I really hated parts of this one. It has Sully and the characters are charming and interact with each other in fun ways, but it isn't enough to carry the story. There are a lot of annoyances here, and a lot of it comes from the fact that it is clearer in this game than any other game that the set pieces drive the narrative. I know Naughty Dog talked about this so it isn't a secret, but it at least worked in the other games. Here it makes the story borderline nonsensical at time.
"Hey that one thing we're looking for that we needed to break into the bad guys hideout to find a clue for? It happens to be in the exact same room, in some artifact that the bad guys really should've searched at some point because they were looking for the exact same thing"
"Hey you know how Nathan Drake gets blown off a ship in the middle of a storm? He's going to land at exactly the place he needs to go to because we don't want to write an extra scene"
"Hey you know how Drake is wandering lost in one of the biggest deserts in the entire world? Lets have him stumble upon exactly the place the bad guys are at when he's on the verge of death looking for water"
There are like six different miracles in this game that were lazily put in because the writers couldn't think of how to link the story to the set pieces. The set pieces were really good, don't get me wrong, and fighting in a crashing cargo plane or sinking ship gives those fun "OH WOW" moments that made Uncharted 2 an instant classic. Those are the only things that make the story interesting though, and the game relies way too much on the spectacle.
There were other issues as well. I feel like the game is really setting up some sort of consequences for the series of bad decisions that Drake makes in the game, but they weren't brave enough to pull the trigger here. Like the whole game is people going "Drake why are you pursuing this treasure something BAD will happen it will be YOUR FAULT and you will have to deal with it" but then...nothing happens. I mean Drake gets dropped in a desert sure and Sully gets captured, but by the end there are absolutely no consequences for his actions and everyone walks away happy and healthy.
Them reusing Drake and Elena breaking up also gets old here, because the same trick was used in the second game and I don't see any real reason for Elena to take him back by the end. There is no evidence Drake has learned his lesson (other than the fact he doesn't chase after his ring which is literally sinking in quicksand) and I don't really care they got back together because they got back together once before and it clearly didn't take.
The villains are underdeveloped, the writing feels lazy, the plot feels too convenient, it kind of feels like a rehash of a better, more interesting story in the second game...there are a ton of issues here. This should be lower, but I did really like some of those big action scenes and they helped keep me a bit more interested in the story even if the actual written plot was really dumb.
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Moops? "I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."