If you are looking for something very specific, the quotation and plus (just quotation for google) do help. The Lara Croft example was a bad one, since it's rather short, but for longer strings, you'll find what you are looking for much easier. Also, as a related tip, use the subtraction sign to remove certain things things from appearing in your results.
Example 1: Shadow of the Tomb Raider pick up glitch vs Shadow of the Tomb Raider +"pick up" glitch The first one's top result is how to get the lockpick, followed by just general glitches in the game. It doesn't show the specific result you are looking for until about 9 down. The second search, on the other hand, has the glitch in question as the top two results (followed by the lockpick, again for whatever reason, 3 down). There are definitely better applications of this type of searching if you are looking for a specific problem with something like home repair.
Example 2: Dream Eaters vs Dream Eaters -"Kingdom Hearts" One brings you to the wiki page of the creatures in Kingdom Hearts, the other, after excluding KH, brings you to the esports team by the same name
Thanks for the tips. I've never really thought about search engines in that way.