Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (2017)

With its biggest gameplay addition being a lockpicking minigame, and its recycling of annoying bits from prior games, The Lost Legacy is clearly not concerned with alleviating any tiredness of the series's formula. Still, it's an enjoyable time with good characters and amazing visuals, whose smaller scope as a spin-off is generally to its benefit.

While I did not enjoy this as much as Uncharted 2-4, its lack of prior games' plodding, repetitive middle acts is a blessing. This is both from a story perspective, and a gameplay one, as level design elements simply didn't have time to be as abused as they were in 10+ hour games. Still, there's a middle ground I would have liked to see reached, where we still get more depth and complexity, a real globe-trotting adventure, but with the relative focus this game has.

Though there are a lot less locations to visit, the ones we got here are stunningly rendered. They attempt to stretch out one area with a pseudo open-world structure in the middle, reusing the Jeep/winch stuff from Uncharted 4. Driving around that largely-empty zone is unfortunately pretty boring after a minute -- I didn't really care for this section, but the two ancient cities it branches off into are quite fun.

The story moves along at a good pace, as you'd expect, but naturally it doesn't come close to the depth and enjoyability of Nathan Drake's story, particularly coming right off Uncharted 4. There are some attempts to create conflict between the main characters that felt particularly forced in this game, and a villain who's a forgettable step back from the prior game's as well. I think I'll find it mostly forgettable in the long run, but it does wrap up well with a strong final chapter.

Chloe and Nadine in the main character roles are fine, with Chloe in particular checking a lot of the boxes that made Nate appealing, while still feeling distinct. Nadine has her moments in this game as well, even as a former villain who I didn't find extremely likable overall.

In a world where other Uncharted games didn't exist, this could be something pretty special, but I couldn't help but find it a bit unexciting and redundant after the flawed but often-amazing prior games. I wasn't super compelled to come back and play each day, but when I did I at least got enough spectacle and character to have an enjoyable time.

"Hey, we've got some leftover assets from when we thought part of Uncharted 4 was going to take place in India."

"Oh yeah? Hmm, you know we could use this to get some brownie points. Let's throw together the two female characters we have who aren't married to our protagonist so that we can queerbait. And hey, they're not white, so bonus points there. We'll just steal the story from that new Tomb Raider game coming out next year, they owe us anyway."

"I mean I guess that works, but will it be fun?"

"Eh, it'll be fine. Put a train in there, Uncharted fans love trains."

The Uncharted series does not need Nathan Drake, as it turns out. For all intents and purposes, this is Uncharted 4 but tells a new story centered around Chloe and Nadine. We watch as a strong relationship blossoms between them, is tested and ultimately fashioned into something we might see more of in the future -- or at least in some reference.

You can expect the same extremely high production values, great characters, passable story and so-so gunplay from previous entries. Some new ground is broached where the middle act has Nadine and Chloe exploring an 'open world' section--something I hadn't yet seen in a Naughty Dog game.

I most appreciated the length of the game - no one area or scene overstayed it's welcome, and the whole adventure wrapped up in just under ten hours, and that was with me taking some time to stop and smell the roses.

I hope there are more Uncharted games but I hope they keep the half-smirking with a half-tucked shirt Nathan Drake in the wings, and let other stories be told.

I really enjoyed the lost legacy, I picked it up last winter during a Black Friday sale for about ten bucks and only now got around to it.

While the game feels very much like uncharted 4, the thing that sets it apart is how tight the narrative is and how satisfying the scope and length of the game is. Do I have an abundance of time right now? Yes of course, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate a game that packs in tons of major story beats as well as a large and satisfying open world mission as the appetizer to a more detailed main course. And it all clocks in around 9 hours, which feels unreal to me.

For me the revelation here was how much more interesting chloe is as a character than nathan was, and her dynamic and rapport with nadine is phenomenal, just incredibly better than sam and nathan’s.

Also, the game is gorgeous. It’s a treat to play and see and the dialog is always smart and rarely cringey. Great as a mid-game snack.

When Naughty Dog released Uncharted 4: A Thief's End in 2016, the company seemed to be as a crossroads: how was this major studio supposed to continue its biggest franchise after stating it was the final installment for its main character, Nathan Drake? Nathan's story ended ambiguously enough to allow the story to go in all sorts of directions, with any number of characters, leaving players optimistic that this series would return in some form or another.

Cut to a year later, and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy proved this correct. But playing Uncharted: The Lost Legacy several years after its release, it can't help but seem like a series of theories and ideas Naughty Dog is trying to figure out, not just for the Uncharted brand, but for other Naughty Dog properties as well.

The first question is of course who will continue the Uncharted brand? Uncharted 4: A Thief's End ended with plenty of possibilities: Nathan's daughter, his brother, or some of the other supporting characters. The Lost Legacy puts Chloe Frazer at the center of the story and it works quite well, largely because Frazer isn't too far from the Nathan Drake we've known for years. There truly is little difference between Chloe and Nathan and I guess there's only so much variation you can do on the treasure hunter persona, but I wish there was more to Chloe than just variations on Nathan. Her relationship with Nadine Ross throughout The Lost Legacy does make for a nice dynamic that changes and shifts throughout the story, but I wish there was more to Chloe on a character level that really made this franchise feel new again.

The second question I believe Naughty Dog is asking here - and it's a shame it's even being asked - is if gamers would play a game centered around a female protagonist. For some reason (sexism), this is something that gamers rally against, and I think Naughty Dog is trying to test the waters here. Of course it works just as well as if the game has a male lead character, but people are idiots. I also wonder if this testing was a way to test reactions for The Last of Us Part II, which I imagine with make Ellie the game's main protagonist?

The third is a question Uncharted has been dealing with since its beginning: how much freedom should this series give its players? One of the primary criticisms I've always heard about Uncharted is that it holds the player's hand too much and there's no sense of exploration for a game that wants the player to stick to a specific story. While I understand these criticisms, having Naughty Dog tell me their story is probably my favorite part of their games and I frankly don't mind my lack of choice in their games.

The Lost Legacy allows for choice in a solid way, however, as in one level, the game allows for the player to choose in what order they want to investigate a series of trials. It's a smart update on the standard Uncharted formula, and one that puts control of the story in the player's hand, even if the order and choices made make absolutely no difference.

Yet, I still felt Naughty Dog trying to give the player their freedom in different ways that I didn't quite appreciate. In one of the game's opening levels, the player can choose their path to a certain door, yet the player can't go backwards if they want to explore. In some of the game's chases and action sequences, the path to freedom is often given to the player, but instead of being a chance for choice, the multiple paths and opportunities became more like an opportunity for my own failure. I'd often jump one way and die, because I thought the game would let me, or I would have to try different scenarios out multiple times because there wasn't a clear answer being given. I wouldn't say this is a bad thing, yet when the focus of a scene is the tense, life-or-death options that must be made at the spur of the moment, constantly having to die to figure out what to do does halt this excitement in its tracks.

But I do appreciate that Naughty Dog is at least attempting to open up this world in new and promising ways. I never once missed the Nathan Drake character and immediately was won over by Chloe and Nadine, and while the wider freedom given to the player can be problematic in the game's more intense sequences, this shaggy new dynamic is a step in the right direction towards making the story something the player can make their own. After Uncharted 4, I was more than happy to let the Uncharted franchise go, but after The Lost Legacy, I'm just as curious to see where Naughty Dog can open up this series and try out some interesting new ideas.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy was the first game I played on my Playstation 4 Pro, and the graphics were incredible. I spent plenty of time looking at the different environments and was in awe plenty of times. Especially in the opening chapter as you ran across the buildings in the thunderstorm.

While this game proved that it was graphically advanced, the story was kind of lacking for me. I enjoyed both Chloe and Nadine in previous installments in the series, but this iteration seemed boring and was lacking an interesting narrative that couldn't be saved by these characters. With that said, it is refreshing to see women star in a franchise as well known as Uncharted.

I usually don't take long to play through Naughty Dogs games, but the chapter where you are trekking through the jungle in the jeep seemed stale after having to go through that exact sequence in Uncharted 4.

The ending chapter with the train was one of the best moments of this game, and was a satisfying conclusion to the story.

I would recommend this game if you can pick it up for under $20.

Played on PS4 Pro

Lost Legacy is essentially a diet version of Uncharted. It has everything that is great about an Uncharted game...only compressed so that it can be done in half the time.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, though it did leave me hungry for a more complete game.

The mechanics are essentially the same as Uncharted 4; which is good because that gameplay was already perfect. The only complaint I would make about the gameplay here is that, for the most part, checkpoints are far too frequent, resulting in no real stakes to dying (even when playing on a harder difficulty).

In terms of story, the first half is average at best. It suffers big time from trying to make both Chloe and Nadine talk/lead like Nathan Drake. When you have two plucky, tough adventurer characters trading quips back and forth it can be very easy for them to feel unfortunately samey (which is what happens here). This occurs even though the two leads in Lost Legacy do have distinct personalities and backstories. They simply lack the dynamics of other pairings in the franchise. E.g. Nathan and Sully (plucky adventurer and ‘too-old-for-this-shit mentor), Nathan and Elena (cocky hero and savy romantic foil), Nathan and Sam (bittersweet reunion of brothers inciting both joy and mistrust from the leading Drake). Chloe and Nadine initially both struggle to not feel like minor variations on Lara Croft.

The second half does manage to introduce some interesting conflict when a certain character from the last game returns. Though I do wish they hadn’t kept berating said character in a way that felt like an awkward ‘wink/nudge’ about how our female heroes are much more competent. I love that they’re making one of the female characters the successor to Drake but it only feels inauthentic when the writer’s needlessly poke fun of the male hero in order to heighten the badassery of Chloe and Nadine.

There are a couple of set pieces that I really enjoyed in this. Although nothing in it inspired awe like individual moments of the last three games did. I expect the train sequence at the end may have done this for me had a similar thing not already happened in Uncharted 2. Also, my PS4 basically had a seizure trying to run that sequence. The constant lag and frame rate dropping totally ruined it for me (and was very unexpected from a Naughty Dog product). I hope it doesn’t mean my PS4 is on the way out!

All in all a worthwhile game for fans of the series, but definitely not long enough or essential enough to have been a day one buy for me.

Wow, that ending was so intense! I'm still figuring out how I would rate my experience tho. But this game definitely is worth the time. Great sequel and did a very nice job filling-in the flaws of the Uncharted 4 with this one's stand-alone story and gameplay.

Will find time to write a review for this soon. Let me cherish the moment first. Ahhhh.. That feeling when you've finished a game and now wonder what's next for you.

I'm very much into in-game photography, especially if the game promotes great graphics and environment (in which the Uncharted is very great at).

I'd like to share some of my screenshots:

Really amazing how graphics improved throughout the years. :)

Started very slow, but turned out to be one of the best Uncharteds so far for me. The last three chapters were very good, with some scenes even better than Uncharted 4. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy might be the perfect transition to an Uncharted without Nathan Drake.

Graphics were amazing, and the setting was typically uncharted.

When it comes to the main duo, I had the same feeling as with the game itself. Started out a bit dull, but as the game progressed Nadine and Chloe became very enjoyable to watch, they both got their own personality and it matched up very well. I liked Choe in the past already, and Nadine might be my favourite sidekick so far. And ofcourse it's great to see two women as main characters in a big action game.

As for the Story. The main reason why Uncharted 4 and Uncharted the Lost Legacy stand out in the series for me, is the story telling and plot. Uncharted stays at the core an action game, but the addition of a little bit more plot serves the game well. I really liked the fact that they dropped the supernatural weird stuff in Uncharted 4, so I am glad they went on in that direction in the new episode. Although it's something that was present at the start in the Uncharted series, and "The Spaniards never left" was one of the best Uncharted moments and plottwists. I personally always felt like the series didn't need that kind of things. The context of the rebellion from Asav gave the story an extra realistic and dark touch. And the sudden appearance of Sam Drake was a great way of connecting the story to Uncharted 4. I loved the tension between Sam and Nadine.

Though I like Nathan and Sully better as a main character duo Chloe and Nadine did a good job. I was a little frustrated that they took an easy back story for Chloe and basically just made her Lara Croft. I did like how they made the two actually develop a relationship throughout the game. They aren't just buddy buddy off the bat like it feels other characters in the series. What I feel was the strongest aspect of the game is that it improved greatly on the action. I personally feel that Uncharted 4 lacked the most in impressive action sequences out of all the games (excluding the first game).Spoiler Also I'm super glad that they brought in another amazing train level. When they had that in Uncharted 2 to me that was the most impressive thing ever done in gaming at the time.

Graphics wise this game is just amazing just as Uncharted 4 was. There were moments, I will admit where I felt like the level design(specifically the truck chase) was greatly superior in Uncharted 4.