Well, I just finished it and still have no idea how I really feel about the game. The last 90 minutes - 2 hours were fairly strong, but man it took 20 Chapters to really inject some sustained adrenaline (beyond the Madagascar chase), and provide like 3 minutes of more interesting platforming. I gotta be honest, the pacing in this was a pretty big issue for me. I made a post 2 days ago when I was somewhere around Chapter 12 that I liked how 8-9 reminded me of the ice caves in Uncharted 2, but I didn't think like 80% of the game would be that. It's a more subdued experience to the point of feeling tepid during that Chapter 13-17 stretch. And when the real excitement comes, it lasts
moments before you're back to cooldown sections.
On combat: There wasn't enough of it, period. It's like 350+ less enemies compared to Uncharted 2, in a game that's anywhere from 6-8 hours longer. Didn't work for me. I was never one of these people complaining that the previous games had too much combat, I just wanted ND to keep improving it. And now that they've really made it better, like MUCH better, there's much less in there. And sure the wider arenas are cool, but there are so few of them in the grand scheme. Then those rare moments when you hit a classic Uncharted 2 style cleverly constructed linear shootout like Chapter 17's
, there's no escalation or follow through. It's there one moment, and gone the next as you go right back to walk + talk or simple platforming.
Puzzles: I know this game isn't classic Tomb Raider, and I don't need it to be, but nothing was happening here. Neither the actual puzzles or platforming puzzles were impressive, even in a "manipulating grandiose ancient mechanisms" sort of way like some from the last games were.
Set-pieces: Great, if fairly short lived. I don't need huge Uncharted 3 airplane set-pieces, hell I don't even like UC3, so I was fine with the scripted moments in this game. My only real problem goes back to how they worked within the game's pacing, feeling basically like defibrillator shots to the chest to briefly give you a pulse, rather than caps on big flowing action sequences.
Visuals: Amazing. I don't need to gush here. The presentation is outstanding.
Story: It's cool. Again, everything's so subdued that I kinda just feel like Nate's jaded "been there done that" attitude was rubbing off on me. The animation is brilliant, and the performances are great, but I still think Uncharted 2 had the most entertaining script and cast. Nothing in this touches the Nate/Chloe/Elena/Flynn dynamic. All the individual pairings work well (Nate and Elena, Nate and Sam, Nate and Sully) but as a whole I wasn't feeling that interplay, wit, or charm like UC2. It's also very cutscene heavy to start, but I guess the long stretches of gameplay from the middle on make up for that, and they absolutely attempted to pay off everything they established, maybe to the point of overdoing it.
So that all sounds super negative, but I'm not
that down on the game, especially not in the way I was down on UC3. There are a lot of fun, beautiful sequences here, combat is REALLY good when you actually get your little baby's dose of it (more so before they start adding those brute enemies), the whole thing is INCREDIBLY well presented and the tech/art on display is
crazy. I just wanted more of that super precise, momentum driven pacing. They took what was a shooter-story-adventure tiered game, and switched that to story-adventure-shooter. Obviously a ton of people are liking that, but hey, I also didn't like Left Behind as much as TLOU. There's not a lot for me to sink my teeth into on a replay. This isn't a game I can turn on and just let flow and take me on a swashbuckling adventure, which is funny considering the treasure hunt in this one.
Anyway, I'm rambling. I don't even know what I'd rate this, but it's definitely not as great a campaign as UC2 or TLOU to me. In attempting to ground the game, or create a response to the ludonarrative dissonance crowd, or the "mass murderer' crowd, or have a more story focused experience, they sort of lost me.
Best ending in the series though, so at least it finishes strong.