. You'll only get a big jump forward if you're already running or jumping forward, and remember to ''hold'' forward when landing on it too. Landing on the springboard completely straight or letting go of forward before landing on it will only launch you straight up and you'll take massive fall damage over and over until you die.

* HarsherInHindsight: The final line of the game, [[BreakingTheFourthWall "Don't you think you've seen enough?"]], gained completely new meaning just few years later, when it became common knowledge how sick and tired people from Core were with making yet another ''Tomb Raider''[[note]]And the group that made both the first and the second game outright threatened to quit if they weren't given free time to make [[VideoGame/ProjectEden their own project]], rather than another TR[[/note]].

** The reason why the very first level, ''Great Wall'' is so tough and demanding? That's because Lara returns there at the very end of the game, opening the gate that stopped her originally and following to the final levels. So it's less of an EarlyGameHell and more of a glimpse at how challenging the final levels are.

* FridgeBrilliance: The Talion Guardian seems to be garuda, a large mythical bird or bird-like creature that appears in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology. The garuda are enemies to the naga, a race of intelligent serpent- and dragon-like beings, whom they hunt. This has a relation with the Guardian of the Talion and the Dragon of Xian. The Garuda guards the Talion, which can open the way to the dagger, and thus, the dragon.

* FridgeLogic: The reason why the very first level, ''Great Wall'' is so tough and demanding? That's because Lara returns there at the very end of the game, opening the gate that stopped her originally and following to the final levels. So it's less of an EarlyGameHell and more of a glimpse at how challenging the final levels are.

* FridgeLogic: The reason why the very first level, ''The Great Wall'' is so tough and demanding? That's because Lara returns there at the very end of the game, opening the gate that stopped her originally and following to the final levels. So it's less of an EarlyGameHell and more of a glimpse at how challenging the final levels are.

* SlowPacedBeginning: The game really takes a while to properly pick up pace. The Great Wall is a strong first level, [[ThatOneLevel despite its difficulty]], but then Venice becomes incredibly combat heavy, causing it to just ''drag'' and then there are the offshore rig. Each of those five levels takes roughly an hour to finish, nothing really interesting happens in them and ''then'' there are the levels inside of the Maria Doria wreck. After finally being done with those, the game moves to Tibet and suddenly cranks up the action on overdrive, never slowing down even a bit, while introducing more and more of the surreal elements.

** The theme for the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbV9onsW62E Venice level]] in ''TR II'', which sounds like it was composed in the 18th century by some powered-wigged, high-heels-wearing Italian.

* The techno heavy song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALXgyclMge4&list=PLCE4D1F2D636C63A4&index=19 that plays when Lara first gets on the snowmobile]], which also incorporates some notes from Lara's Theme, titled Lara Plays in the Snow.

* SlowPacedBeginning: The game really takes a while to properly pick up pace. The Great Wall is a strong first level, [[ThatOneLevel despite its difficulty]], but then Venice just ''drags'' and then there are the offshore rig levels. Each of those five levels takes roughly an hour to finish, nothing really interesting happens in them and ''then'' there are the levels inside of the Maria Doria wreck. After finally being done with those, the game moves to Tibet and suddenly cranks up action on the overdrive, never slowing down even a bit, while introducing more and more of the surreal elements.

* GoodBadBugs: Lara can break windows by ''performing a roll into them''.

* SlowPacedBeginning: The game really takes a while to properly pick up pace. The Great Wall is a strong first level, but them Venice just ''drags'' and then there are the offshore rig levels. Each of those five levels takes roughly an hour to finish, nothing really interesting happens in them and ''then'' there are the levels inside of the Maria Doria wreck. After finally being done with those, the game moves to Tibet and suddenly cranks up action on the overdrive, never slowing down even a bit, while introducing more and more of the surreal elements.

* SlowPacedBeginning: The game really takes a while to properly pick up pace. The Great Wall is a strong first level, but them Venice just ''drags'' and then there are the offshore rig levels. Each of those five levels takes roughly an hour to finish, nothing really interesting happens in them and ''then'' there are the levels inside of Maria Doria wreck. After finally being done with those, the game moves to Tibet and suddenly cranks up action on the overdrive, never slowing down even a bit, while introducing more and more of the surreal elements.

* SlowPacedBeginning: The game really takes a while to properly pick up pace. Venice just ''drags'' and then there are the offshore rig levels. Each of those five levels takes roughly an hour to finish, nothing really interesting happens in them and ''then'' there are the levels inside of Maria Doria wreck. After finally being done with those, the game moves to Tibet and suddenly cranks up action on the overdrive, never slowing down even a bit, while introducing more and more of surreal elements.

** The secrets were regulated to dragon statues and there are always three in every level. You won't get the cache of items unless you find all three statues. Some found this to be a step down from the first game where it had more than three secrets in some levels and each secret always gave supplies. This was reverted back to the old system in the next game.

* ScrappyWeapon:
** Sadly, despite how useful it was in the first game, the Shotgun is this starting in this game. It's still a very powerful weapon at close range, able to take out some of the common thugs in a single up close blast, but it's held back by one major issue: ammo. Pickups are common early on and eventually slack off to next to nothing by late game, and even then pickups only give you ''2 shells'', just like the last game, but it's felt more harshly here. As a result, about mid-game, the player will likely never touch it again, especially if they're running very low or are completely out of ammo.
** This is the Harpoon Gun's first appearance, the first game for Lara to be able to defend herself while underwater, a cool concept....''on paper''. Execution-wise, it was severely underwhelming. The Harpoon Gun is "reasonably" strong underwater, but it doesn't fire quickly, and it needs to be reloaded after every fourth shot. On land, its power is even worse than the starting pistols, making it more a novelty overall than a useful weapon against, ya know, ''a shark bearing down on you like you'd want it to be''.

* ScrappyWeapon: Sadly, despite how useful it was in the first game, the Shotgun is this starting in this game. It's still a very powerful weapon at close range, able to take out some of the common thugs in a single up close blast, but it's held back by one major issue: ammo. Pickups are common early on and eventually slack off to next to nothing by late game, and even then pickups only give you ''2 shells'', just like the last game, but it's felt more harshly here. As a result, about mid-game, the player will likely never touch it again, especially if they're running very low or are completely out of ammo.

* SlowPacedBeginning: The game really takes a while to properly pick up pace. Venice just ''drags'' and then there are the offshore rig levels. Each of those four levels takes roughly an hour to finish, nothing really interesting happens in them and ''then'' there are the levels inside of Maria Doria wreck. After finally being done with those, the game moves to Tibet and suddenly cranks up action on the overdrive, never slowing down even a bit, while introducing more and more of surreal elements.