I beat it, and I loved it.
It's easily the best Uncharted game for me so far, with the sheer spectacle that this franchise has thrilled us for so many years balanced with the more grounded, emotional weight that The Last of Us delivered on not too long ago. Just as that game demonstrated new graphical heights on the PS3, this game does the same for the PS4, astounding me time after time with what's possible on this already aging technology (PS4K owners are in for a treat).
Yet for as virtuoso as Naughty Dog has been graphically, it's their gameplay that has received, rightfully or not, lots of flak over the year. Drake's Fortune was riddled with problems on that front, but as I have an endearment to that game I don't necessarily view Among Thieves as a huge leap over it. Yet I appreciate those comments, because it's easy to see that massive of a leap from Drake's Fortune to Among Thieves as there is to that classic and A Thief's End. No longer are we riddled with wimpy guns, extremely binary or even singular solutions to many scenarios, but instead revamped sound effects, aiming, feedback, and plenty other mechanics bolster an extremely strong set of combat encounters. These all add up to be a missing puzzle piece Naughty Dog almost desperately needed, not for their sake - their critical acclaim and pride is obviously something a sole internet post means nothing to - but for the sake of their games' longevity. Whereas the titles in the Nathan Drake Collection will be discussed as ranging from all ends on the gameplay front, A Thief's End is bound to be more pristine as time goes by.
This is also thanks to some extraordinary encounter design in combat. Drake's Fortune and particularly Among Thieves grasped at a few great moments regarding the vertical nature of this series, while Drake's Deception delivered a single memorable fight that was unfortunately placed in a filer section of the game. Uncharted 4 isn't content with showing potential. It thrives in greatness. The long development period for this game pays off with the incredible levels meticulously crafted for variability. It would be ill conceived to describe them as sandboxes; they're more like playgrounds, where you can stealth your way through a few baddies, get spotted, swing on a rope, punch a dude in the face, grab his gun, shoot some people, lurk back in the grass out of the line of sight, and so on. Yet this is no guaranteed order - oftentimes it's not required to kill anyone at all. The stealth is fairly vanilla, relying on basic line of sight tricks and attention gauges on the enemies - their AI is the least impressive during these phases - but it is extremely difficult to pull off (on Hard) at times because of the number of enemies in the large levels you're given. You are gonna get spotted, which is why the way levels are layered with two, three, even four layers, some of which may be water or other variables, allows for all sorts of dynamic gameplay. You won't be standing in one spot, you won't be cover shooting all the time, just because the nature of this game is to get you moving across this ensemble of great encounter designs.
It feels like some sort of magic, the way that Naughty Dog continuously one-upped these encounters one after another, until eventually the ending started to come to. Before that though, there's a lot more to digest than just the way Drake kills hundreds of people. For starters, the game itself is more layered, having chapters that are devoted to the act of exploration. Yes, we've seen this before, but this isn't Naughty Dog's hand-holding definition of exploration, but a more freeform method of exploring your surroundings, gathering your bearings, and pacing the adventure. Moments of sudden discovery, basically by default thanks to the story, still exit. Stairs are still going to be hidden in the ground as the crew discovers this one hint at a time. But when Drake, and thus the player, is allowed to traverse small islands a la Assassin's Creed: Black Flag or drive around large plains discovering clues, there's a certain respect felt that the mentality of a railroad-driven narrative isn't priority; rather, the ability to set your own pace and the genuine satisfaction of finding out a location on your own is. Nothing here is drastic because ultimately this is still an Uncharted game, where the cacophony of gunfire and grenades echo long after they end. But Naughty Dog shows that you don't need to be killing something to be having fun, nor does something need to explode or a stupidly easy puzzle be solved for them to move a story along for the fourth time. They set out to achieve some variety, and they did it very well in Uncharted 4.
The other small bits of variety we've seen in the past, the puzzles and climbing, have both been improved upon. The puzzles are fewer in number, yet higher in quality, though no Uncharted prior set the bar there that high. You won't be taxed mentally, but at least you feel tested. The climbing is unfortunately the most routine part of the game, mostly hitting par for the series while occasionally challenging me to explore alternate paths. I enjoyed the views it seems only Naughty Dog's creative minds deliver, now on the PS4, but getting there is relatively standard fair, now mixed in with some crate sections inspired by The Last of Us. You do get the new hook in this game, which brings up a HUGE amount of questions for the past game (a topic for later), but this adds more non-linear function to the combat. In traversal, it's more of all-or-nothing fair; either you need it or you don't. The jarring way Naughty Dog's handholds blatantly stick out in otherwise natural environments is still here, but this is a relatively petty complaint that I'm not dwelling on.
Level sizes in general has increased, and while it's not necessarily a good thing in most games, capable hands here have made sure that they are fleshed out by both gameplay, as mentioned above, and story. I really liked the story of A Thief's End, cliches and all, with backstories being detailed and relationships being tested and nurtured very naturally. The banter, and the way it's so natural, is brilliant, quite second to none in anything I've ever played. We easily avoided another Drake's Deception, where large set pieces came for the sake of being large set pieces and important plot points suddenly became trite, while also maintaining the heart that the first two games brought. When you're exploring these larger levels, you're discovering more, you're tumbling more, you're achieving and losing more, and the characters are all written to reflect this. It's more about the journey than the destination than ever before, with focused events all taking precedence over whatever MacGuffin is at the end. While I'll wait for a later period to discuss the story, the destination is indeed quite Bruce Straley and Neil Druckmann, playing with your expectations throughout. I was nervous about the ending as the later chapters popped up, but I was confident in their ability for this to a thief's end, and I think they delivered. Very much so.
The set pieces here will linger in my memory in a positive light only matched, if matched at all, by Among Thieve's best sections, the characters and their genuine sense of camaraderie and sanguine natures in the thick of things give me the vibes I loved in Drake's Fortune, the exploration showed to me that the ideas brought up by Golden Abyss weren't just a proxy of the Vita's inputs, and for what it's worth, we avoided and even helped flesh out the worse parts of Uncharted 3.
Because it has to be said, it's not a perfect game, with the narrative winding down to a strange pace with uneven ideas before a beautiful epilogue. Some of the chapters will certainly be a pain on Crushing, and the cinematic walking and climbing, something I didn't mind, will definitely irk some. I also wish there was a little less fat on the less bombastic parts at times, just because they lead to intense, unique moments that are shining aspects of the game. It is, however, one of the best games I have ever played, capable of delivering on so many fronts that I didn't know Naughty Dog was capable of.
A new bar has been raised, and a saga has concluded. And I was damn happy to be part of it.
