I am a huge fan of the Uncharted series for PS3. I am super pumped for the fourth iteration on PS4. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was my first platinum trophy. It's also my 59th.
So this remaster puts Uncharted 1, 2, and 3 on 1 disc for PS4 labeled The Nathan Drake Collection. The game is the same as it was ~8 years ago. The trophy list is largely the same, with minor tweaks. For some reason, many of the kill trophies were made more difficult, for example, kill 50 enemies (instead of 20) using stealth, which is not required to use throughout the game, made it even longer to farm than it was before. They also introduced speedrun trophies for the new speedrun mode, which sounds like a pain for anyone who isn't into speedrunning, but lucky (or wisely) they were very lenient in the required times.
Crushing difficulty, which is one step above hard, is unlocked from the start for the first time in the series. Being a veteran of these games, I jumped right into crushing, and despite hearing it had the hardest crushing mode of the 3 games. It was borderline infuriating. My poor long term memory must have erased my past run-through of crushing from existence, or I am exponentially less patient/slow-reflexed than I used to be. On many occasions, coming out of cut-scenes left me mostly dead before I can begin moving the character. Although crushing can be extremely frustrating, fun can be found treating the rooms almost like puzzles; needing to memorize where enemies come from and how best to use ammo provided a good challenge.
This being the first game in the series, it definitely holds up as a game (albeit not on crushing), but it is clearly the weakest of the 3 by a fair margin. Of the 3, it has the slowest opening. It really takes a while to get into anything fun besides story. It is less clear where to traverse versus sequels. There aren't any big, memorable set pieces. Thank god for shoulder swap. I can't remember if it was in the original game but before I turned it on in the options menu, the game would decide what side the gun was on when Drake pops out of cover, and it could be the difference between life and death. Also in the options menu was the ability to use L1/R1 buttons like all PS3 games used to for shooters, but the PS4 controller may have improved L2/R2 buttons, the L12/R1 are far worse leaving either option unsatisfying.
I don't know if/how the graphics were improved, but the game look really good. The iconic Uncharted camera is here from the beginning, providing both a cinematic feel and a clear path for the player to focus on. There also seemed to be a bunch of tweaks in the options to change how it looked (I vaguely remember this in the original, not sure if they added any), but I didn't use any because they were all locked and I wasn't going to do another play-through.
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