One Last Hurrah

Uncharted Lost Legacy is the latest game in the Uncharted franchise and supposedly the final one given Nathan Drake’s story wrapped up nicely with Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Although, I have to hope we will see Chloe and Nadine’s perfect coupling grace my PlayStation Dashboard once again in the future.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Review

The Uncharted series is heralded as top-tier Playstation-exclusive gaming, and it’s not inaccurate to say that. However, along with that status comes an assumption that they are perfect games.

Before I go on and talk about how amazing this game and its predecessors are, let me tell you what I don’t like about Uncharted games;

I’m not a huge fan of the combat in Uncharted games, it has gotten better over the years with the inclusion of the incredible hit marker system which allows you to tell in an instant from any distance whether your shot was a standard hit, a headshot, a fatal shot or if it was deflected by armor.

My biggest issue with the combat is just how long it tends to drag on. The first Uncharted was the worst for this, the encounters in that game just lasted forever and enemies just kept coming and coming and coming. It puts the game’s pacing at a screeching halt and I’ve always been somewhat put off by it.

Putting the beat down on some fools with my right-hand woman.

The other thing which I and many others don’t like is how linear the games can be, there’s a path ahead of you, the route is clearly marked by bright white or yellow ledges and, once upon a time, climbing and jumping was all there was.

Nowadays, of course, there’s climbing, jumping, swinging, sliding and many contextual instances to keep the gameplay fresh and keep the action coming.

I will now allow myself to say that Uncharted Lost Legacy fixes a lot of these problems, perhaps better than even Uncharted 4 did. There are often multiple ways to approach a path, there’s a large open-world level (with more to see and do than the open-world Madagascar section in Uncharted 4) and the combat sequences are much shorter and more satisfying. They feel more like a part of the experience rather than an inconvenient buffer between you and the rest of the game.

Deciding to pair Chloe Fraser (of Uncharted 2 and 3) with Nadine Ross (of Uncharted 4) was a genius move by Naughty Dog. Chloe is a fan-favourite Uncharted character but also fills Nate’s shoes as the protagonist really well. She’s witty and clumsy with just the right mix of smarm and charm to keep the tone and voice of this game in-line with that of previous titles.

Chloe and Nadine’s bond is strengthened by some truly magical moments together.

Nadine Ross is a new addition to the franchise, appearing in Uncharted 4 as the leader of a band of mercenaries who were hired by the main antagonist. Throughout the game her character development shines in the moments she’s on-screen, as she grows more and more frustrated with Nate’s efforts to hinder her work.

She was certainly one of the more interesting characters and shone in her own way. Bringing her back as the dependable and unstoppable ally we never knew we needed was the right move.

It’s worth noting also that Chloe and Nadine both have what are perhaps the most audibly pleasant accents in the world. Chloe with her Australian accent and Nadine with her South African accent add an indescribable flavour to the already lovable dialogue they share throughout the journey.

The game plays out like any other Uncharted game, just more refined. A tasteful mix of cinematic cutscenes, traversal sections, and combat encounters topped off with a moderate peppering of puzzle segments combined in just the right way, resulting in a pleasantly-paced, action-packed but wholesome journey through lands forgotten.

Some of the puzzles get very creative.

This time around we’re taken to India to discover a little about Chloe’s heritage and follow her as she uncovers the mysteries of the Hoysala, tracing a trail left behind by her father. Thus extending a theme of family which warmed our hearts throughout Uncharted 4.

Nadine, who is looking for work due to the events of the previous game gets hired by Chloe to help her search for the Tusk of Ganesh. How might she have heard of Nadine, I wonder?…

The game is by far the shortest in the series with only 9 chapters, but chapter 4 is an open-world section with plenty of hidden treasure and an optional side-quest which requires you to find a few Hoysala coins scattered across the area in order to gain access to a secret section which contains a few extra collectables.

The expansive open-world segment gives you plenty to do and see!

This is by far the longest part of the game if you take the time to explore and complete the optional stuff, but it can be fairly short if you just go straight for the objective, which is good news for one of the longest miscellaneous trophies.

Overall it’s a neatly packaged mini Uncharted game with all the charm of the mainline 4 and some added improvements on the standard. I highly recommend it!

My Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Platinum Trophy Experience

My initial playthrough of this game was in 2017, back when I was just a budding wee Trophy Hunter, and I had no real intention of platting it. Over time as I got more and more platinum trophies and eventually made this website I was more and more up for platting longer games and my list grew larger. For a very long time, this game sat on that list, somewhere within the first 10 or so games.

Naughty Dog are great at keeping the in-game locations diverse and interesting.

Obviously, I finally got around to platting it but the downside to that is that I don’t remember much about my original playthrough. I’d imagine that it was just your typical blind playthrough, Normal difficulty, not really trying too hard to find treasures, that sort of thing. I really love the story of Uncharted games and used to just look for an easy time so that I could enjoy the story with my girlfriend.

When I booted it back up again ready and raring to plat the game, the first thing which surprised me was just how many treasures I’d managed to stumble upon in my original playthrough. I had almost half of them already.

Unfortunately, though, I missed a lot of optional conversations, photo opportunities and pretty much every single lockbox. I had some work to do.

I still had plenty of other secrets to find, too!

I started a new save on crushing difficulty (still needed the trophy), bringing over the “Queen’s Ruby” item which makes a horrid noise whenever a treasure is nearby as well as my collectable progress from my last save…

Then I put auto-aim on and bought the infinite ammo and bullet-time cheats.

Hey, what can I say? If the game gives these tools to me, I’m going to use them. It’s actually a lot of fun to be able to look in the general direction of an enemy, hold

and have your reticule snap perfectly onto them.

For dirty cheaters like myself, I recommend spawning in either the Desert 5 which is a one-shot kill even in the chest or, for stealth segments, use the silenced pistol. For whatever reason, the auto-aim locks directly onto the head of an enemy when you’re using the silenced pistol, which is obviously a one-shot kill unless they have helmets.

With bullet-time though, you have enough time to shoot off their helmet, wait for your reticule to steady a little, then shoot the enemy in the head, all before they can notice you or alert any nearby enemies to your presence. And just like that, Crushing difficulty might as well be Explorer difficulty.

Funnily enough, in the first real fight you don’t have any guns, and it took my like 5 or 6 tries on crushing difficulty!

If you didn’t know, these cheats become available after you have beaten the game once, on any difficulty, but the auto-aim/lock-on aim is available from the start. I imagine it’s actually for players with a disability so that they still get to enjoy the game and its story even if their reaction times are impaired for any reason. Naughty Dog are just nice people like that.

And I’m exploiting their kindness to make my platinum easier… Thanks Naughty Dog!

Obviously my ulterior motive in completing the game again on crushing is to mop up as many collectable as I could. Being extra-vigilant I managed to get every collectable except 5 lockboxes in the second-to-last encounter.

This encounter is just too difficult (even when cheating, it took me a good long while) to risk trying to unlock boxes while being attacked from all angles.

So, once I was done with my collectable/crushing run, I started up the same mission in chapter select but on Explorer Difficulty. I had to play through the entire chapter doing it this way though, as I wasn’t sure I would be able to get them in encounter select. Not that I mind replaying bits of the game, it’s fun regardless.

Getting to the lockboxes was a breeze on Explorer difficulty.

What I was left with then were various miscellaneous combat trophies like blowing up 4 enemies with C4, destroying a certain helicopter before fighting anyone else, that kind of thing.

I also had to use every weapon (easy peasy when you can just spawn them all in!) and tag 30 enemies by aiming at them with

and pressingas apparently I never tagged a single enemy throughout my whole run.

With almost every misc trophy out of the way I was met with one final trophy which looked simple at a glance. It wanted me to make it to the outskirts of the Hoysala ruins (chapter 5,essentially) without using a single weapon or explosive, nothing but melee combat and stealth take-downs.

Well, I thought that meant I just had to do chapter 4 with only Chloe’s fists. It actually means doing chapters 1 – 4 completely and the trophy pops once you reach chapter 5. It’s actually not that hard to pull off, just put the game on explorer difficulty and keep your finger faaaar away from that

button and it’s a walk in the park.

About an hour, maybe an hour and a half later, the trophy popped and with it came my precious plat.

Uncharted The Lost Legacy Platinum Trophy

There isn’t much point me writing a guide for this one as it is an old game and there are plenty of great guides out there, the one on PSNProfiles is no exception, so I don’t think I have anything particularly useful to say.

The game is fairly easy to platinum, especially with the help of gameplay modifiers for the more difficult trophies like “Progress Demands Sacrifice” or “Right Under Your Nose”.

If you haven’t played this game yet then you really need to do so, and if you just so happen to be a platinum hunter like me then give it a go, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!