Just finished. I was going to hold off posting until a second playthrough but I think it will be an interesting record to contrast when I finish that so I'll share my feelings. Thought derived from standard playthrough on 'normal'.
Overall, I feel it acts as a vehicle for mechanics and systems that will be evident in what other games ND make next. The stealth mechanics, warning indicators, grappling ropes etc. I think the open world ruined the pacing of Uncharted as a game. Previously like in UC2, the fun was in perfecting that run of stealth takedowns during traversal. Every encounter was much more measured and slow in this game because it had so many variables. You could literally spend an hour navigating one area, and that's just because you didn't want to deal with the swarm of enemies if you exposed yourself.
Talking of encounters I don't think the 'less encounters, more enemies' trade off worked at all. Especially taking into account how much more brittle you are, and the shortage of ammunition for one gun type. I think the underlying philosophy of 'large player choice' badly affected the previous philosophy of 'optimal choice' in other Uncharted games.
Tomb Raider 2013 was criticised for being a 'falling simulator', well I think UC4 has took that title for sure, as well as any others it might get. Things you could see a mile off and were repeated far too often:
- Sliding/Push back: Whether this was by 'white waves' in Malaysia, rock slides in Scotland (seriously like 90% of all scree in the world), they got old really fast;
- Time to get a crate: You see a box on wheels that you'll need to drag. It's a lot of busy work for very little pay off;
- Canned animations: Seriously too many of them, again slowing down the game.
To be positive, the scenery, environment, art style and artwork is absolutely stunning. As is the motion capture and animation work. Unparalleled and will take a lot to be beaten. Honestly, I think maybe Drake should have been given a longer break though. The influence of the more serious and gritty TLoU is evident throughout. As a result the pacing is completely wrong for this franchise and it has by far the least amount of player agency driven gameplay.
It's a bit like Sophie Ellis Bextor. Individually all the components are pretty good, but when you put them together something is just off about the complete package. The last boss fight was over-long and, like the Nadine fight, removes an established mechanic (dodge roll). I don't have a problem with idea of it, but the execution wasn't great.
The partner mechanic worked so well in TLoU because you felt obligated to protect Ellie, but because of previous 'Uncharted' games it felt like a chore dragging these ones round. They got in your way, they stuck to you, they slowed you down when in front of you rock climbing and you had to climb over them. Sure, it looked really cool at first but became tiresome. In a slow paced game, with lots of forced walking and canned animations it didn't need another hindrance.
There seems to be a largely mixed reaction to this game. However, the product is extremely polished, the story is really good, the art and graphics are fantastic - it's just a shame I didn't get a meaningful way to interact with it all. I'm not sure this is the right send off for the Uncharted franchise personally.
I liked the fact the treasures are a little harder to find, they glinted too much in previous uncharted games. I liked the pointer they took from Tomb Raider with the tool driven traversal (pick axe versus climbing spike). The puzzles I largely enjoyed, especially the light ones with the crosses but they could have been a tad more difficult but I guess 'diverse demographic audience'.
I don't think we're going to see anything of the ilk of Uncharted 2 from ND any time in the near future and when they are making storytelling games as good as TLoU they probably don't need to. I just wish they could have given Drake a better send off. The story was great, but the adventure for the player was not.
It worked, now I'm onto the next chapter yassssssss
