Lara Croft, after her reboot in 2013, has come much closer to the “female Indiana Jones” design than the former sexy adventurer of the 90s. With Nathan Drake, the protagonist of the Uncharted series, based on the same character trope, there have been a lot of comparisons between the two. Both game franchises have the same core gameplay, with exploration and puzzles being the main focus – that’s a big part of the reason why these two characters are mostly the same in the eyes of gamers.
In this article, we would figure out which character is the better adventurer.
10 – Luck and Improvisation: Nathan Drake
When it comes to luck and the ability to improvise during surprise sequences, Nate is definitely ahead. It is almost like luck is also a part of his skills, as the guy has been surviving some impossible death traps throughout all the games. While Lara has been escaping with quite a bit of Quick Time Events, Nate’s Death Traps are way more frequent.
The guy has been falling down on cliffs and gorges more than one could count, yet still manages to grab whatever protrusion available around to dangle. Nathan has even been able to get victories from pure luck, such as cutting a rope to get Adler killed or push down Navarro’s plane into the ocean.
9 – Marksmanship: Lara Croft
Nathan Drake has been working with much more advanced weapons over the course of Uncharted, including heavy weapons such as the RPGs and Sniper Rifles. However, while he has masteries of all those advanced weapons, his accuracy in cutscenes is rather poor.
Lara Croft, on the other hand, has been rocking the dual handguns in almost every game. The other items in her arsenal are rather poor as well, as sometimes they were even crafted from scraps. By showing decent accuracy while using such makeshift weapons, Lara has bumped her power slightly ahead. The thing that put her on top, however, is her ability with the bows and arrows. She was trained on these weapons by her father, who’s also an adventurer.
8 – Strength: Nathan Drake
This is rather unfair, due to Drake being a man. With a male character, video game developers could always get away with giving him super strength when the situation calls for it. The guy has been shown dominating his enemies in a contest of strength a few times when his fighting skills failed.
His strength also plays a big part in solving puzzles, as Nathan has been moving extremely heavy items and held up huge gates quite a few times. Lara, on the other hand, usually use her finesse or weapons to clear out paths to her destination. She is fit, but not overly powerful like Nathan.
7 – Speed: Lara Croft
While Nate’s method when going against bigger enemies is mainly using the environment such as traps and pitfalls, Lara is different. She can actually go toe-to-toe against those enemies with her superior speed and strike at their weak points. Her agility has been off the chart for quite a few occasions, with her sprinting to cross impossible cliffs and environmental hazards.
Her fighting skills are also based on her quickness as well, as she can either go stealth with a bow or react fast enough to counter attacks from enemies.
6 – Durability: Nathan Drake
While both characters are highly resistant to damage, with the ability to recover from bruises, scratches and even stab/bullet wound very quickly, Nathan is actually a lot better at enduring harsh conditions. Even in cutscenes (which is 100% canon), Drake has been surviving after getting abandoned in both a blizzard and a desert. The outrageous thing is that the guy still has enough strength to kill dozens of men afterward. We have also mentioned in the previous sections about all his tumble through those impossible heights as well. Overall, he is much tougher than Lara, who was reduced to a crawl after a particularly nasty fall.
5 – Fighting skills: Lara Croft
You probably have noticed the trend here, as Lara is pretty much a “quick and skilled” variant, the opposite of Drake’s “strong and tough” style. Nathan is pretty much an improvise fighter, and his lack of skills has been shown various times during his adventures. Due to the lack of training in the past, he gets clobbered by Nadine Ross and Lazarevic when they fought.
Lara was brought up with training in various weapons and self-defense skills, due to her father’s occupation as an adventurer. Her skills with weapons and martial techniques have been working in her favor, as Lara could easily going up against extremely tough enemies.
4 – Intelligence: Nathan Drake
In most of her missions, Lara would go solo with improvisations as the events unravel – while she is definitely cunning, she lacks the tactical mind that Drake has. The guy always tries very hard to be one step ahead of his opponent. Even when Nathan gets caught with his pants down, you can bet he already has some plans to get out of that situation.
Nate is able to outsmart his enemies very frequently in the game, with the occasional exception being the screw-ups of his teammates.
3 – Survival Skills: Lara Croft
While both characters have been in life & death situations in which they barely able to escape against all the odds, Lara is slightly ahead in this regard. While Nate’s feats are better, the guy was bailed out a lot of times by allies instead of figuring the way out on his own ability.
Lara, on the other hand, is pretty much always on her own – relying on her quick reaction and superior instincts to seek shelters and hide. She also has an amazing array of skills to survive in the wild, as bow and arrows would never run out of ammo.
2 – Platforming: Nathan Drake
While both characters have pretty much the same amount of skill when navigating dangerous surfaces, Nate is slightly better. Lara’s platforming sequences has rarely ever involving getting shot at by enemies, while Nate has to watch out for that at the same time.
The guy has nearly unlimited stamina while climbing, as he could scale just about every cliffs and platform – sometimes even working on puzzles while doing it. Those feats are really impressive, as his allies are pretty much helpless during those sequences.
1 – Winner: Nathan Drake
Both characters are pretty much the genderswap version of each other, all things considered, especially after the Tomb Raider remake. The factor that put Nathan on top of Lara is probably his luck, as the guy is able to get out of almost every situation, with various elements stacked in his favor. Interested in more of our articles related to video games? Please check out this post for the top cosmic horror titles in 2019.
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