Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Review - A birth of a beautiful friendship

By Sam Coles:

It’s hard to believe it was five years ago when I bought a PlayStation 3 and experienced the Uncharted series for the first with the third instalment, yes the third game may have been an odd choice to start with but I fell in love nonetheless. I was captivated by the characters and how light hearted it was, however it knew when to switch out the happy mask to the sad one. When Uncharted 4 was first announced I was a bit hesitant, as it look to be taking a more serious tone and that is somewhat the case with the final release due to it being under the director of The Last of Us. However it still had its fun moments, but overall has a very serious tone compared to the first three games. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy on the otheer hand goes back to what made Uncharted special, where it is a fun swash buckling adventure with wise cracking one liners with the beautiful and lustful Chloe Frazer.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy takes place after the events of the fourth game, we step into the tight jeans of Chloe Frazer who has teamed up with former shoreline mercenary Nadine Ross. They are on the hunt for the Golden Tusk of Ganesh, so Nadine can buy back her private military company… well initially. Unfortunately they find themselves in competition with the local warlord, where he is wreaking havoc across the region, and wants the relic to buy a bomb to destabilise the region more. He is not a deep villain he is a classic moustache twirling villain, which is fine as this game does not take itself seriously with a few scenes that are an exception.  What stands out in this story is the chemistry between Chloe and Nadine, they start off resenting each other, but as the story moves forward they grow closer as friends and it is truly beautiful to witness.

How is the gameplay? Well I might as well copy and paste the gameplay segment of my Uncharted 4 review from 2016 as it is fundamentally the same, where you climb, shoot, swing from ropes and dodge roll. But there is one new feature that crops up in the first few hours of the game, where the adventure gives you more of a choice of how to tackle your current task, think of it as a mini open world. However this is used and never looked at again, but to be honest this is just a standalone expansion I wasn’t expecting The Witcher 3: Uncharted Edition (Naughty Dog call me), but it seems rather one note as the game goes back to the scripted sequences we are used to with the series.

Visually the game looks great, what can I say that I haven’t already when it comes to a Naughty Dog game. The facial animations are nothings short of amazing with believable expressions, coupled with the beautiful motion capped movements from the actors. The environments are breath taking, with the lush jungles and huge expansive spaces that I took a lot of screenshots for my social media that’s how beautiful the game is.

The only issue I have stems from all Uncharted games, where the main character will not climb up to the platform I’m aiming at, or they jump up and down like they have incontinence problems. It does get very irritating especially when you are being chased or when you are being shot at on the side of cliff, where Chloe can take as many hits as an asthmatic bong user.  

Overall Uncharted: The Lost Legacy was an enjoyable game and is a return to form with the more light hearted tone compared to 4. The story is fantastic with the beautiful chemistry between Chloe and Nadine, where you genuine care about them as the story progresses and to see a friendship blossom between the two is truly special. The game is cheap these days, I picked it up second hand for £10 and it’s worth the 6 to 7 hours it will take to finish.