3 Things I Disliked About ‘Uncharted: The Lost Legacy’

As of my previous writing, I’m into my third play of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (UTLL) and I feel pretty exhausted already. On repeated play throughs I have concluded that there are several aspects about the game which I dislike, and which I believe could have been handled appropriately. Having said that I strongly believe that there’s future for Uncharted beyond Nathan Drake although I’m still perplexed about the unwarranted compulsions behind bidding the character of Nathan Drake (and perhaps Scully), a ceremonious adieu in Uncharted 4.

Eventually with UTLL I felt the gaming experience was below par with the rest of the Uncharted series but there were 3 things in particular which I disliked the most.

The Monkey Temple

Uncharted - monkey shrine from The Lost Legacy

There are 11 ‘Hoysala Tokens’ dispersed across the vast ‘Western Ghats’ terrain in Chapter 4 and if you are a trophy hunter like me then you must collect ALL of them to reach the 3 treasures at the monkey temple on the other side of the gorge. The tokens aren’t the issue here, but the constant switching back and forth on the map as we go along looking for tokens was a nauseating experience!!

Here’s the other annoying thing with the collectibles, there are 2 on the other side of the monkey temple – a Photo Op and an Optional Conversation, which I obviously missed in my first play through because there was no trigger on the map. So I had to collect the 11 tokens repeatedly in order to get to those collectibles. This I felt was absurd. Perhaps a workaround door to the monkey temple could have been conceived following the first gameplay and after I decide to carry forward the statistics? But putting those 2 items in that location without apparent signs was plain misery for me.

The Jeep in The ‘Western Ghats’

Uncharted - Driving the Jeep on muddy slopes

You guessed it, it’s a bumpy ride in this vast wilderness with the Jeep. Don’t get me wrong on the experience which is an awesome reminder of the landscape & the greenery of Madagascar in Uncharted 4 but this is where the similarities end and the nausea begins for me! Not only do we control the jeep on the slippery, roller-coaster terrain we also find tokens by constantly perusing the map, find treasures, solve puzzles, and fight Asav’s mercenaries. After a while you just want to get off the vehicle and burn it to dust! I hope I’m not the only one having that feeling.

Photo Opportunities

Uncharted - Photo Ops in The Lost Legacy

There is another collectible in UTLL called ‘Photo Opportunities’ where you get to shoot a picture using Chloe’s cellphone and view them as well. You can take a picture only when Chloe enters a specific unmarked location in any of the 28 opportunities, so yes, that’s quite a number and most of them are missable as you’d have guessed by now (including the monkey temple) which means you must replay the chapters and collect the 11 tokens if you missed that. As opposed to the Treasures which are listed in the ‘Options > Treasures’ menu when you replay, you won’t know which photos you took because Chloe’s cellphone only shows snaps from the current play through. How weird is that? There’s not way to tell because the treasures have a list, the photo-ops don’t. Your best bet to avoid collecting the 11 tokens is to get to the collectibles in the monkey temple in your first play through. In Chapter 4 alone there are 9 photo opportunities, including the monkey temple, and when I missed that I’d to collect all the 11 tokens in order to get to the monkey shrine because there’s no way to know if I had covered it.

But there’s one more and it’s not much of an annoyance than a disappointment for me.

Cutting To The ‘Tusk’ So Early!

Uncharted - The Lost Legacy

I felt that going through Chloe’s familial background as they did with Nathan’s in ‘Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception’ could have made UTLL’s storyline more interesting and brought her character to life. Considering that Chloe Frazer would be helming the protagonist’s role in upcoming Uncharted titles it’d have been worthwhile to explore her background and introduce her personality. Instead soon after the urban scenes pursuing Asav are over we are pushed into the chase for Ganesha’s Tusk in the jungles. In other words, climaxing too fast took the steam out of the game for me. Chloe’s story needed to be told.

In conclusion, despite the serene beauty of the game, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy left more questions and expectations for me than being a totally entertaining game without Nathan Drake in the midst. Perhaps the next Uncharted title could see Naughty Dog doing more justice to the series.