Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - Discussing getting the Platinum and the games

Hello Everyone. I recently got the Platnium Trophy in the 2015 Remaster of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Given the popularity of the franchise, I suspect this game has likely been discussed to death in this form. So I want to discuss it a little differently. I want to talk about my experiences getting the Platinum Trophy first and then talk about the game in general.

Fun Fact, This is the second Uncharted game I platinumed after Golden Abyss back in 2012.

The Uncharted games have kinda odd trophies. A huge chunk of the list is just grinding out specific things X number of times. Like getting a large number of kills with specific weapons or move. This makes it tedious rather than fun to get trophies. For example, there's a trophy for getting 50 stealth kills (20 in the PS3 version). There's only like 4 chances at most to even do stealth kills in an entire playthrough. The best way to get this trophy is to play chapter 4 until you get to a section where you can stealth kill a guy, kill him and then kill yourself to save the kill and be able to kill him again to farm kills (just restarting a checkpoint doesn't save it). I just put on a Podcast while I played for trophies (How did This Get Played was pretty fun).

There is some value with the weapon challenges as they can encourage trying out new weapons but the game's design already encourages that anyway and 50 kills is often way too much. Though, the brutal combat one could be argued having value in teaching a legitimately interesting mechanic.

The only trophies I feel that felt satisfying to get were the speedrunning ones. They required more from the player than just grinding. Personally, I wouldn't mind if more of these replaced the grinding ones.

Finding Collectibles wasn't anything more than looking up a Powerpyx guide. Aside from Golden Abyss and to a lesser extent, 4, collectibles aren't fun to collect. You just get a model of an object. No description or lore or even a comment from Drake.

I also feel Hard, Crushing and Brutal difficulties go completely against the design of Uncharted (and also apply to similarly designed modes in games like COD). These are games that give you a really agile protagonist, fun run n gun controls, have an adventure-y tone, and hitscan weapons. The harder difficulties take away your options and make the game into a boring case of wack a mole only with tons of waiting on small mistakes and frequent restarts. Hard difficulties should make the player learn the best parts of the game to play better not waste their time. Devil May Cry on Dante Must Die isn't Dante just using the Stinger over and over again because that's the only way to survive, it's using the full extent of Dante's moves to thrive despite the penalty for failure. Anyway, Uncharted 1 has an exploit where if you position Nate behind a wall but don't take cover, you can shoot enemies and not get shot at yourself. It's something but it's not fun to do.

Still, the trophies weren't that hard to get which is still a plus. Only took a few days to get it. I am not doing another playthrough on Brutal given how tough Crushing was. I'll move onto Uncharted 2 to get another platinum at some point. I prefer to "refresh" between games by playing different things in between games. So I'm trying out COD Warzone on PS4 and Steamworld on Stadia

As for the game Uncharted 1 itself, it's passable but lacklustre (even by 2007 standards). Platforming is kinda cool since there aren't yellow markings so it kinda feels like you're navigating real environments but there is a lack of challenge in execution or variety in what you do. Brutal Combos are fun to pull off especially in hectic situations and can actually make combat more interesting from a Gameplay perspective than its sequels because of the timing requirement and bonus ammo. The graphics and art direction are great. The tweaks are amazing. Stuff like Fast Mode and especially Flip World should be in every game as they can do a lot to make the game look different and feel fresh through minimal effort. But shootouts can drag (especially on crushing difficulty) as levels and arenas don't allow for many options or avenues of attack. The game should have continued to introduce gimmicks like the traps to keep gunfights interesting. The story and characters are pretty simple and not that interesting. The environments start to blend together.

The sequels make minor improvements to gameplay and significantly up the spectacle. If I were asked if I'd recommend this game casually, I'd say skip it and start from Uncharted 2 and maybe Watch Chip Cheezum's let's play of the first game.

While I'm here, I might as well talk about the other games in the series given the trophy info already applies to most of them.

Uncharted 2 is an improvement in that the controls and spectacle have been improved but a small step forward for gameplay (specifically level and enemy design). You mostly fight the same as firefights aren't that much better. Platforming is also incorporated very little into combat with one section where Nate is hanging from signs and the train sequence being the only good examples. The story is still simple but at least has more polish and moving pieces than 1 so that's an improvement. I do feel the section where Lazy calls out Drake for high kill count is odd. For one, the games (and also the devs and cast) never acknowledge Drake's kills or brush it off as being "just a game" or "not really canon". I feel this kinda devalues the game. You're basically saying "So what if it's disconnected or these sections feel like filler"? I get that Uncharted isn't trying to be Spec Ops but it's still worth thinking about. If a film has action sequences that feel superfluous we call that out yet games get a pass? Perhaps Uncharted is destined to get this kind of ludonarritive dissonance given it'sSimultaneously trying to be this cool story and this action-packed blockbuster that needs fodder. In that case, is there a compromise? (The Original draft of Uncharted 4 by Henning tried to address this by making a slower-paced and exploratory game and even had the player go without a gun for a long time. Could that have been a valid take?) Anyway, I'll just assume for now that Uncharted's general approach is valid and doesn't need to be questioned.

Golden Abyss is just Uncharted 1.5 so talking much about it would be redundant. The way it did collectibles was pretty cool though. Gyro aiming using the Vita was great and I'm sad that's never been an option in the remastered games or on the PS4. Come on Sony. The Switch has Gyro Aiming. I want to do the same on your devices.

Uncharted 3 is inconsistent. It's pretty much a known fact this game was rushed and development was especially rough so it suffers. Yet it's my favourite of the PS3 trilogy (mostly for the gameplay). It's the most ambitious in what it's trying to do. Its story actually has themes and stuff, and somewhat explores its characters on a deeper level. Yet it's inconsistent with how stuff plays out with story sections feeling like filler. Talbot, in particular, is never explained (Henning did say in a tweet he was using Black Ops tactics but that kinda stuff should have been in the game then). Also, I feel the game should have killed Charlie. It would have raised the stakes and made Marlow and pals feel like even more of a threat. Charlie is already absent from this game and the sequels. Might as well. It's funny that the only good guy to die in the entire franchise is Jeff.

The gameplay feels more smooth and levels (especially that water one) are more open-ended and allow for more ways to approach settings. The puzzles feel like actual puzzles and have a bit more spectacle to them.

One of my favourite bugs in PS3 Uncharted 3 was with riot shields and climbing. There's a section in ship sequence where you fight dudes with shields, if you take one of their shields you can use it for yourself. If the shield takes a lot of damage, Nate stumbles over as the shield falls off. There's a section afterwards where you must climb a wall where enemies are shooting down on you. If your shield is already damaged from prior fights and the enemies hit it, Nate does that stumbling animation while climbing, causing him to lose his grip and fall to his death. I was basically soft locked in that section because any progress I made was instantly cut short by this situation. I eventually got lucky and the enemy missed enough shots that I was able to make it to the next checkpoint.

Lost Legacy: Haven't played it.

Uncharted 4 is the best of the series thus far. Improvements in 3 like the improved shooting and levels are here. Stealth is a fair bit better. The game knows when to slow down and let the characters and story breathe (like the Nate and Elene segments in the jeep). It's written and performed exceptionally well. The theme of obsession is used well. Collectibles (in the journal at least) are pretty fun to read about. Sadly the platforming only really ramps up and begins to be a great section of timing challenges right before the fight with Rafe and afterwards, the game is over.

I wanna talk a little about combat in all these games. Personally, I feel that gun combat is boring in 1 since there's nothing else to do. A bit better in 2. A lot better in 3 and even better in 4. 4 has more interesting arenas which offer lots of opportunities to attack, swing, climb and move around.

But funnily melee combat is at its best in 1. Because there's a choice during it. You can use the easy but long 5 square combo, or you can use the 3 hit square triangle square attack that requires timing but rewards the player with a faster kill and bonus ammo. This becomes quite a hectic experience when under fire. You can even break away from a combo by rolling away.

2's melee system is more beautiful to look at but is less mechanically interesting. You're locked into a 5 hit combo where you mash square until an enemy "counters" you where you just press triangle to get out and resume the combo.

3 is just Arkham combat without any of the depth or challenge. You can litteraly alternate between square and triangle to keep attacking and automatically counter enemy attacks. O being grab adds too many commands to that button do it can misinterpreted you.

4 is 3's combat but visually cooler.

So there you have it. I look forward to your opinions on all this.