Rank the Franchise - Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (2016) Discussion

[–] Picnic10 8 years ago

I haven't played Abyss.

1. UC2 - the fact that a lot of it takes place in an big city gives it a 'proper shooter' feel - with also clever use of platforming - and the use of attacking vehicles - helicopter , tank, and the Yeti attack and the main villain's domineering feel, and the cohesive sense of a continuous path rather than locations strung together to suit setpiece type (UC3) or character backstory (UC4), means UC2 feels like a rollercoaster that doesn't get old as much. It never feels that it wants to give 'meaningful pauses' or red herring trails that you'll want to skip on replays - it just puts on the show, pushing you literally onwards and upwards from the literal 'cliffhanger opening' where you dangle off a train to the heights of a skyscraper to giant abysses in which you have an incentive to explore as it is a puzzle.
2. Joint UC3 and UC4
3 Drake's Fortune ( although only because the other games had more setpieces. As a shooter, it's second only to UC2 ).

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[–] WaIterSobchak 8 years ago

1. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
2. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
3. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
4. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
5. Uncharted: Golden Abyss

This is how I'd rank them, but I can't really rate them. I like them all, even Golden Abyss was very fun and interesting. I think the adventure in Drake's Deception was the best one. A Thief's End was a perfect way to close the franchise. Very sad that it had to end but very uplifting in the way they did it.

Here's hoping for a sequel to The Last of Us!

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[–] Ciaobaby-Rides-Again 8 years ago

I'm afraid I'd probably award A Thief's End a 7.5, though. I'm grateful for any opportunity to visit Nathan Drake and co. again, but I really wish it had been different. Better.

Just too many Dan Brown moments in there.

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[–] Picnic10 8 years ago

A Thief's End is all set by the coastline or riverbeds and yet rarely does anything interesting with water as a gameplay device unless you count the opening sequence and diving to look at coral and find treasure in a sunken ship. A Shoreline setpiece on jetskis storming the beach would have been nice. It felt both very Tomb Raider and Drake's Fortune in how it stuck to coastlines. Uncharted 2 gave you a huge city. Uncharted 3 gave the London Underground. I missed there being anything 'urban' in UC4. It's as if they used that up on The Last of Us so wanted to be all about green foliage.

You spend so much of Uncharted 4 swinging many metres above water. I'd have liked to been treat to something like a series of tunnels that floods with water- a puzzle could have been made out of it. The big arenas of enemies are so unforgiving that they're not easy to have fun with your arsenal. You can't just swing down on to an enemy with your grapple rope when everyone will see you.

They could have had more humour between Shoreline people, made it a bit Monkey Island in how you sometimes approach things with your wit or a humourous setpiece like shooting a big barrel so that its contents drown an enemy rather than directly using your gun on them. I think Naughty Dog would do well to try to do a Lucasarts graphic adventure style game. Some parts of Uncharted 4 show that they could make big contraptions that would suit such a game. Or maybe they could make a successor to Theme Park in full 3D.

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[–] Ciaobaby-Rides-Again 8 years ago

There's a lot in there, and much that is well done. But nothing really special. Nothing stands out.

I honestly don't understand how this effort earned the wild accolades it has received. And I still feel somewhat bitter. It's as if this game was designed primarily to please someone other than fans of the franchise.

Feels like something's missing. Call it the magic or the soul or, maybe, the heart. But it feels as if it's not there.

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[–] WaIterSobchak 8 years ago

I disagree. I think Uncharted 4 captured what is the essence of that what has always been Uncharted - adventure. To me, the game was the only game in the series that felt like the goal of the adventure came first, rather than the action and events that lead up to it.

They emphasized on the search, the story was better written - though not necessarily the best story. They talked so much about the treasure that you're really hungry for it. The other games didn't have that.

It did lack something magical I suppose. There weren't any particular scenes as powerful as when Nate falls out of the plane in Uncharted 3 or when the doors to Shambala open in Uncharted 2. The fourth game isn't perfect, I prefer the second and third games to it but it's worthy to be the closing chapter of the story. The game did do a *beep* ton right though. I hated the fact that all the Uncharteds (including Golden Abyss) rarely referenced their respective prior games, except Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. In a lot of ways this game is my favourite Uncharted, but not overall.

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[–] Ciaobaby-Rides-Again 8 years ago

I think the evolving relationship between Nate and Elena represents the main "golden thread" that stitches the first three adventures together. And it's through the lens of that developing relationship that we see Nate's growth.

I'm afraid that, for me, most of U4's references to earlier adventures felt self-conscious and contrived. Even clumsy. Almost tacked on. Almost like an exercise in name-dropping. Except the Panamanian prison, which was a lovely, deft stroke that stood out. More of that kind of stuff would have been wonderful.

Golden Abyss is kind of an odd child. It wasn't developed by Naughty Dog, although they oversaw it. It was released after Drake's Deception, so the three games in the main series couldn't have included any references to it, but it was actually supposed to be a prequel to the series, so it couldn't reference any of the adventures that are supposed to take place later on.

The biggest troublemaker would have to be Drake's Deception. Between Nate's flashbacks and allusions to his first encounters and developing relationship with Sully - his partner, friend, mentor, and surrogate dad - and Katharine Marlowe's dossier on Nate, we get enough information to make the sudden appearance of a a previously unreferenced older brother in A Thief's End more than a little problematic.

Where exactly is the protective big brother while Nate is picking pockets getting shot at and landing in jail at the ripe old age of fifteen, and why wouldn't Marlowe's investigators be able to find any record of an older brother when they dig up the rest of his history - including the files from the orphanage that both brothers landed in before Sam followed his own path. We can force ourselves to accept that Nate and Sully have gotten along with a tacit agreement to never mention Sam's name and that they've somehow managed/chosen to keep Elena in the dark for years. For some reason. It's much harder to get around Marlowe's failure to discover or use the fact of Sam's existence and absence.

Those are some very loose boards holding things together at that point - in the bridge between Drake's Deception and A Thief's End. Pretty rickety.

In terms of writing, I believe that these are the moments that demonstrate just how strong and seamless the storytelling was in the previous games. They always kept track of all their threads, so that none were ever left hanging loose.

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[–] WaIterSobchak 8 years ago

Golden Abyss came out after U3, so the fourth game could have referenced Golden Abyss, even by one single line like I don’t know.. mentioning Consuela or something. But it felt like ND didn’t want to choose to acknowledge that game – which is a shame. Even a small reference like that would be a little nugget of gold for me and many others I’m sure.

You’re right about the Panamanian jail reference from I think it was U1 on the boat? That’s the kind of reference I would want to have throughout. But I don’t get how the big references to the first three games in U4 felt tacked on for you. Those adventures primarily shaped Nate’s life, of course he’d want some tangible reminders from those adventures stored in the attic and eventually locked away but not cut out of his life. They are simply too big to ignore and too big to mention in a few lines so I thought it was a neat idea to have it optional for you which adventure you’d like to talk about to Sam. It was also all optional to choose to view these items in the attic. For me, it felt far from tacked on and was necessary in my mind. If memory serves, U1’s adventure was only referenced in U2 when Chloe was stuck in an elevator and Nate remarks: “Great, a girl’s trapped and the power is out. I swear if there’s a zombie around the next corner..”. Such lines are great but way too few and far between. It’s almost like each sequel up until U4 was made for its own audience.

The reason why Nate never talked about his family including and no doubt especiallly Sam was because he found it too hard to talk about – as Elena deduced in U4. It is odd why Sam wasn’t with Nate in Cartagena in U3 when Nate met Sully, as is the fact that Marlowe didn’t mention Sam, but that’s about the extent of how his inclusion became problematic to the continuity of the story really. It’s definitely not contradicting anything.

“Where exactly is the protective big brother while Nate is picking pockets getting shot at and landing in jail at the ripe old age of fifteen”.

As Nate said in U4, “when we weren’t in jail together it was because one of us was taking turns.” (paraphrasing?). That sort of does it for me.

You make some good points but not strong enough to say the story's plotline is rickety. Every Uncharted had its imperfections. U1 was way too short, repetitive and the villain was bland and uninteresting. U2 still struggled being repetitive although this game is the least imperfect - though not not necessarily the best game in my opinion. U3 followed U2's formula way too closely and didn't add enough new and fresh ideas. U4 had a lot going for it but for me, it's not the supposedly rickety plot but rather the lack of the same spectacle that did it in U2 and U3 for me.

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[–] Ciaobaby-Rides-Again 8 years ago

[edited - reworded]

Ah. When I said "rickety", I was referring to the parts of the plot that were supposed to introduce Sam and legitimize his place in Nate's history. I don't think Sam was even an inkling in the back of anybody's mind when Drake's Deception was produced. Nate's history, at that point, was bleak and enigmatic. He had been a hardened street urchin, alone in the world. He and Sully were both orphans, in a manner of speaking, and they found each other.

Frankly, I loved leaving it at that. I never, ever needed the rest of that history filled in. I sure never needed his real last name.

But what I meant by rickety is that the childhood flashbacks in U4 take up a good chunk of space but seem to really exist only to rewrite Nate's existing history, to overwrite our own memory of Nate's history. They're there to convince us that Sam didn't just pop into existence, fully formed, at this late stage in the game.

"Hey,that's Sam. You know Sam. Sam's always been there. Don't you remember?"

And, because they really do little more than act as a patch for a very thin area in the fabric of this story, they do lack energy. They come close to sucking the energy from adjacent chapters.

I know I sound like a hater, and I'm sorry. I really am.

But I must admit I kinda wish they'd left Sam on the drawing board, even though I really like Troy Baker's work. I don't think Sam was really essential to the concept of a search for the pirate utopia. From what I've gathered, he started out as a plot device: how do we shake up a complacent Nate's world so that we can get him out there and deal with some Nate/Elena tension again while making it look as if it isn't a retread? I think the same effort could have gone into a different monkey wrench for this machine, one that would not have involved reinventing a perfectly good wheel (and here's the thing about reinventing wheels: if it ain't broke, should you really try to fix it?).

Ok. I'm getting bogged down in my own metaphors.

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[–] WaIterSobchak 8 years ago

Sam's character was most likely only written into the franchise after they had completed work on U3. Nobody did have an inkling as to who he was, as was warranted. Perhaps ND should've hinted at it somehow during the course of the games. Sam's inclusion is somewhat convenient but I honestly didn't think too much of it as long as it meant that I could enjoy another one of Nathan Drake's adventures. He couldn't simply go on yet another life-risking adventure without a damn good reason for it. You heard enough of talk as to why he shouldn't in U3 and for that they could have well ended it with U3. It had a poignant yet fulfilling ending that didn't scream for a closing installment. I'm happy with Sam's inclusion and the way U4 ended things - even though I'm one of those people who would happily pick up an Uncharted #19 if that ever came out in the year, say 2050 and naively enjoy it too. I also know when things should just die out and they expedited that with poise.

My problem is definitely not with the plotline. It's with the number of things I've already mentioned in prior postings. Also, they should've left the characters' graphic design slightly cartoony the way things were.

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[–] Ciaobaby-Rides-Again 8 years ago

I have to say, I still don't think Nate or Nate's story needed a long lost brother. I do agree that he needed an urgent reason for getting back into "the game". To that end, they could have used Chloe or Charlie in Sam's place. The relationship and commitment is there. And we're already invested in them.

Or they could have used Sully. Remember that both Elena and Nate were ready to lay it on the line for Sully in Drake's Deception. In that case, he had been kidnapped in the course of events. In U4 he could have been in the same fix that Sam found himself, with a few adjustments. Remember that, while Nate has always been addicted to the chase, Sully has always been waiting for his ship to come in. He might put everything on the line if he thought he could tie up his retirement.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Like you, I've been dying for another adventure, so I will play this one again and again. And then I'll take the others out for another spin. Unlike many, however, I believe Nate and company still should have had a few outings left in them. I wouldn't have minded if ND had ended this chapter in much the same way as the others: with a satisfying conclusion that didn't close the franchise. Again, unlike many, I was not pleased with the epilogue. Happily ever after is just too tidy for these characters. It also implies that their adventures came to an effective end with the conclusion of the search for Avery's treasure. Cue the boring domestic life. Again.

Well, I get that the franchise is done. But I can dream. There are many gaps left in the record. Maybe someone will fill them, one day. Golden Abyss gave us Nate and Sully before the events of Drake's Fortune. There are stories as yet untold: the period between Drake's Fortune and Among Thieves, between Among Thieves and Drake's Deception. We may be given to understand that not much happened between Drake's Deception and A Thief's End, but we don't know how many years and/or adventures may have passed between the quest for Libertalia and the birth of Cassie, or during Cassie's infancy or toddler years.

Maybe, someday, we will.

For the most part, I didn't mind the "more realistic" renditions of characters once I got used to it. I haven't been able to get used to Elena, though. She doesn't look like a more realistic version of herself quite so much as a version of herself that's had "work" done. Why? I wonder if someone decided to "age" her for some reason? That could explain a bit - the changes to the profile and jawline and the eye. But, if so, it was a bad call. She shouldn't look any older than she did in U3. It's only been three years and she should still be in her thirties - as is Nate. She has no business looking like she's in her forties. Not just her face but her entire posture has changed - and that was never needed for "a more realistic rendering" of the character.

Sully looks like he's been rode hard and put away wet, too. He should be in his early sixties. He looks seventy. Okay - he's had a hard life, and it's been full of hard livin'. But he's still hearty enough to hang from a cliff's edge by his fingertips. I can't recall that he was ever quite young and nimble enough to pull off that manoeuvre in his earlier years.

Must be living right.

Dammit! I like Elena the way she was!

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[–] WaIterSobchak 8 years ago

"To that end, they could have used Chloe or Charlie in Sam's place."
I think the game needed a new character like how every installment introduced one. Sam was it. Sully could be the exception though. Everybody likes Sully.

"Or they could have used Sully."
Sully wouldn't have mislead Nate the way Sam did in order to have Nate help him out with finding Avery's treasure. Sully's too smart to be obsessed. I like the idea though. But it'd mean there'd have to be another plausible and personal reason to get Nate back into "the game", other than just securing Sully's retirement plan. Besides, it'd be impossible to believe someone as aged as Sully could do all the acrobatics that Sam had to do. I already found it hard to believe that so many characters in the franchise could mountaineer like the very best.

"It also implies that their adventures came to an effective end with the conclusion of the search for Avery's treasure. Cue the boring domestic life. Again."
They didn't though. They started their company D & F Fortunes so Nate could settle for the adventures that bear less spectacle and are therefore somewhat less life threatening. Judging from the photos hung on the wall in the epilogue, Nate and Elena had plenty of them.

It would be a shame if the franchise were to never continue on again, I don't see it happening with Nate though. Cassie's a perfect choice to take over the family tradition when she's a bit older. I'm glad ND gave us that glimmer of hope. I've been a fan of the franchise ever since I first played U1 before U2 came out in 2009. I had always hoped that the next adventure would be about Atlantis. Maybe Cassie is the one to do that. With some help from middle aged Nate. I hope Sully is still alive by then. A world without Sully is a dead one.

And it just made no sense to change the characters' design to match a more realistic look. It looked great, truly. It's pretty much needless to say U4 is the best looking game out right now. But when I first saw Sully's face, I thought ND decided to have Metal Gear Solid 4's Solid Snake crossover to the franchise. He looked so different. As does Nate. He looks too much like Nolan North (the voice actor). And if you're wondering, I deduced that Nate is 37 in U4. I forgot exactly how I came to it but I only remember that I did. So stands the reason Elena is around his age. She looks like it to be honest, and doesn't really look that old! Just.. different, like everybody else.

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[–] Picnic10 8 years ago

Nate's only 37 in UC4? More like 45.

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[–] WaIterSobchak 8 years ago

Yeah, he's 37. Or he should be 37. Nate mentioned in Uncharted 3 during an ambient scene right a bit before they find the chateaux that Nate should have known he'd be in prison within a year when he met Sully. And that he was 15.

So he was 14 when he met Sully, which takes place 20 years before Uncharted 3. And that in turn takes place three years before Uncharted 4 so, 14 + 20 + 3 = 37!

He does look older than that. Maybe it's the grey hairs. Elena's still a babe though.

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[–] Ciaobaby-Rides-Again 8 years ago

At some point in Drake's Deception, Nate's talking to Sully about their first meeting. He says something like "I should have known I'd be in prison within a year." And then, "I was fifteen!"

Oh - and also in Drake's Deception, Sully reminds Nate that "I've got twenty-five years on you." And, later still, "I hit forty, I figured I was never gonna have a son of my own [...] then you came barrelling into my life."

So, I've always gathered that these two met when Nate was fifteen and Sully was forty. Drake's Deception takes place 20 years later. In it, Sully mentions the plane that Nate and Elena trashed 4 years earlier. So we have a timeline for Drake's Fortune. Among Thieves lands somewhere in the middle.

I've always assumed that Elena was the same age as or a hair younger than Nate.

Three years after the conclusion of Drake's Deception, Nate's 38. Sully's 63. Elena's anywhere between, I'd say, 36 and 38.

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[–] Ciaobaby-Rides-Again 8 years ago

Marissa?

Anybody else find Chase just a teeny bit annoying?

Dunno why.

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[–] snoho 8 years ago

Among Thieves
A Thief's End
Drake's Fortune
Drake's Deception

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[–] EvanparkerT 8 years ago

1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves- 9.5/10
2. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception- 9.0/10
3. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End- 8.5/10
4. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune- 8/10

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[–] !!!deleted!!! (65695442) 8 years ago

Uncharted 2 10/10
Uncharted 4 7.5/10
Uncharted 7/10
Uncharted 3 6.5/10

Out of all of them I was most disappointed in uncharted 4 for its incredibly dull gameplay.

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[–] obiwisepevensie 8 years ago

Uncharted 4 10/10
Uncharted 3 10/10
Uncharted 2 10/10
Uncharted 1 9/10

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[–] nswhite96 8 years ago

1. Uncharted 2: Among Theives
2. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
3. Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception Close to that of Drake's Fortune.
4. Uncharted 4: A Theif's End

Uncharted: Golden Abyss Didn't know this existed :(

Really disapointed with uncharted 4. No one significant dies. I wished Sam was killed in the finale.

Or more importantly if this is going to be the last one then I wish Elena was killed at the scene where she fakes her death. I think that would be so heart breaking. If it is the last one they should of had some balls to do that.

Rafe was the worst Villain in the games. He wasn't even a villain tbh.

I disliked how the 4th didn't include Chloe in some way. That to me was definitely missing because she was a mix between badass, sympathetic and humourous. Which was a much needed character to me within uncharted 4.

I felt the story was very predictable. I hated Sam from the moment we find out he's alive. It just felt he was using Nate. And I caught onto it almost instantly.

Rafe killing that guard that helps them get into the prison at the start was an entertaining character and I wish they'd let him live a bit longer.

I felt most of the cut scenes were forced. Like there was no significant cut scene unlike those of 2 and 3. And I hated that every god dam time you tackled Nadine she destroys you lol. Like Nate come on the sexism in 4 was rediculous. One of the reasons Uncharted is good is because of the Badass female characters so a proper fight scene along with her death/being captured by Nate and Sam (which almost happened but then of course Rafe showed up).

I wished Sully was in the game a lot more.

I thought the epilogue was going to be the saving grace. It felt so erie and it would have been so cool to find that Elena had been killed and Nate been kidnapped. So we'd have a new lead character if they'd decided to do a new game. Obviously Cassie (Her name was Cassie right?) was set up to take over Nate if
they decide to do a new game in the future.

Things I did like

1 The new fighting. Felt polished for once and I liked the stealth that was included,
2 The new climbing features, So the sliding down hills, The rope and the chisel thing you use later on to climb the walls with no grabbing things.
3 Elena, her character just made the most sense. She had the right to be angry with Nate when she finds out the truth about what is happening. I liked her badassness when she helps later on. I just think she was a good character in uncharted 4 and made me like it a little more than I would have done if she'd literally just left after that scene.
4 I really liked the young Nate and Sam scenes. Especially with them and the old lady in the attic that was really really good.
5 The few traps that were included/puzzles included were relatively good and I enjoyed them. Especially since they weren't all the god dam time.

Things I didn't like

1 The fighting scenes at some point were rediculously hard. Not really an issue. But at certain points it was really stupid. Like at the time you catch up to Sam and suddenly they know you are also there. Like what? That should have allowed for better stealth as they wouldn't have known they were going to be attacked on the other side as well.

2 The story was really weak I felt. One of the best things about the previous 3 is that Drake wanted to find the treasures. When Sam became involved it felt like Nate didn't even care about it. Lets not find Sam lets find the god dam treasure and have an epic fight scene like we did with Uncharted 2 and 3.

3 Too much pointless exploration/open world. That just made it really frustrating. At least give a map when this is the case or more clues as to where to actually go.

4 New characters were lame. Hated Rafe and Sam. Didn't like Nadine but she could have been a better character that was better written. I wished the last of her was not her just leaving Rafe and Nate to battle each other like wtf. Her character had a little more depth then finishing like that.

5 The unrealistic ammount of people we killed. Like realism is never the games strongest point lets be honest. Nate would have died in the first game. But I just thought it was rediculous that Nadine had that kind of an army with her like what?

6 Scottland, there should have been no guns nor fighting here. It's illegal to enter the UK with guns and even if you could say they entered illegally surely it would have been noted, it's not like them flying into the country on their own accord would go unnoticed. Especially since Rafe had been scouring this place for years. No matter how rich he was he'd never have gotten away with that.

I feel like I ranted on enough here but Uncharted 4 really dissapointed me and that has annoyed me because the whole time I was like 'When are we going to have a really good scene?' And to me it never did other than a few moments that weren't that important to the plot.

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[–] cheezbaalz 7 years ago

Drake kills a lot more people in the other games.
Rafe is one of the most interesting characters in the series because he is not just pure evil, he has depth.
Looking for another treasure "one last time" would be a dumb move, one of the strongest parts of the story is the fact that Nate and Elena have retired from adventuring. Nate isn't obsessed with finding treasures anymore because he knows what that does to yourself and the people around you.

Some stand out, fantastic, scenes that come to mind off the top of my head are "The Alcazar reveal", the auction scenes, the fight between Nate and Elena, the final encounter with Rafe and Nadine aboard The Fancy and pretty much every scene with Nate and Elena from chapter 17 and onwards.

Your epilogue idea about Elena being killed and Nate being kidnapped is ridiculous and makes no sense from a writing standpoint. All of the writing is fantastic in this game and the other games, except for Uncharted 3.

Killing a character just to have an emotional moment is another amateur move in writing. Kudos to the writers for relying on the excellent characters and acting to give the emotional punch.

You may not like this game but the majority of the players clearly loved it.

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[–] aurolacul2004 7 years ago

"6 Scottland, there should have been no guns nor fighting here. It's illegal to enter the UK with guns and even if you could say they entered illegally surely it would have been noted, it's not like them flying into the country on their own accord would go unnoticed. Especially since Rafe had been scouring this place for years. No matter how rich he was he'd never have gotten away with that. "

I have to correct you there. You can enter the UK with guns as long as the type of gun is legal in the country. The UK is an island with thousands of miles of unguarded coastline. I am sure such a powerful organization like Shoreline could smuggle some guns in, if not they probably have contacts in the underworld who would sell them some.

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[–] Hannibal_Manhunter89 8 years ago

1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
2. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
3. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
4. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
5. Uncharted: Golden Abyss

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