This collection is great but the main attraction, Uncharted 4, is considerably disappointing to me.
I will start with the game's best aspect though, the presentation. I can't put it into words but the game is just gorgeous from start to finish, and runs excellently too. Character models also look incredible, especially in cutscenes and still hold up very well today, in fact it feels like this is as good as it gets for visuals sometimes, but obviously that's not true.
The story is kinda frustrating sadly. There are some things I like about it, such as the flashback chapters where you play as a younger Nathan, though they don't really feel necessary to the story. A lot of the game revolves around Sam, Nathan's brother, that just shows up out of nowhere for this game. He's okay, I guess? It leads to an interesting story but it just feels so ridiculous and stupid even for this franchise known for just being a playable ridiculous action movie.
While playing I also felt like characters weren't themselves, especially Nathan. I know he's meant to not be a particularly good person but at more than a few points he felt way out of line of who he was meant to be. This is redeemed a bit around the second half of the game when he has to spend a significant amount of time with just Elena, which was a highlight and felt kinda like a trip back to the very first game, for better or worse.
The villains are some of the better characters, but they really could have done with more screen time, though in the case of Nadine this is solved with The Lost Legacy, which I'll get to later.
I will say that the ending is kinda predictable but still sweet, it almost made the whole journey to get there worth it.
I have a lot to say about the gameplay but I'll start with the good. In the Uncharted games, you do a lot of climbing and puzzle solving, and thankfully here it's better than ever. For climbing it's usually very clear where you can and can't go, and the animations are super smooth and satisfying. Overall the amount of deaths tied to climbing related jank are at an all time low with this game, which is a godsend. Two new tools are added, the rope and the Piton, and these are not only fun to use but add some new variety to climbing and the rope can even lead to some very cool moments in combat. The other likeable part is the scripted action setpieces, they are fantastic and just as utterly insane as previous games and really are some of the best parts of the game.
Sadly the biggest problem I faced with the game is that the combat is just awful and not fun. The weapons you use are very forgettable and unsatisfying to fire, and most of them feel incredibly weak. That's one thing, but the main problem is that basically every weapon has a huge spread on it from the moment you fire the first shot. Even if you have your crosshair dead centre over an enemy's head, it's more than likely going to completely miss unless you're very close to them, which is a bad idea. Due to seemingly every weapon having this insane spread, it's honestly just as effective to just blind fire while in cover. I finished the game with an astonishing 37% shot accuracy because of this. Genuinely what were they thinking?
This wouldn't be so bad if your enemies also had stormtrooper aim but they don't, in fact they annihilate you very quickly and hit shots from miles away. They also throw grenades if you dare sit still for more than 5 seconds and once you reach the halfway point of the game it feels like every other enemy has body armour which can only really be dealt with up close, but if they're also up close to you then you're very likely screwed. To be fair to it, the game encourages you to use very crude stealth to take care of enemies but it feels honestly pointless as a lot of the environments in the game don't adequately allow for it and it just feels like pure luck whether or not you'll be able to take anyone out. And once again, if the enemy has body armour, it makes it nigh impossible to take care of them in stealth. Due to all of this nightmarish regression of combat, I genuinely struggled at some points playing on the Moderate difficulty, and I say this as someone who beat Uncharted 1 & 3 on Crushing, and Uncharted 2 on Hard. If you play this honestly go on Light or Explorer and don't look back.
Overall Uncharted 4, while visually stunning is just disappointing and a step back from the previous games which doesn't make sense.
Thankfully The Lost Legacy exists, and while it is short and the story is kinda forgettable, and obviously has the same combat problems as Uncharted 4, it honestly felt a little better than the main game, and I don't actually know why.
It could be the fact you play as Chloe instead of Nathan which feels very refreshing, or it could be the fact that the story features a lot less characters and therefore you get a chance to breathe as the story is on a smaller scale, even if the story isn't that great. You also spend pretty much the whole game with Nadine at your side, and I really appreciate her having more screen time.
It does sort of feel like the whole thing is just meant to be a nostalgia trip back to Uncharted 2, with Chloe being the focus of the story and one of the biggest setpieces of the game taking place on a train, but I can't necessarily fault it for that since 2 was an utterly fantastic game.
I don't think I can really say much about The Lost Legacy, it's just a short but slightly more enjoyable version of 4 albeit with a worse story, and it's addition definitely makes this collection far better.
Speaking of this collection, how is it? Very good, at least on PC. I'm not very familiar with the PS4 original so I'm not sure how much of the visuals are an improvement from 2016, but it looks fantastic here and scales well to a lower end device like the Steam Deck. Keyboard and mouse controls, while explicitly not recommended, feel completely fine after fine tuning the sensitivity. I didn't have any technical issues but I hear a lot of complaints about crashing so it might not be a great port for everyone. Though for PC specifically I have to say the audience for this port has to be quite small, as 4 really needs you to have played the previous games to really let the story have any impact, and the previous games were only ever on PS3 and 4. And if you had a PS4, you may as well have just played it all the way back in 2016.
Overall, good port but the game is just a step back in many regards which is a real shame. It looks real nice though, I'll give it that.
I will start with the game's best aspect though, the presentation. I can't put it into words but the game is just gorgeous from start to finish, and runs excellently too. Character models also look incredible, especially in cutscenes and still hold up very well today, in fact it feels like this is as good as it gets for visuals sometimes, but obviously that's not true.
The story is kinda frustrating sadly. There are some things I like about it, such as the flashback chapters where you play as a younger Nathan, though they don't really feel necessary to the story. A lot of the game revolves around Sam, Nathan's brother, that just shows up out of nowhere for this game. He's okay, I guess? It leads to an interesting story but it just feels so ridiculous and stupid even for this franchise known for just being a playable ridiculous action movie.
While playing I also felt like characters weren't themselves, especially Nathan. I know he's meant to not be a particularly good person but at more than a few points he felt way out of line of who he was meant to be. This is redeemed a bit around the second half of the game when he has to spend a significant amount of time with just Elena, which was a highlight and felt kinda like a trip back to the very first game, for better or worse.
The villains are some of the better characters, but they really could have done with more screen time, though in the case of Nadine this is solved with The Lost Legacy, which I'll get to later.
I will say that the ending is kinda predictable but still sweet, it almost made the whole journey to get there worth it.
I have a lot to say about the gameplay but I'll start with the good. In the Uncharted games, you do a lot of climbing and puzzle solving, and thankfully here it's better than ever. For climbing it's usually very clear where you can and can't go, and the animations are super smooth and satisfying. Overall the amount of deaths tied to climbing related jank are at an all time low with this game, which is a godsend. Two new tools are added, the rope and the Piton, and these are not only fun to use but add some new variety to climbing and the rope can even lead to some very cool moments in combat. The other likeable part is the scripted action setpieces, they are fantastic and just as utterly insane as previous games and really are some of the best parts of the game.
Sadly the biggest problem I faced with the game is that the combat is just awful and not fun. The weapons you use are very forgettable and unsatisfying to fire, and most of them feel incredibly weak. That's one thing, but the main problem is that basically every weapon has a huge spread on it from the moment you fire the first shot. Even if you have your crosshair dead centre over an enemy's head, it's more than likely going to completely miss unless you're very close to them, which is a bad idea. Due to seemingly every weapon having this insane spread, it's honestly just as effective to just blind fire while in cover. I finished the game with an astonishing 37% shot accuracy because of this. Genuinely what were they thinking?
This wouldn't be so bad if your enemies also had stormtrooper aim but they don't, in fact they annihilate you very quickly and hit shots from miles away. They also throw grenades if you dare sit still for more than 5 seconds and once you reach the halfway point of the game it feels like every other enemy has body armour which can only really be dealt with up close, but if they're also up close to you then you're very likely screwed. To be fair to it, the game encourages you to use very crude stealth to take care of enemies but it feels honestly pointless as a lot of the environments in the game don't adequately allow for it and it just feels like pure luck whether or not you'll be able to take anyone out. And once again, if the enemy has body armour, it makes it nigh impossible to take care of them in stealth. Due to all of this nightmarish regression of combat, I genuinely struggled at some points playing on the Moderate difficulty, and I say this as someone who beat Uncharted 1 & 3 on Crushing, and Uncharted 2 on Hard. If you play this honestly go on Light or Explorer and don't look back.
Overall Uncharted 4, while visually stunning is just disappointing and a step back from the previous games which doesn't make sense.
Thankfully The Lost Legacy exists, and while it is short and the story is kinda forgettable, and obviously has the same combat problems as Uncharted 4, it honestly felt a little better than the main game, and I don't actually know why.
It could be the fact you play as Chloe instead of Nathan which feels very refreshing, or it could be the fact that the story features a lot less characters and therefore you get a chance to breathe as the story is on a smaller scale, even if the story isn't that great. You also spend pretty much the whole game with Nadine at your side, and I really appreciate her having more screen time.
It does sort of feel like the whole thing is just meant to be a nostalgia trip back to Uncharted 2, with Chloe being the focus of the story and one of the biggest setpieces of the game taking place on a train, but I can't necessarily fault it for that since 2 was an utterly fantastic game.
I don't think I can really say much about The Lost Legacy, it's just a short but slightly more enjoyable version of 4 albeit with a worse story, and it's addition definitely makes this collection far better.
Speaking of this collection, how is it? Very good, at least on PC. I'm not very familiar with the PS4 original so I'm not sure how much of the visuals are an improvement from 2016, but it looks fantastic here and scales well to a lower end device like the Steam Deck. Keyboard and mouse controls, while explicitly not recommended, feel completely fine after fine tuning the sensitivity. I didn't have any technical issues but I hear a lot of complaints about crashing so it might not be a great port for everyone. Though for PC specifically I have to say the audience for this port has to be quite small, as 4 really needs you to have played the previous games to really let the story have any impact, and the previous games were only ever on PS3 and 4. And if you had a PS4, you may as well have just played it all the way back in 2016.
Overall, good port but the game is just a step back in many regards which is a real shame. It looks real nice though, I'll give it that.