This review contains spoilers
Uncharted: Golden Abyss is a prequel developed by Bend Studio as a Playstation Vita exclusive released in early 2012, showcasing an adventure that happened before the first Uncharted game. Now I don’t know too much about this game except a couple of things: it was directed by John Garvin (of Days Gone fame), it contains the most PS Vita motion controls of all the exclusives (that I’m aware) and that it remains an exclusive to the PS Vita after Bluepoint apparently left it out of The Nathan Drake Collection due to the lack of narrative connection to the original Uncharted trilogy. I’m not 100 percent sure how true that is but AGAIN it’s a goddamn shame, as the game deserves better as it’s actually a pretty decent title despite all of the Vita gimmicks. Again, the game needs to be remastered or ported, or if everyone and their grandmother is going to go on about remakes, why not remake this so that the gimmick controls (of which there are many) aren’t hard to map on the PS4/5 controllers. I’m gonna head straight to the gameplay here, because it’s the most jarring part of the entire game.
Where the gameplay section of the review is going to begin is the constant PS Vita mechanic tie in. Dear god, the amount of interactivity is insane and in a lot of cases are both annoying as fuck and pretty ingenius. For example, some of the ones I don’t like: in Chapter 11, you end up sliding down a river and in order to dodge the rocks you have to move your actual PS Vita left and right which can be a pain in the ass depending on your difficulty and your reaction time; it doesn’t really feel great to do and only gets worse the higher the difficulty is as you could die instantly and restart from the top of the river again. Trying to aim your guns and your camera can also be annoying to do as you’ll try to aim for an enemy (or take a picture with the camera for the collectible stuff) and you PS Vita actually moves the motion controls in game which I always found to be annoying even if it was only a tad bit and I would constantly have to fiddle around to make sure I got the shot just right. Try to pick up certain weapons or collectibles and you touch the screen in the wrong area and you’ll end up jumping upon a nearby ledge or something. Another thing I don’t appreciate is that the higher the difficulty the harder it is to do the onscreen QTEs, which get especially annoying during the final two boss battles against the main antagonists. However, that being said I don’t really hate the Vita gimmicks, I understand as a console launch for the game that you kind of have to show what the Vita is made of and Uncharted is a popular franchise to get people to play it; it’s just there are times where it can get annoying. However, there are interesting ways in how it does its stuff; I appreciate how easy it can be to do the climbing now as you can flick your finger across the screen to certain parts and Nathan will just automatically move and jump to where you want. It’s not always perfect mind you, but it’s nice for those who feel the Vita console is a bit stocky in terms of holding and you don’t wanna press the buttons all the time. I also appreciate how with certain clues/collectibles you use your fingers to solve the puzzles or clean off certain artifacts; and in another strange way I also like how during one of the cutscene chapters you need to hold your Vita underneath a light source in order to illuminate a puzzle. That being said though, I feel like while this is cool and all it can be kind of eye rolling after a while, a bit much and in the idea of a future port (which I doubt will ever come about) for the game will be a bit of a problem unless they just edit or cut out certain parts or alternatively remake it possibly.
As for the actual gameplay itself minus the Vita gimmicks? It’s not bad, it’s basically the same as all the other Uncharted games; you pick up weapons, shoot goons and race for treasure (which they all tie into some sort of card game app called Uncharted: Fight for Fortune….which I’m pretty sure is dead or canceled so don’t even worry about that, though if you could earn these cards IN those games I wouldn’t even suggest it) as you pick stuff up (optionally with a really cheap treasure map DLC which tells you the approximate location of every treasure or just go the smart/cheap route and use a Youtube guide) and exchange witty banter. The controls (minus the gimmicks) are straight up like the Uncharted games on console, which is a good thing, especially when pared down on a small console which can feel sort of weird but I think Golden Abyss manages to pull that off well. Only issue I really had was that I had to turn up the actual turn speed for myself a bit because I couldn’t aim for people fast enough at first, though it was later turned down a tad bit. For the trophies, grinding out the treasures by killing people on the hardest difficulty was kind of a pain in the ass though mostly in Chapters 2-3 as you could only really get those treasures by killing armed goons and there aren’t much in the way of goons so I had to grind for them when I first met Chase. Other notable things I want to mention is that in certain places I’ll try to climb up and it’ll kick me back down to the ledge I was at so I had to climb back up again as a sort of strange glitch, but that was kind of a rarity I didn’t experience in my second playthrough on Crushing. That’s another thing, though there are parts where I wanted to call the game a stupid asshole for their enemy placements, the harder difficulties in this game aren’t actually THAT bad minus a few things so I feel the Crushing trophy if that’s what you’re going for is for the most part obtainable. One of the worst spots I’ve had to deal with however was in Chapter 26, after Sully breaks his leg he decides to be the biggest fucking moron and just charge the enemies, which is a problem considering you’re in a small area and they have weapons/grenades that’ll eviscerate you AND you have to protect him. It’s only a small section but I still loathed going into that small section more than the QTE boss fights. Also, in Chapter 29 there’s a glitch where enemies can despawn in front of your eyes if you run back to get ammo instead of pushing forward, breaking that section because enemies spawn behind a bridge and you need them in order for the bridge to fall down so keep that in mind. Lastly, to finish it off before transferring to the story mode: this is the first and only Uncharted game that I’ve seen Nathan Drake be able to pick up a fucking minigun and it’s hilarious as hell to see this guy pick up something that not even five bodybuilders could wield like that.
The plot follows Nathan Drake before the event of the first Uncharted game, taking on a job for one Jason Dante to investigate some old ruins next to a Uranium mining company site with his partner, Marisa Chase. At the site, they find evidence of Spanish travelers who have been searching for an ancient city: Quivera, the city of gold. Partnering up with Chase after things go haywire due to Dante’s dealings with revolutionary general and former dictator Roberto Guerro, which later involves being kidnapped and brought to Guerro’s prison camp before they escape. After a bit of bonding, Chase reveals to Nathan that her grandfather spent his life researching the ancient city and the Quiveran civilization, and they escape from the camp with a betrayal from Dante. They use both the amulet and Chase’s grandfather’s research and are able to find a Sete Cidades (an old christian sect dedicated to finding these cities of gold) retreat in a different old tomb. Climbing through, they find the Sword of Stephen (which has a series of pieces that Nathan charcoal rubs onto some paper) as well as the corpse of Chase’s grandfather, originally held by the guide to the group with evidence that the leader, De Niza, misled spanish conquistador Francisco Coronado. Dante shows up to take this sword, only for Guerro to betray him while kidnapping Chase. After chasing them through the tomb, they get away with Chase, while Nathan and Dante argue over Dante’s greed and tell Nathan to “run back to Sully”. Nathan does indeed run back to Sully for help, and they find the location of a temple believed to hold the ancient city of Quivera; and they both shoot through loads of Guerro’s men along with mercenaries that Dante hired. Soon, Nathan infiltrates the ancient city and rescues Chase from Guerro’s men before delving deeper into the city to find the frightening corpses of old Quiverans. Thinking it might be a birth defect at first, they go further into the city only to learn that the city of gold was build next to a Uranium deposit, actively making it radioactive and untouchable, with De Niza having turned out to kill Esteban (his guide) and the others and misled Coronado so that no one could get their hands on this “cursed gold”. Dante arrives, intending on following his greed and selling the gold regardless of who dies and after a painful QTE, he’s left behind in the city to get sealed in. Marisa and Nathan go to activate explosives right outside the city and proceed to bring down nearly the entire cavern and after fighting through more goons, Nathan brings down Guerro in another QTE before saving Chase from death and then being saved themselves by Sully before Nathan/Chase consummate their relationship and move on from the adventure.
So far, the story feels to be standard fare but I still find it to be more interesting both character and plot wise than Drake’s Fortune would be. It’s not the greatest, it’s kind of average but it still has some stuff that compelled me; the first thing that popped into my mind is the radioactive gold city, which I felt was pretty good foreshadowing on the game’s end with all the uranium mining subplot. A lot of the lore you can also find in the background with the collectibles, which unlike the other Uncharted games are actually a lot better because they give contextual clues to the actual mystery at hand if you’re looking for extra story to connect pieces together. I also enjoyed that piece of twist because it wasn’t like what the other three games in the original trilogy did, which was mainly just mixing supernatural creatures into the mix and instead providing something a bit more grounded in reality, and with a twist I didn’t expect. There’s interesting character development for Nathan too who goes from a standard “treasure hunter loot guy” to someone who actually cares about the historical finds and such which is in turn spurred on by Chase. This segways into my feelings about the supporting cast: Chase is actually pretty decent and I liked her for the most part, though it’s obvious she’s a stand-in for Elena that won’t ever be brought up again (aside from a sticky note reference in Uncharted 4) and since this is a prequel I preemptively knew that she wasn’t really gonna pop back up ever again after this game. The two main antagonists are entertaining and memorable enough, they’re not Lazarevic from Uncharted 2 or Rafe from Uncharted 4 but they’re decent for who they are: stereotypes. Guerro of course plays the dictator general who's trying to gather funds for another revolution (love the military angle though, reminds me of Uncharted: Lost Legacy with that), and he’s overall a basic dick in his goals. The other antagonist is Jason Dante, Nathan’s old buddy who is a stereotypical greedy fucker with an italian accent who wants to gold all to himself and cares only for profit. Of course, Sully is Sully so we’ll always remember him and at the end of the day he’s still going to be entertaining and the banter will be amusing. Other things that come to mind playing this is that there are two memorable gags: one involves “Cutting the ropes'' which Guerro’s men always seems to be fond of doing through most of the game and a gag that plays on Crushing Difficulty, where when you investigate Esteban’s corpse they pop out and jump scare Chase’s actress, who gives everyone shit for being in on it. I’ll post a link down there if you want to see it yourself, but overall again while it’s not the most memorable story I think it’s a lot better than people gave it for despite it’s spin-off nature and some of its plot points.
The graphics for the game looks pretty good, the backgrounds are beautiful and I feel that Bend really tried their best to hone in and make something special for this game. The models looks good, weapon sounds are great (though the Moss 12 fucking sucks to be honest) and overall it’s a package I can’t complain about. The soundtrack is pretty tight even if I swore I heard these tracks from the other earlier Uncharted games (and possibly some new ones), so the whole Uncharted atmosphere is there. Richard McGonaggle and Nolan North are back as Sully and Drake so that’s always nice, and the rest of the cast do their job portraying their characters with Jason Spisak being the outlier here are a hilariously weasel-like Jason Dante, though often times he’s a stereotype of what a Jersey Italian could even be like (he also voiced Marty in Mafia 2 and the punchable Skizzo in Days Gone, another Bend Game, if you’ve heard his voice before). Overall, not too much to complain about in this department, as always.
Final thoughts, is this game good and worth your time? I’d say yes, it is good despite some of its flaws with gameplay motion gimmicks and such, I had a lot of fun with it despite it’s frustrations in certain parts and while I felt coming into it that I was going to be miserable due to the fact I suck at playing handheld game systems without a Switch-style game dock or an actual console port, it’s actually one of the easier games to get into the series for. HOWEVER, actually getting this game nowadays will be expensive; I got my Vita for 250 or so dollars and the game itself for a whopping 50-60 dollars a couple of years ago during COVID when I learned that they were going to be shutting the PS stores for both Vita and PS3, and while that hasn’t happened yet more than likely it will at some point. If you have it in you to pay lots of money for the Vita and the game itself (don’t forget the memory cards for the Vita, which in itself is a good chunk of cash as well), it’s not a bad title and could be considered one of the best Vita exclusives along with Killzone: Mercenary (frustrations with corrupted saves aside). That being said however, I’m going to HARP on this hard: this game needs a remaster or a remake or something. I don’t care that it’s just a spin-off, media like this should be able to be experienced by as many people as possible, even if it’s just a PC release (which by the way where’s the Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection release on Steam you fucks?) or a PS Digital release (though physical copies are preferred). So the Tl;dr answer is yes, yes it is worth your time though you’ll need to sink a decent bit of money in order to be able to play this game so unless you had disposable income like I did at the time or it eventually gets ported/remade or there’s an emulator on PC where you can play this for free, good luck with that.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncharted:_Golden_Abyss
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/UnchartedGoldenAbyss
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NIWJHO-cto8 (Behind the scenes motion capture)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mLHgAEb_Vn4 (Blooper)
Where the gameplay section of the review is going to begin is the constant PS Vita mechanic tie in. Dear god, the amount of interactivity is insane and in a lot of cases are both annoying as fuck and pretty ingenius. For example, some of the ones I don’t like: in Chapter 11, you end up sliding down a river and in order to dodge the rocks you have to move your actual PS Vita left and right which can be a pain in the ass depending on your difficulty and your reaction time; it doesn’t really feel great to do and only gets worse the higher the difficulty is as you could die instantly and restart from the top of the river again. Trying to aim your guns and your camera can also be annoying to do as you’ll try to aim for an enemy (or take a picture with the camera for the collectible stuff) and you PS Vita actually moves the motion controls in game which I always found to be annoying even if it was only a tad bit and I would constantly have to fiddle around to make sure I got the shot just right. Try to pick up certain weapons or collectibles and you touch the screen in the wrong area and you’ll end up jumping upon a nearby ledge or something. Another thing I don’t appreciate is that the higher the difficulty the harder it is to do the onscreen QTEs, which get especially annoying during the final two boss battles against the main antagonists. However, that being said I don’t really hate the Vita gimmicks, I understand as a console launch for the game that you kind of have to show what the Vita is made of and Uncharted is a popular franchise to get people to play it; it’s just there are times where it can get annoying. However, there are interesting ways in how it does its stuff; I appreciate how easy it can be to do the climbing now as you can flick your finger across the screen to certain parts and Nathan will just automatically move and jump to where you want. It’s not always perfect mind you, but it’s nice for those who feel the Vita console is a bit stocky in terms of holding and you don’t wanna press the buttons all the time. I also appreciate how with certain clues/collectibles you use your fingers to solve the puzzles or clean off certain artifacts; and in another strange way I also like how during one of the cutscene chapters you need to hold your Vita underneath a light source in order to illuminate a puzzle. That being said though, I feel like while this is cool and all it can be kind of eye rolling after a while, a bit much and in the idea of a future port (which I doubt will ever come about) for the game will be a bit of a problem unless they just edit or cut out certain parts or alternatively remake it possibly.
As for the actual gameplay itself minus the Vita gimmicks? It’s not bad, it’s basically the same as all the other Uncharted games; you pick up weapons, shoot goons and race for treasure (which they all tie into some sort of card game app called Uncharted: Fight for Fortune….which I’m pretty sure is dead or canceled so don’t even worry about that, though if you could earn these cards IN those games I wouldn’t even suggest it) as you pick stuff up (optionally with a really cheap treasure map DLC which tells you the approximate location of every treasure or just go the smart/cheap route and use a Youtube guide) and exchange witty banter. The controls (minus the gimmicks) are straight up like the Uncharted games on console, which is a good thing, especially when pared down on a small console which can feel sort of weird but I think Golden Abyss manages to pull that off well. Only issue I really had was that I had to turn up the actual turn speed for myself a bit because I couldn’t aim for people fast enough at first, though it was later turned down a tad bit. For the trophies, grinding out the treasures by killing people on the hardest difficulty was kind of a pain in the ass though mostly in Chapters 2-3 as you could only really get those treasures by killing armed goons and there aren’t much in the way of goons so I had to grind for them when I first met Chase. Other notable things I want to mention is that in certain places I’ll try to climb up and it’ll kick me back down to the ledge I was at so I had to climb back up again as a sort of strange glitch, but that was kind of a rarity I didn’t experience in my second playthrough on Crushing. That’s another thing, though there are parts where I wanted to call the game a stupid asshole for their enemy placements, the harder difficulties in this game aren’t actually THAT bad minus a few things so I feel the Crushing trophy if that’s what you’re going for is for the most part obtainable. One of the worst spots I’ve had to deal with however was in Chapter 26, after Sully breaks his leg he decides to be the biggest fucking moron and just charge the enemies, which is a problem considering you’re in a small area and they have weapons/grenades that’ll eviscerate you AND you have to protect him. It’s only a small section but I still loathed going into that small section more than the QTE boss fights. Also, in Chapter 29 there’s a glitch where enemies can despawn in front of your eyes if you run back to get ammo instead of pushing forward, breaking that section because enemies spawn behind a bridge and you need them in order for the bridge to fall down so keep that in mind. Lastly, to finish it off before transferring to the story mode: this is the first and only Uncharted game that I’ve seen Nathan Drake be able to pick up a fucking minigun and it’s hilarious as hell to see this guy pick up something that not even five bodybuilders could wield like that.
The plot follows Nathan Drake before the event of the first Uncharted game, taking on a job for one Jason Dante to investigate some old ruins next to a Uranium mining company site with his partner, Marisa Chase. At the site, they find evidence of Spanish travelers who have been searching for an ancient city: Quivera, the city of gold. Partnering up with Chase after things go haywire due to Dante’s dealings with revolutionary general and former dictator Roberto Guerro, which later involves being kidnapped and brought to Guerro’s prison camp before they escape. After a bit of bonding, Chase reveals to Nathan that her grandfather spent his life researching the ancient city and the Quiveran civilization, and they escape from the camp with a betrayal from Dante. They use both the amulet and Chase’s grandfather’s research and are able to find a Sete Cidades (an old christian sect dedicated to finding these cities of gold) retreat in a different old tomb. Climbing through, they find the Sword of Stephen (which has a series of pieces that Nathan charcoal rubs onto some paper) as well as the corpse of Chase’s grandfather, originally held by the guide to the group with evidence that the leader, De Niza, misled spanish conquistador Francisco Coronado. Dante shows up to take this sword, only for Guerro to betray him while kidnapping Chase. After chasing them through the tomb, they get away with Chase, while Nathan and Dante argue over Dante’s greed and tell Nathan to “run back to Sully”. Nathan does indeed run back to Sully for help, and they find the location of a temple believed to hold the ancient city of Quivera; and they both shoot through loads of Guerro’s men along with mercenaries that Dante hired. Soon, Nathan infiltrates the ancient city and rescues Chase from Guerro’s men before delving deeper into the city to find the frightening corpses of old Quiverans. Thinking it might be a birth defect at first, they go further into the city only to learn that the city of gold was build next to a Uranium deposit, actively making it radioactive and untouchable, with De Niza having turned out to kill Esteban (his guide) and the others and misled Coronado so that no one could get their hands on this “cursed gold”. Dante arrives, intending on following his greed and selling the gold regardless of who dies and after a painful QTE, he’s left behind in the city to get sealed in. Marisa and Nathan go to activate explosives right outside the city and proceed to bring down nearly the entire cavern and after fighting through more goons, Nathan brings down Guerro in another QTE before saving Chase from death and then being saved themselves by Sully before Nathan/Chase consummate their relationship and move on from the adventure.
So far, the story feels to be standard fare but I still find it to be more interesting both character and plot wise than Drake’s Fortune would be. It’s not the greatest, it’s kind of average but it still has some stuff that compelled me; the first thing that popped into my mind is the radioactive gold city, which I felt was pretty good foreshadowing on the game’s end with all the uranium mining subplot. A lot of the lore you can also find in the background with the collectibles, which unlike the other Uncharted games are actually a lot better because they give contextual clues to the actual mystery at hand if you’re looking for extra story to connect pieces together. I also enjoyed that piece of twist because it wasn’t like what the other three games in the original trilogy did, which was mainly just mixing supernatural creatures into the mix and instead providing something a bit more grounded in reality, and with a twist I didn’t expect. There’s interesting character development for Nathan too who goes from a standard “treasure hunter loot guy” to someone who actually cares about the historical finds and such which is in turn spurred on by Chase. This segways into my feelings about the supporting cast: Chase is actually pretty decent and I liked her for the most part, though it’s obvious she’s a stand-in for Elena that won’t ever be brought up again (aside from a sticky note reference in Uncharted 4) and since this is a prequel I preemptively knew that she wasn’t really gonna pop back up ever again after this game. The two main antagonists are entertaining and memorable enough, they’re not Lazarevic from Uncharted 2 or Rafe from Uncharted 4 but they’re decent for who they are: stereotypes. Guerro of course plays the dictator general who's trying to gather funds for another revolution (love the military angle though, reminds me of Uncharted: Lost Legacy with that), and he’s overall a basic dick in his goals. The other antagonist is Jason Dante, Nathan’s old buddy who is a stereotypical greedy fucker with an italian accent who wants to gold all to himself and cares only for profit. Of course, Sully is Sully so we’ll always remember him and at the end of the day he’s still going to be entertaining and the banter will be amusing. Other things that come to mind playing this is that there are two memorable gags: one involves “Cutting the ropes'' which Guerro’s men always seems to be fond of doing through most of the game and a gag that plays on Crushing Difficulty, where when you investigate Esteban’s corpse they pop out and jump scare Chase’s actress, who gives everyone shit for being in on it. I’ll post a link down there if you want to see it yourself, but overall again while it’s not the most memorable story I think it’s a lot better than people gave it for despite it’s spin-off nature and some of its plot points.
The graphics for the game looks pretty good, the backgrounds are beautiful and I feel that Bend really tried their best to hone in and make something special for this game. The models looks good, weapon sounds are great (though the Moss 12 fucking sucks to be honest) and overall it’s a package I can’t complain about. The soundtrack is pretty tight even if I swore I heard these tracks from the other earlier Uncharted games (and possibly some new ones), so the whole Uncharted atmosphere is there. Richard McGonaggle and Nolan North are back as Sully and Drake so that’s always nice, and the rest of the cast do their job portraying their characters with Jason Spisak being the outlier here are a hilariously weasel-like Jason Dante, though often times he’s a stereotype of what a Jersey Italian could even be like (he also voiced Marty in Mafia 2 and the punchable Skizzo in Days Gone, another Bend Game, if you’ve heard his voice before). Overall, not too much to complain about in this department, as always.
Final thoughts, is this game good and worth your time? I’d say yes, it is good despite some of its flaws with gameplay motion gimmicks and such, I had a lot of fun with it despite it’s frustrations in certain parts and while I felt coming into it that I was going to be miserable due to the fact I suck at playing handheld game systems without a Switch-style game dock or an actual console port, it’s actually one of the easier games to get into the series for. HOWEVER, actually getting this game nowadays will be expensive; I got my Vita for 250 or so dollars and the game itself for a whopping 50-60 dollars a couple of years ago during COVID when I learned that they were going to be shutting the PS stores for both Vita and PS3, and while that hasn’t happened yet more than likely it will at some point. If you have it in you to pay lots of money for the Vita and the game itself (don’t forget the memory cards for the Vita, which in itself is a good chunk of cash as well), it’s not a bad title and could be considered one of the best Vita exclusives along with Killzone: Mercenary (frustrations with corrupted saves aside). That being said however, I’m going to HARP on this hard: this game needs a remaster or a remake or something. I don’t care that it’s just a spin-off, media like this should be able to be experienced by as many people as possible, even if it’s just a PC release (which by the way where’s the Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection release on Steam you fucks?) or a PS Digital release (though physical copies are preferred). So the Tl;dr answer is yes, yes it is worth your time though you’ll need to sink a decent bit of money in order to be able to play this game so unless you had disposable income like I did at the time or it eventually gets ported/remade or there’s an emulator on PC where you can play this for free, good luck with that.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncharted:_Golden_Abyss
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/UnchartedGoldenAbyss
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NIWJHO-cto8 (Behind the scenes motion capture)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mLHgAEb_Vn4 (Blooper)