again technically played on PS5 but it's fine lol.

Welp, this game has me a heavily split down the middle. but hey it definitely is better than the first one so that's good, I actually had some fun with this one, SOME being the keyword.

Alright let's start with the positive stuff, most of the story is pretty good, kept me engaged for the most part and was honestly the main driving force for me pushing myself through this game. The characters once again are all great if not better than the first game, they are all charming in their own way and their chemistry with each other is mostly great, also I am falling more and more in love with Nate. The puzzles were all really fun and solving one would always get the endorphins running and give me a big ego boost. And the level design has been kicked up a notch, I actually really enjoyed traversing each area of the game as they were all visionally stunning and interesting to explore.

Now then, let's focus on the combat for a second because that was the main problem I had with the last game and boy oh boy. It has not improved that much from the last game. There are new weapons which help diversify things as well as an updated melee and stealth system which does keep things from feeling too repetitive but it still definitely does still feel repetitive. Half way through the game I actually swapped from Normal to Easy difficulty just because i was sick of so many dragged out combat sections, I just wanted to get them over with. Luckily changing the difficulty did actually make the game a bit more fun as your no longer spending 80% of the game in the same gun fight, now it's just around 70% of the game. I think the worst part is that I would rather go around melee attacking the enemies because it's more fun but most of the time the game won't allow you to do that because of how many enemies there are you have to stay behind cover.
They did fix the issue i had last time with enemy placements and how a lot of them made no sense so that's good. What isn't that good however is the traversal, in the last game it was one of my favourite parts was traversing the areas and as i said the areas are great, but they've updated the climbing mechanics and it somehow feels way too precise and way too clunky at the same time. So many times it wouldn't let me jump to the right ledge because it was too focused on a completely different ledge or I would jump to something and it just wouldn't stick, very annoying.

One of the only parts of the last game i enjoyed were the cinematic action set-pieces, unfortunately there were very few in the last game but in this one there are quite a bit more and once again they were my favourite part of the game. The entire Train section was so much fun as well as being chased by a Helicopter across rooftops and jumping from truck to truck while driving along the cliffs. By far the best parts of the game.

Now you'll see for the characters and story i said they were great "for the most part", I think the game is way too long. it's quite a bit longer than the first and around the time of when you reach The Monastery i was thinking this seems like a good time to end, it's been a good story that i have actually enjoyed, some awesome action set-pieces, this would be the perfect time to end it... and then it goes on for another 2-3 hours. The whole supernatural element didn't bother me as much this time probably because this time i knew it was coming this time instead of it coming out of nowhere, also the new supernatural enemies are wayyy less annoying than in the last game. The final act of the game goes on wayyyy too long, not only that there are no fun action set-pieces to keep you entertained, it is a solid 2-3 hours of just shooting sections and it is so, unbelievably boring. speaking of boring, the villains in this game are just boring as hell, which seems to be a trend with this franchise both with the games and the recent movie. Also the final boss fight is boring as hell, it's just run around and shoot the glowing things when the boss gets close.

Overall i think this game is fine. It is way too long and once again i was pretty relieved when it was over and i for sure had to force my way through the final act. But the first 70% of the game is pretty fun if not pretty flawed. And the story and characters in that 70% only make that part of the game more enjoyable. Excited to see what Uncharted 3 has in store for me.

Oh also side note: this is something i had an issue with in the last game that i don't think i mentioned, but in both the games the treasure is in a very hidden place, but they are both also just out in the open, like there's a massive hole to the surface above El Dorado and the entire city of Shambala is open to the clear blue sky, why hasn't anyone flown and plane or helicopter over it before? and just landed there instead of going through all the trouble of all the secret entrances? I dunno just something that bothers me, the same thing also happens in the uncharted movie. Weird.

Ok, so this isn't as cohesive as 2, but good lord this game's shootouts are constantly changing it up. It seems that every enemy encounter throws something different at you. That plus the truly spectacular set-pieces make this game feel the most "larger than life" of the trilogy

The soundtrack is also a step up from 2, which was already a huge step up from 1.

The puzzles are also faaar more elaborate and interesting than the previous games, and so is the melee combat system. But this game also has way too many melee encounters, to the point of being kinda silly. Everytime I encountered one of those unarmed big dudes, I sighed a bit.

I don't know if I like Hard mode as much as 2's, they cranked up the damage a bit too much. Or better yet, enemies are too good a shot - you face someone with a machine gun, they're gonna hit every shot at you, and you'll be dead in 4 shots lol

A really good sequel. It may not reinvent the wheel but the core is so good and what improvements it does make really enhance the gameplay. The improvements to stealth in particular have made it a lot more satisfying.

The story is also pretty good, although it's not perfect. In particular, I thought that the enemy factions could have been handled better. They probably should have shown Roxxon trying to do bad things more often. Some side missions where you have to save Underground members or regular civilians from Roxxon would have helped. As it is, Roxxon is definitely the greater evil but you fight the Underground way more. Fortunately things were still handled with a decent amount of nuance so I can't complain too much.

(In a testament to the unreliability of childhood memories, the awesome game I remember playing as a child was in fact Mega Man 2 and not the original Mega Man as I remembered.)

How does the grandpappy of the series hold up? It certainly looks and sounds good, and establishes plenty of the core mechanics as well as the charm that would go on to be a hallmark of the franchise. But (and I'll admit to being a casual scrub) it's simply too difficult to be fun. In an alternate timeline somewhere, this fades into obscurity and is picked up two decades later by the Angry Video Game Nerd who declares it "ASS" and shoots the cartridge with a cheap-CGI mega buster. The gameplay certainly bears all the hallmarks of fake difficulty dialed up to eleven, but I'm glad we avoided that timeline because this flawed game contained the seeds which sprouted into the far more refined Mega Man 2 and the superlative Mega Man X and I'll always appreciate it for that.