Uncharted 4 - The Best Story in the Series 

Underrated comment.

Im dead bro

Well you're completely wrong

@@triambtalwar1393 I think you missed that he's not serious. He specifically said "what video games have taught me." And, while I can't speak for the original commenter concretely, I somehow get the feeling that he's fully aware that working for a PMC in real life is NOTHING like how it is portrayed in video games. Just a hunch though.

@@antonyduhamel1166 I am a little touchy about uncharted so ... Thanks anyway

I also think that the end of Libertalia was much more interesting story-wise than the previous lost cities, which were all destroyed by some supernatural curse making everybody insane, whereas human greed was enough to doom Libertalia. That strange zombie-curse from the first game led to some pretty intense gameplay moments and a lot of jumpscares, but seeing Libertalia initially presented as an utopia only to slowly uncover all the clues to the madness and cruelty underneath is a whole different kind of horror.

I would've liked ghost pirates

While i disagree with the supernatural bit it really shows how taste gets people to look at things in different lights, i myself love supernatural secret stuff and how sometimes it can be pulled off very well, but i agree so much with you where its so interesting how human greed can be both the reason for a good thing's creation and destruction

I hated the supernatural stuff and was thrilled that this was just a "normal" game.

But Uncharted has to have supernatural elements. It would be like Indiana Jones without magic. I would've loved to see Amy's Uncharted 4.

I actually laughed when i got that trophy. Good to see they can make fun of themselves

You’re totally right. Rafe never needed the money. He’s already rich as hell so he just wants recognition rather than riches

I think Rafe was just jealous of Nathan’s glory

Well yeah, but that’s still a function of greed, even if it’s not monetary greed. It’s still entirely selfish.

Ikr, this game is a masterpiece, I don't care what anybody say, people just need something to complain about

amd 127 When you’re too lazy to watch a critique video so you put your useless opinion in the comments like throwing away trash 😂

Darlo I watched this video and I still think it’s a masterpiece. You are mad for absolutely no reason.

@@ka1ne669 "masterpiece." Everything you think is good is not masterpiece. God you people really sour the usage of that term.

@@Joel-ik3sz its a masterpiece in his eyes. Everyone enjoys different things. I think its a good story but has too many "what the fuck" moments to me.

Huhuhuhu

(speaking Tibetan)

Huhahuhahuha

(laughing is sinister)

This is so evil

i don’t think it’s trust in her, i think it’s bc he cuts himself off from her because he doesn’t trust himself

I think 6 years is still recent enough to point out her main issue is that Nate lied to her.

Really? When's this mentioned?

@@zephyr6927 its a joke that Joseph made in his Uncharted 3 critique. Saying that Talbot is a cyborg, because the game never explains how he dissapears or how he survives the bullet shot

@@MrCris2021 O, cool.

It's also an important point to bring up that Nate has been out of the game for a while. The lack of combat skills is understandable in my opinion.

@@jood9574 Except you can punch on with every single combatant in the game easily so why is Nadine so strong?

I don't know, I think he's kind of a loser. Lazarevic, for all his villain clichés, is very frightening. Asav seems good too.

@@dap4699 Him being a loser is kinda the point. Rafe know's he a loser, he hates it, and he's frustrated at his lack of accomplishment, and how all he has was given to him.

@@maxwhite4177 and that's my point: he's too pathetic to be taken seriously.

He literally says everything in my life had been handed to me in a silver plate 🎅🏿

@@dap4699 yea hes a real human being.

Thanks!

the witness got me here and ive spammed as many as i can handle as some are like 3 hours long

Alan George it's best to point out the wrongs in the things you love rather than blindly praise it...and I just realized what I said made no fucking sense

Alan George I don't know.... U2 was great, but I think U4 is slightly better

Clossal is Keem of course it is, but the point is we over hyped it and expected way more out of it whereas no one expected much from uncharted 2 and when it released, it just blew everyone away. No.one expected uncharted 2 to get the reception it got.

Señor Salty just beat the game last night and I thought it was pretty sick too. I think the main argument for it being bad is that it resorts to a completely different type of gameplay to make it happen, but it was definitely exciting

Señor Salty I agree dude

It's a glorified quick time event. You don't need to carefully avoid fire, you don't need to learn melee combat mechanics and tactics, you don't need to rush to Sam before he dies. All you do is block left, block right, attack.

You're right, I guess it just depends on whether you think that it being a glorified quick time event makes that part of the game bad/less exciting. This game isn't much for deep mechanics anyway, so I didn't mind the change and I thought the setpiece was cool.

@Mattchester And? As "final bosses" go, the sword fight i's consitent with the other games (as a "not really" a boss fight per se, but a story point being resolved) and by that point, I was so engrossed by the story and the visuals that my heart was pounding at every swing of the sword.

Eric Bueno he lost me when he said it’s the best uncharted game in the series!

Diamond Beau two words! Nadine Ross!

Diamond Beau what’s your argument?!

Nick Technubyte U4 has the best story, best gameplay, best graphics, and best voice acting. What more could ya need.

I agree, he was a great villain!

That's just sad you think that's a good boss fight

It was a good ending in my opinion aswell.. a gunfight would've wasted it

@@TheGunFreak94 it's their opinion, it's not sad

Diogo BP would’ve been better if the sword fight was on top of the mountain and a storm with lightning and really dark sky was going on in background

I would’ve enjoyed a giant setpiece battle with swinging over and around the burning ship and giant waves and stuff. The fencing with Rafe felt a little lackluster.

oh wow and the part at 9:35 too! that's awesome.

I would've punched that kid too.

*Expansion

Gummi The Top Babe Difference being?

+Sleeper Horsearmour is DLC. Brood War is an expansion.

I need no channel youtube! No, I meant whats the difference between an expansion and a DLC.

+Sleeper Dlc is some small almost irrelevant part of the game oftwn chopped off a finished product and sold piecemeal. Expansion is essentially a new, sometimes slightly shorter game using the same engine, and usually doesnt require the base game.

There are some actual police officers at the end of the level though, I think?

@@Avengedtenfold There are police lights but I don't think you actually fight any.

Yeah and Rafe didn’t acquire the cross legally since again it was a black market, meaning it was already stolen lol.

@@Avengedtenfold exactly

Siliuse Yeah shady people he said that already

Raven Reyes PTZ How does a story analysis video have a plot?

@no name fool still stupid claiming it

This is so Dickensian, alexa, play (sinister laugh)

Two very underrated comments.

That is even worse. Rafe and Sam wanted the same thing. They could've simply work together.

​@@leonpaelinck Rafes jealousy and dislike for Nate is pretty obvious and Sam desperately wanted to finish this adventure with Nate. Like we have no idea on how to fill gaps or holes in but it's plainly obvious if they worked together there's no mate involved and Sam wanted Nate in on it. He said that the adventure was always theirs.

faffywaffle You realize that race has nothing to do with your first language? And that Spanish people are white?

8bitdee I very much agree. It’s why I’ve always been a bit more partial to the villains like Rafe and Asav

Dinofaced Individual Asav wasn’t that great honestly, but he does have good chemistry with the other cast and the actor seems like he’s having a good time. He’s like Lazarevich 2.0, while Rafe is like Flynn 3.0 lol. In retrospect, I’m glad Alcazar was just a red herring. It made the story deeper.

I can already hear Joseph criticizing how Alcazar could just randomly show up in Libertalia, his cartel firing upon Drake and company. How would he have found them without having any of the clues Drake and Rafe had? Was Sam or Nadine or someone slipping him clues? Did he hack their phones? And more criticizing from Joseph about, as you said, Alcazar just being a one-dimensional, brutally violent and unquestionably evil and money/power hungry villain just like the past three games. Taking someone as hostage to force Drake or Rafe to find the treasure for him.

Yes! Thank you! I get so bored of 'meat-head' villains like Lazarevic. They can be fun if used perhaps in a more tongue-in-cheek way but for a game with this sort of depth in its storytelling, it needed a bad guy with a stronger motivation to pull it through and end it right.

Thanks Hamish. I couldn't watch your last one because I haven't played Witcher 3 yet. :(

+Joseph Anderson I don't mean to interject, but you absolutely have to play the Witcher 3!

Wouldn't mind seeing a video on that one, whenever you've gotten around to it. Also, going to add myself to your Patreon list. Your consistency and quality is well worth it.

Hey thanks so much! I think I got an email about that tonight. It was very generous and I really mean it when it allows me to make more videos. Especially the longer ones like this.

@@J-Dizzle95 WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?!?!

petrallen I think Nate wasn't disappointed because of the worth, but because copper isn't something interesting.

petrallen He was merely commenting on the mundane nature of spooled copper.

Like €5 per kilo!

Compared to unearthing cities lost to myth?its not boring

@@deathrowtomato2484 Euroboi alert hehe

go change youre name and profile pic so no one thinks you re a fanboy with no credibility

Paul Oniel too late

Victor Sullivan yup it's not like Tom fucking Cruise is at the age of 54 and still holding onto fucking planes midair and he's just an actor

i'd hate to play as Cassie, some prequel or something with Sam or Sully would be good using Cutter and Chole and old enemies returning would be really cool though

Having a Sully game would be cool. He's such a badass

it all comes down to ambition and how the obsession can ultimately doom you

Does no one actually watch the video?

But why couldn't he do that with Rafe?

@@leonpaelinck Rafe was a dead-end he used and when he felt that he could get the treasure without him he would rather find it with Nate. I'm sure he didn't expect the cross to take them back to the cathedral's gravesite as Rafe had dug around everywhere there for years

💀

I'm lowkey bawling over this lol 😭

oh fuck off lad, Griffith did less wrong than Rafe did

Yfr28 Yeah Graffith is a saint

Lel

Because cucking your best friends(amongst much, MUCH WORSE THINGS) is better than robbing them, right? Unless your joking.lol But I agree with OP Rafe gave the boys so many chances and then finally snapped when they wouldn't just let it be. I honestly think him and Nadine were two of the more sympathetic villains of any series.

Yfr28 - Guess I missed that scene in Uncharted 4 where Rafe sacrificed everyone he currently knew to monstrous deaths because he decided to fuck a princess and paid the price for it. Maybe that'll be in the PS5 remaster.

To be honest, we've never had Nathan have to fight someone who consistently dodges his attacks. Sometimes, enemies will dodge and then try to attack themselves, but the player dodges them and gets in their own attacks. The large mini-boss guys also hardly ever dodge, which would be difficult anyway given their size. Instead they rely on their strength and size. Even Lazareovitch doesn't dodge and is actually taken down by the exploding sap. Nathan can escape his clutches, and he can technically escape Nadine's as well. The first encounter with Nadine, I think is fine because Nathan and the player have never had to fight someone they can't get an attack in on, although it's honestly the scripted fall out the window that makes the fight hopeless. The second encounter is more of the same except Nathan realizes he has to think a little harder and use the surroundings. I think this happened in an attempt to create a better female character although I think they took it too far by making her invincible.

Experience is training. He's clearly functionally a martial artist, just his own art rather than a classical one. I mean, just think about what it means. He must have the mindset and capabilities in order to win the fights that he does. But, I have no problem with someone else in the world existing that is better than him. This would logically establish that Nadine is probably one of the best fighters in the world if the reality in the game is supposed to reflect our own in any way, but I'm fine with that.

Deschain19 From what I understand, practical experience and training are very different, and both are needed to be good at something. I think it's reasonable to believe that Nathan is not the best fistfighter in the whole universe, and for someone to beat him, they would probably have a similar amount of experience as he has, plus way more actual training. (Not to mention he was rusty af after years of scuba diving for copper, if he was *training* he would not have gotten rusty at all)

***** Generally there's a big gender gap, but there are extreme cases in both directions. Besides, Nathan's combat skills are more hyperbolic and cinematic than anything. His drawn out combat set pieces are for the excitement of the player, but as a character he's not really a skilled martial artist. This has to do with a lit of the criticism this series gets, because there's a strong disconnect between the muddy toys psychopath Nathan Drake that mows down thousands upon thousands of mindless goons and the strapping young heroic Nathan Drake who relies on his quick wit and luck to save the day. If we are talking about the first Nate, the unstoppable Nate that made it through all the respawns, of course he should crush Nadine, and any other living thing in the universe. But if we're talking about the second Nate, the one Naughty Dog wants us to know and love, it makes perfect sense he would lose to someone like Nadine. He's an undisciplined wild guy who often goes in without thinking, up against a trained killer who's worked for/ran a private army her whole life. So it really depends on how willing you are to suspend your disbelief. Honestly I think at that point, using any real life threshold for strength between genders and experience vs training is pointless.

+Kodo Elder-Groebe I feel like you're using movie logic, which I suppose is applicable in this case, since the game is quite movie-like. But in real life, even the best fighters in the world would be hard pressed to win the fights he does. Fighting against even 5 other guys your size or bigger is almost always a losing situation, regardless of your training. Fighting against even 2 other guys who aren't strangers to street fights your size or bigger is dicey, even if they have no formal training and you're a master of a martial art. His style is not clean, but by real life standards, he must be one of the best fighters in the world (probably started with talent, then he learned properly with experience) to win the fights that he does. The same way that he would have to be one of the best free climbers in the world to do the things that he does during those sequences.

That's a good point. But she also commits "atrocities" or has done in the past. This is explicitly said in the game. Kinda seems weird that she just, yaknow, gets away with it.

Senor Salty It's also explained that she's hired for these atrocities. She never just went and did them on her own, she was hired to do them. At one point in the game, one of the mercenaries is talking to a new recruit about past things that they did and you can hear him say something like, "With the money gone, there was no reason to stay," which shows Nadine is doing all these things for the money.

Rafe as a villan made no bloody sense...I mean, he is filthy rich, so frankly founding expeditions and museums would made him the epitome of museum hero...he would have a whole wing of the British Museum dedicated to him, while Nathan would pick up junk from the hudson for 5$ for hour. lol... uncharted 4 is written for children

Made perfect sense {Rafe as the villain}. He hated everything being handed to him due to heritage; he wanted to truly earn merit. He doesn't want a fucking museum cause museums don't find shit but collect shit from the actual discoverers. his expeditions were that of finding Libertalia; nothing else would suffice (that's how big that score was; immediate recognition and credibility on such a find). you missed his entire drive in the game....

1r0zz No Rafe was after the treasure to prove he was better than just another filthy rich kid who had everything handed to him. To be honest, from Rafe's perspective, this treasure meant the most to him.

most Americans can't tell

Very late I know. I thought part of the lore in the game (or the devs mouths) was that she was partially British too. Still, I do agree.

Well considering her voice actress hails from Mississippi USA, it would be understandable if it isn't a perfect South African accent.

It does make sense for a mercenary going from Continent to Continent to have a pretty fluid accent since she probably has to learn multiple languages.

voice actress did terrible job tho

I expected him to be the 'big bad' as well. He was more interesting than Rafe and Nadine.

Would've been like Narcos or something awesome like that. Imagine Indiana Jones and Pablo Escobar beating the shit out of each other; wouldn't that've been awesome?

SaberRexZealot Much more so than what we got.

Just one thing. Alcazar was from Central America. Yes, he died in South America, but he was a Central American drug dealer, a Panamanian drug lord (it's said that he met Sully one time in Japan, but that doesn't make him a japanese drug dealer, for example, just because he was doing something there with his boss). Not every latino is from South America.

He was boring and generic. Just another greedy baddie who wanted more riches. Rafe was a much better developed villain by the end of the game.

They could have had the treasure melt or burn and get ruined, and they chose between treasure or their loved ones on the boat. Basically there is nearly always a way to take a story point that doesn't make sense and make it make sense while sticking to a theme

A character doing something stupid is a dumb excuse? It's a super common tactic for establishing character.

@@yes9421 he isnt a troll, but he probably is related to one.

IDK MY NAME dude... you’re just a dick.

@IDK MY NAME says the one who did an Ad Hominem first? "You're a little sad pathetic kid who doesn't know what to do. And now you're trying to excuse it?? What a sad kid you are. "

@Rubix Cube a bit late here just stumbled across these comment again because of the pandemic going on. I don't get how people can't see it's supposed to be a stupid choice. He is rash, impulsive and a lunatic, one moment soft spoken the next he kills the guy. This establishes him as the villain and lets the hero's pretty much have a relative moral high ground throughout the story. The flaw with the observations in the video is how the guy dismisses this crucial plot point just as "something stupid", therefore in his mind it's almost as if it never happened because it was just an "oversight" from the writers and something that ideally shouldn't have happened in his opinion. And later on criticizes the game for not realising the heroes don't have the moral high ground (which they do, something he would realize if he didn't dismiss what rafe did in the prison flashback??). It's a flawed analysis of the characters as it basically traps the game and makes it impossible for it to make sense in his mind. personally I found this story got even better with time as I replayed the game recently. it found a good compromise between having complex characters and being engaging but not straying too far from the pulpy nonsense we see in popcorn adventure films like indiana jones. So obviously there are still flaws, as is pointed out in the video, but it's like the genre makes them more acceptable then if this was say like tlou

Conditions Most new game play with shooting zombies & what's left after the destruction of earth,, at least it a great old guest of story hunting that has some truth in it!!!

Why not both?

+Joseph Anderson I actually saw this video right after a wank. What a coincidence just like Talbot!

Dude, this video is long enough for at least five wanks.

Boss?

kept you waiting huh

@Raven Reyes PTZ Just like your spelling of the word "atrocious".

People in prison fight all the time though. It's reasonable to believe that Sam has gotten into fights.The beginning of the game has both Nathan and Sam fight the cartel gang members. All people in prison do is work out and fight to pass the time. Also, Nathan Drake still has the strength of a god damn chip. Look at the veins on his arms the next time you play uncharted 4. Do you really think he would unlearn DECADES of combat experience in one encounter with a would be (should be) slightly more adept individual? All he had to do was just throw his body onto hers and grab her arms. 😂

Lazarovich was a trained military fighter too. And he was hopped on on magical blue strength goo. It could have been difficult sure, but shouldn’t have been impossible

in lost legacy, nadine cant even take the bitch ass villain Asav WITH HELP from Chloe. they just wanted a strong woman to beat nate. twice.

No I agree! Too many sloppy details absolutely do ruin a story. But having your eye to the small details means you miss the big picture. Its the 'missing the forest for the trees' saying and sometimes I feel Joseph can lean more towards it.

I think it's gonna be little hard (or time effort, I don't know how to say it) in way how he doing videos. To review a W3 he will need also mention W1, W2 and Witcher saga. And by mention I mean something like he did with Uncharted trilogy video.

robert3579 and it would be a glorious modern wonder

Yes, I know. I also really hope he did it but to be honest, ~7000 pages of saga + 3 RPG games with multiple endings connected with themselfs (you can import saves from W1 to W2 and then from W2 to W3). It's little too much.

robert3579 a man can dream

He's confirmed that he's doing the Witcher (And Mass Effect).

I think your insistence that Nathan should’ve-or even **could have** - “done more” to confirm Sam’s death and that in failing to learn he was alive Nathan morally **owes** Sam- -when the two of them were doing something decidedly illegal fully aware of the risks involved, no less- -is more than a tad unreasonable. I only bring it up because not only does it comes up several, several times in the video as easily the most glaring inconsistency of the plot as if somehow not an adequate or accurate reflection of the real world (which it is, even in someplace like America), but also because I’ve just gotten to the part of the video where you actually **praise** the story and it occurs to me for the first time watching this that you may not have caught how Elena brings this up, herself, confronting Nathan about the monstrous lie: “You lied to me…for **weeks** … If you were killed, I…I wouldn’t have even **known** about it…”

Think about that. They were gone. For weeks. She thought he was in Malaysia. And they’ve been globetrotting. She’d even been pushing for him to take the Malaysia job-even **without** the permit, and that was *legit* in her mind-and he flat-out refused doing so, and they damn-well didn’t have any sort of official documentation or chronicle of their whereabouts as they go from random international location to random island and random rural town and on and on and on and on. Had something happened to him, how would **she** have been able to find out if there was no official record of where he’d been and what he was doing-because he’d been doing his totally-not-at-all-legit, engaged-in-intentional-subterfuge treasure hunting? Keep in mind: he, Sully, and Sam have to move about the world in a rat-race without their whereabouts being traced because Rafe and Shoreline have actual money and resources; it stands to reason that kind of thing is like the typical treasure-hunting modus-operandi. They’re not Indiana Jones, they’re not anthropologists or historians looking for this stuff to send to some museum for historical posterity. So it seems interesting to me. She literally and explicitly points out the very issue with Nathan’s subterfuge that very much would have put her in the very same position with her **husband** that essentially was what had led to Sam and Nathan’s 15-year split. If something had happened to him, then not only would she not have known-but how could she have even been able to **help** him? Like she’s done in all the other games? What happened to Sam was an accident. It wasn’t anyone’s fault and Nathan doesn’t owe him anything. And what Sam is doing-not only in his own lie, but even in his presumption to reunite with Nathan in this way-is emotional blackmail done intentionally (again, which you even recognize).

It is entirely and blatantly apparent this narrative moment was intentionally crafted by the storytellers, and you really sort of see it without seeing it because you observe it’s a “good” moment but seem to miss what really makes Nathan’s actions so insidious (I mean, you say it’s by-far the worst thing he’s done to her, but again, kind of gloss over it): Elena confronts him because 1) she was never going to not be involved in this game for some significant portion, whether early on or later, and 2) not only does it fit in with the story’s obvious theme, which you eloquently observe and explore in the video, but it gets glossed over your comparing this brilliant scene with feeling like Elena caught him with another woman when, well…what he’s done is SO much worse, and why that scene is so compelling, emotionally. Nathan’s betrayal of her is insidious precisely because of the fact that she’s the one person he absolutely **should** have come to and trusted with this. She absolutely **could** have understood the scenario. And it’s not a plot inconsistency about the nature of Sam’s whereabouts the last 15 years or anything, but instead a deliberate sign of Nathan’s own internalized guilt- 1) his feeling that he’d abandoned his own brother, all that remained of his first family, and most importantly, 2) his own dissatisfaction living a mundane life-life with Elena, his wife and the woman he loves-without some grandiose adventure, allowing himself to use Sam’s emotional manipulation as an excuse to both embrace what he may have seen as the last chance at one last adventure while keeping Elena from knowing how dissatisfied he’d truly felt. Most especially when **she** was the one to empathize with that dissatisfaction-which he lied about and denied to her face-pushing him to take the Malaysia Job in the first place. That’s an interwoven, narrative tapestry and not just some “happy accident” that just happens. And the thing is is that it all works-tapestries aren’t inadvertently woven, and it’s just interesting to me how it keeps coming up as an ‘inconsistency’ in your analysis: if I may offer an observation of my own for consideration-

The suspension of disbelief is a necessary mechanism for fiction of all forms and all media. You cannot get away from it. We know from the moment we open a book or press the power-button on any console that we are willing engaging in an entirely fabricated experience engineered exclusively to give us something for which we have deliberately sought: Engagement. This can come in all variety of forms, but my point is this: a lot of things observed in this specific video that you observe as either a “nit-pick” or “plot hole” (I’d prefer to say “inconsistency”) is mostly stuff that seems to me to stick out for you because you intentionally frame your analyses as critical observations of the mechanics of the game-including its narrative. So basically, you say “this doesn’t work for me” or “this could’ve worked better” because at the end of the day, you choose intentionally to withheld the suspension of your own disbelief to look exclusively at what it is that’s being done and engineered by the developers and storytellers in order to craft the narrative experience intended to make this game “engaging.” And you can’t really have it both ways, sometimes. Some of your observations are astute, but many of them kind of take you in circles where you spend 10 minutes actually making a cogent argument and nuanced observation of a complex character moment and narrative evaluation (i.e. your analyses opening Part Three)- -but then in the literal next breath, wave it off as being (your words): “It’s not bad, right? It’s not Shakespeare…[but I’d say it’s] pretty good…” A Thief’s End is going for a much more naturalistic story where there are no real villains this time around and no overarching supernatural force against which our “heroes” must fight, spurring them onwards towards adventure. It is the adventure **itself** that is the antagonizing force-man against **nature** - which you observe as the story’s theme; it is the characters - **all of them** - fighting **themselves,** in essence, and the pull of their greed and mutual obsessions. Themes and conflicts, here, may not be as weighty, extravagant, or high-stakes as The Last of Us or as melodramatic as Shakespeare, but it is infinitely **more** complex because the storytellers endeavor to have our characters struggle to look inwards and see this adventure-the landscape of their narrative domain-as a reflection of **themselves** in the struggle to not let themselves be pulled in by that overwhelming obsession. Culminating in Nathan’s abnegation of Avery’s Treasure-the “greatest” lost treasure ever known-such that he might be able to this time save his brother. The Last of Us has to use the melodrama of the zombie apocalypse to buttress the bulk of its emotional weight in order to tell a darker and heavier story. Now, this doesn’t make it a “bad” story or “worse” or “less complex,” so-to-speak, than A Thief’s End, but it may just be you have a preference for story that is less presumptuous than to endeavor telling a more ambiguous story. But that is precisely what I think you recognize in calling this story “more mature” in its endeavor to “take itself seriously” relative to all prior entries. It just seems that you undercut or undersell what it is that’s been done, here, and I think maybe because in withholding your own suspension of disbelief-in deliberately aiming to look at what the game does to further its story-you see it as maybe less complex or less profound (at least compared to TLOU) because those melodramatic or supernatural elements are more effective a mechanism for you, personally, in motivating you to play a game. Anyway, that was just my own 2¢ (and much more) I actually thoroughly enjoy your videos. Few people take the time to really dive into the structure and machinery of narrative and I admire that you put in the time to do so. And I eagerly await the long-anticipated WItcher3 video (no rush, I imagine that one’s quite the task) So best of luck, and thanks for the content 😊

As a final note to reinforce my own observation of what made A Thief’s End’s story so much more compelling a character-focused meditation and exploratory narrative: The proposed “more interesting” story you outline with Alcazar being a third-party villain and all-everything that you say yourself, that he’s a “more compelling villain” with a “monster vibe,” how Rafe could be killed off, Nadine could team up with Nathan and Sam, and how you focus on “the twist” of Sam’s lie as being seemingly no more than an “unnecessary twist” as opposed to a manifestation in the narrative space of Sam’s own obsession with greed and the need to acquire Avery’s lost treasure… …all of that is just so derivative. You say you’d have found it more interesting or would have preferred that to what was done in the end, but it really only would have been yet another thematic retread of the tropes already made familiar with the last 3 games. It’s just more of the same and no longer is there any depth to the story. You even acknowledge it’s complexity and that it’s “really good,” but it just really feels like you may still have just missed a significant layer of emotional depth to that story. Where I am in the video now (hour and 15ish), you outline all of the emotional, intimate-HUMAN-stuff going on, but the thing is that none of that works anymore if the story revolves inexorably towards the characters having to fight against the evil Alcatraz coming after them in a third-act reveal to take all the treasure for himself and murder them all. And it’s even more odd that in that vein, you find it makes Nathan’s character *weaker* that everything we’ve come to learn of him, how he grew up in an orphanage, his mother’s suicide, that she was a renowned historian: that is taking on a journal because of his mother “just doesn’t work” is just an odd observation. I mean, I certainly can’t convince to like change your mind like flipping a switch, but that’s literary quality character development. Your analysis of the story is actually quite remarkable in that sense, looking exclusive at what you observe in the narrative text without looking at the conclusions made about their affect on the story’s quality. And the thing about fiction and narrative landscapes-it’s all entirely fabricated. When you say you didn’t think it was planned how the conversation in the first game between Elena and Nathan ties neatly into the theme of this game, you’ve got it backwards-they **did** plan that. Someone writing this story, in making the decisions of what to do with the story, saw those threads and wove them intentionally into this story. Much of the literary works we might regard as “great”-especially those crafted in collaborative contexts-are largely reverse-engineered. In the scope of a single story (or installment or chapter), it starts with what you want to say **in the end** and thus working backwards: designing the destination and thus crafting the path towards its realization and revelation. As you add chapters to that story, or installments, you do the same: *what can I say in this new installment and how to connect the path from the first?* I’ve found that those not necessarily experienced either in literary academia or the writing of fiction, themselves, they do the very same thing that I’m seeing at the tail-end of this video: you’re giving a rather astute and remarkable assessment of what’s going on with the characters-demonstrated in the footage you’ve edited and woven together to show what you’ve picked up, and yet you (as well as many others) seem not to be convinced how it is entirely possible that much of this could’ve feasibly been done *with intent* by the storytellers. Now sure, it can be difficult to imagine, especially regarding a single author, and we hardly have any firsthand accounts from much of history’s considered-“greats” to confirm what they may or may not have intended to do with their works-the “classics,” but with animated features and especially video games (knowing this from much of what I’ve seen the last 2 decades from those sharing their efforts making story-heavy games and animated works), this is done much more consistently because of the nature of animated features and games-because of how every single element: every visual, every sound, every conceivable “thing” we experience, must be created and fabricated out of nothing. It’s expensive, difficult, time-intensive work that is risky and they can ill-afford wasting even a single dollar, so that work very diligently to craft what they intend to do. Just look at the behind-the-scenes work of any given Pixar film and the work done to nail down the story before they ever start animating. And that’s not exclusive to Pixar-that’s the standard for animation. And video games do largely that same level of work. And it’s become much more common in collaborative storytelling as a whole. Because when you’re working with a ton of other artists, it requires coordination, and decisions must be made. And it turns out that a lot of that stuff the audience, gamer, or reader may not be convinced was done intentionally, actually **was** done with intent. It’s actually highly unlikely, when you look at all the narrative elements **you’ve** pulled together, yourself, and that it was all just coincidentally *there* as if just an accident, and not gradually crafted over time by deliberate, diligent artists and storytellers. You do a wonderful job of looking at the machinery of narrative, again it’s **admirable** work and superlative, but I’d say, you should definitely push it even further. Dive deeper. You’re really touching on some wonderful stuff but there’s still a great deal more that you only just miss, and just barely. And it’s been really cool getting to follow your work!

There's nothing that can excuse Nadine being so 'indomitable'. It's pure bullshit on so many levels. First of all, this idea that experience in combat is much more important than size and strength, is utter nonsense. It's a factor, but size is a bigger one. If you watch any MMA matches or know anything about that sort of thing, you'd realise this. As would others, who put up the same arguments. There's very little difference in height or weight between the combatants. The media has a constant habit of making us believe that a smaller person can beat up a much bigger person, just because they may have slightly more experience in combat, but it's bullshit. So her being a woman, who is much smaller *is* a factor. She should have at least been built more like Gina Carano if she was going to pose a threat. Secondly, you say Nadine 'probably' has just as much experience. That may be true, but we know for a fact, that Nathan has been involved in a whole range of fights, including ones where he fought much bigger opponents. We were *shown* this, not just told. Which is much more important. Him being 'out of the game', holds little to no relevance, when he's still pulling off extremely intense physical feats in this very game. And trying to excuse her second fight, is just plain retarded. Even the henchmen in James Bond and Indiana Jones, who were often much bigger than the heroes, only just fought the one hero, and the hero had to fight dirty to win. Absolutely nothing can excuse puny Nadine being able to beat both Nathan and Sam. Sam on his own I could just about except, but that's it.

gilgamesh310 nah you’re just butthurt. I under the whole “weight class, men are stronger than women due to physical differences” argument, but mind you Nate and Sam weren’t just punching bags, hell in the second fight Nate even bodyslams her into the wall using his larger weight and momentum and it’s effective. I agree with OP and Joseph here, granted Nate should’ve been able to defeat her but not easily, and honestly her losing would make her lose the audience’s perception that she’s a strong capable fighter. Not saying pandering is good but sometimes the backlash can be blown out of proportion. I mean it’s the same thing with a Hulk vs Thanos, Thanos winning established him as a terrifying threat from the get go, and it’s kinda the same concept here with Nadine