Being honest, this game had sat on my pile of games for three weeks now after picking it up just one week after it released. Despite the fact I loved Uncharted 4 and truly adored playing the Uncharted for the very first time with the Nathan Drake Collection, there was just something about this spin-off that failed to entice me to instantly install and play. Not really sure why that was, perhaps it was the fact it was originally planned as DLC before being made a standalone spin off close to full game price or maybe it was just the fact that it would be the first Uncharted outing without Nathan Drake as the lead hero. Whatever my subconscious reasoning was, I finally fired the game up this past weekend and happily I can report, not only did it blow my mind with how good it actually was but it also never made me wonder why Nathan was not in the game. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is indeed a treasure worthy of discovery.

Now I never had any doubts about the choice to have Chloe Frazer as the main character, I really liked her presence in Uncharted 2 and 3, serving as both a love interest and a superb character for Nathan to bounce off. Chloe is a strong female character, a thief and treasure hunter and more than a match for Nathan in terms of skill, knowledge and sharp wits. Voiced by the excellent Claudia Black, Chloe Frazer is the perfect character to focus a potential spin off series on and The Lost Legacy if nothing else, is truly a great test run to see how the fan-base of Uncharted or possible new fans would take to having the series come very close to the Lara Croft of Tomb Raider more than ever before.

So where do we find Chloe in The Lost Legacy? Well unsurprisingly, we find Chloe up to no good and causing mischief in her homeland of India, keeping tabs on some mercenary soldiers in an Indian marketplace in a city overrun with soldiers. Her goal in this opening section is to track down a Disc currently in the possession of a nasty piece of work called Asav. Of course the ultimate goal for Chloe is a rare ancient artefact called ‘The Tusk of Ganesh’ and naturally it is all for profit but Chloe is wise enough to know that this is not a one woman job and has hired the services of Nadine Ross, world renowned mercenary and fan of punching the Drake brothers in the face multiple times. With the collapse of Shoreline, her company of soldiers for hire, Nadine is looking to rebuild and reclaim her former position which will require money. So the unlikely partnership of a treasure hunter and soldier for hire is born and the adventure begins.

So if you have played Uncharted 4 then you are going to recognise some very familiar game mechanics at work here in Lost Legacy. Combat blends both fisticuffs and gunplay with the same tag team fighting style for Chloe and Nadine that Nathan and Sam Drake used in Uncharted 4 which means that in a fight, the AI controlled Nadine will offer assistance if the enemy get to close especially when in a fist fight. Gunplay works the same way with Chloe being able to tag enemies and Nadine will also take out enemies as well though this is something I will come back to a little later on in terms of the partner AI quality.

Stealth is also back with the ability to take cover and to hide in tall grass to allow both Chloe and Nadine to move around a location and take enemies out without alerting others but with the nice touch that if you take out an enemy in a way that will leave their body in open view, other enemies can spot the body and be alerted to something going on. The problem for me is that should you fail or just break from stealth and the enemy does become fully alerted to your presence then all hell will break loose and all the enemy will come searching for you, which can be rather annoying to be in a fire fight with multiple soldiers only for one cheeky shotgun wielding git to get the drop on you. Gunplay is fun with different weapons plus Chloe’s ability to pick locks allowing her to loot enemy weapon crates to find some very powerful guns indeed when needed.

Vehicle use also returns in some very nice set-pieces when the action really ramps up towards the finale to the game. The middle chapter in the story also features Chloe and Nadine using a jeep to explore a region reusing the winch to tear down doors mechanic from Uncharted 4 with the highlight being the in car conversations between Nadine and Chloe as they just shoot the breeze between stops and they do have some very witty dialogue exchanges throughout the game and not just in the car sequences but overall you really get the sense just from their chats that both women are on equal terms even if their ultimate desires for the Tusk sometimes do not align.

The story is great fun and players get to learn more about the past of both characters but especially Chloe who has a very similar upbringing to Lara Croft, albeit without the money and titles. Chloe constantly refers back to her own father, a treasure hunter in his own right which cost Chloe her childhood with his own obsession to find the Tusk of Ganesh costing him his life and forcing her and her mother to flee to Australia, something which Chloe tries to dismiss but it clearly still has a hold on her emotionally. The greatest strength for me is in the voice acting here, Claudia Black delivers an outstanding performance as Chloe bringing so many sides to her character to the surface so that if indeed she is to become the new main character for an Uncharted spin off, something that the Lost Legacy completely sets up by the way, it would not be a horrible thing. The writing and story telling is so well handled for this mini spin off that at no time did it feel strange to not be in control of Nathan Drake and nor did I dare say, miss Nathan.

Visually I would even say that Lost Legacy is slightly better looking than Uncharted 4, with some obvious refinements to the lighting engine that make the locations found in the game simply stunning to experience. I literally found myself stopping just to take in all the imagery of each new location it was that beautiful to see on my TV that making use of the Photo Mode became second nature. The design of each location is spot on for puzzle solving which can be head scratching to begin with but most of the puzzles simply require a little bit of time and common sense to solve without being a complete walk in the park. Complimented by a beautiful soundtrack and audio effects, just everything so far showcases how effortlessly the team up of Chloe and Nadine could transfer into their own fully fledged out series going forward.

But it certainly has some niggles such as the partner AI which at times is just ridiculous and even game breaking at moments. When in stealth and Chloe in a nice hiding spot, the partner AI will often just start moving about to find a spot near you even if it means being in complete view of the enemy. In the section where you are using the jeep to explore, when approaching a location full of enemies and leaving the jeep in a secure spot, as soon as I got into a good cover spot as Chloe I would come to hear the guards spotting the jeep because Nadine had decided to drive it to a new location right in the view of the enemy raising the alarm and triggering a fire fight then and there. In the later stages of the game this almost become comical as my AI partner would literally creep alongside an enemy soldier at times without the enemy spotting it but to literally have your AI controlled partner just going off and running about is funny but very annoying when it blows your cover.

Next is the length which from starting menu to very end of the credits played on Moderate difficulty came in at 7hrs 30 minutes. This length is not criminal by any means but it does bring me back to my original hesitation about this being a stand alone release instead of the originally planned just DLC for Uncharted 4.  Now there is some replay value with trying to find all the collectibles and higher difficulties and it also has all the MP modes from Uncharted 4 including the Survival mode, but for the asking price of £30, what there is of The Lost Legacy probably doesn’t make it acceptable at that price point for me unless you enjoyed the UC4 MP modes.

I thoroughly enjoyed Uncharted: The Lost Legacy far more than I had expected too and do kind of wish I had broken the seal on the box and played it sooner. The story is spot on with some terrific moments with the voice cast just phenomenal which is to be expected from Naughty Dog and their choice of actors. The gameplay has much of what made me fall in love with this gaming series to begin with but also does the extra mile to make sure it is not just a copy and paste or reskinned version of Nathan Drake in action. Chloe is an outstanding main hero and very well complimented by Nadine that as I said above, they could easily be the focus of a full blown game and a true spin off series which I hope Naughty Dog follow up with once they have finished that little unknown game ‘The Last of Us Two’.

I am sure the world has plenty of ancient treasures to find and enemies to defeat and right now, I cannot think of two better heroes to go on that adventure than Chloe and Nadine.

On several occasions now Telltale Games have crossed into personal passions of mine such as Game of Thrones and Tales from the Borderlands. But DC is my first nerd passion outside of video games and the first season of Batman: A Telltale Series truly surprised me with a genuine and refreshing new take on the Batman Universe and found it captivating and immersive throughout with the only real disappointment coming from how Telltale themselves almost buried the final episode in the hype for the start of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier just one week after Batman ended. But now Season 2 has launched and we are already on Episode 2 following the opening episode that for me, is perhaps their best work since A Wolf Among Us. The stakes have never been bigger for Batman but now the series is looking to bring in the real heavy hitting Rogues Gallery as the world of Bruce Wayne has never been more conflicted.

*Spoiler Warnings from both first Season and Episode 1 in this review*

I actually came to this second season very late and by late I mean 2 days before Episode 2 released so everything is still very fresh in my mind going into “The Pact”. A quick run down of my time with Episode 1 and I have to say I was more than impressed with how Telltale have handled this second season so far. Getting to import my choices from the first season so that this story, set one year after the events of season 1, meant I could continue from where I left off and I made some pretty dark choices which had a huge impact on my experience with this Telltale take on the Batman universe. For starters, Alfred is showing the PTSD from the torture he suffered from Lady Arkham and the loss of his left eye which now has him wearing an eye patch. The efforts I made to build a strong relationship with Jim Gordon meant I came into this new season with the relationship stronger than ever having earned his and the GCPD’s trust in the past year.

I also loved the continued twist in their versions of classic Bat characters with the dark but move to make Riddler a far more credible physical threat whilst maintaining his obsessive need to prove his genius and making him one of the first costumed super villains in Gotham City was simply a delightful change to his character. The addition of Amanda Waller also added a new type of threat to Batman and the climatic twist at the end of Episode 1 only served to show the impact her presence now has in Batman’s world. That very fact that again the focus is not just on Batman but very much the deliberate inclusion of Bruce Wayne and the player’s path to juggle both sides to him with decisions that impact both Bruce and Batman almost equally putting more emphasis on player choice to determine how the story unfolds.

So as I go into Episode 2 Batman’s relationship with now Commissioner Gordon is strained and close to breaking, Alfred is clearly suffering the trauma of his experiences which is only getting worse through his concern for Bruce. Amanda Waller has revealed she knows Batman’s true identity leaving Bruce vulnerable and almost at her mercy and the Riddler is dead, killed by a mysterious figure and the reality that he was not working alone and the tragic loss of Lucious Fox, the main responsible for all the Bat Tech Bruce uses and one of his longest friends supporter lead to the resurface of John Doe, the mysterious inmate at Arkham Asylum who helped Bruce escape but now giving Bruce a way into the criminal world but as Bruce Wayne.

I really do not want to spoil if anything about the story being told in this second season too much as experiencing it first hand is the best way. But Episode 2 “The Pact” is as strong as the first episode. I am really getting the sensation that the choices I am making are indeed influencing the story and shaping it around those choices, which is not something I have felt in other Telltale Game series of late such as Guardians of the Galaxy and The Walking Dead. The world of Batman really has brought out everything I have come to love and enjoy about the Telltale way of telling a story for the player. There is also the reality that not every choice is a good one, sometimes the choices the player is forced to make at times can be the lesser of two evils or just damage controlling a situation’s outcome to help either Bruce Wayne or Batman going forward. It is in that duality that lies the strength of this second season, much like the first where the player is made to manage both sides to Bruce’s life and with consequences for both that can impact each other and everyone around him just as much.

I also felt as though I was moving the story forward which again, in more recent Telltale Games is something I have not felt other than picking a particular set of cut-scenes to play instead of taking the story in a different direction. Dialogue with each character does have an effect on their relationship to Bruce and the top left corner warning that you have changed that relationship instantly makes you start to second guess the dialogue options. Not to mention that each player choice in how Bruce reacts to a situation or person as either himself or as Batman constantly keeps you in the moment with dialogue response options teasing what their result will be. As DC fan my intimate knowledge of the Batverse makes me try to take options and decisions based on what I feel “Batman” would do but then coming to the moment where this Bruce Wayne is not the one I have in my mind at all, and therefore how I feel he should react must change because he is not dealing with the Amanda Waller or Jim Gordon that I know from say Batman: The Animated Series or comic books. Telltale has wisely changed the villains like Riddler so that they perform in a new and different way than expected especially for players with a deep knowledge of DC Comics.

Take Harley Quinn for example, introduced for the very first time in this episode and again Telltale have put their own spin on her for this series. Harley is still brutal and deadly but instead of being the loved up sidekick for Joker, she is very much her own criminal presence with the very devious role reversal with John Doe who is very much on his way to becoming Joker but here he is desperate to win her affection and admiration. This is absolutely captivating to me as a DC Fan who is very much used to having the traditional relationship of Joker and Harley there but now intrigued to see Harley in charge with John “Soon to be Joker” Doe working hard to impress her. As the player trying to make decisions to help Bruce work his way into their world in order to exploit the friendship with John Doe in order to work his way into their gang in order to discover what their ulterior motives are only to have it quickly turn against him as the world of Bruce Wayne comes crashing into what the Pact of criminals are really after forcing Bruce and the player, to make decisions that risk Bruce’s world and bringing him dangerously close to breaking his own code in order to infiltrate deeper which then brings him face to face with the other members of the Pact where he must gain their approval and trust which is no easy task when you consider that the other members of this criminal pact are Mr Freeze and Bane.

Batman himself does have a part to play and the first meeting of Batman and Bane is rather thrilling thanks to how Telltale have used the QTE mini game sequences for fight scenes and they work so well unlike say in Guardians of the Galaxy where such sequences feel flat for the most part. I love how you the player are often given a choice of how to deal with a thug such as do you go for a nice punch to the face or using a gadget to take them out making each encounter more fun to gain that “I’m Batman’ feeling. But perhaps the most rewarding side of being Batman is the continued inclusion of detective work, putting clues together in the Batcave and analysing character profiles via the Batcomputer Codex. Batman is not just about his gadgets or punching badguys in the face but often the detective side to him gets lost in that mix. With the story rooted in Bruce Wayne as himself with the two masks he wears as both Batman and the Billionaire Playboy Bruce Wayne, the player gets to determine how the man himself reacts to situations, choosing which mask will get the best result needed to protect the city no matter the sacrifice he has to make himself.

The power in Episode 2 is that it keeps the pace of the story telling quick enough to keep players on their toes without dropping the ball or putting too much on the player so that have to remember every single decision made leading into the next episode. Some choices do have me wanting to go back and replay the episode to see how the different outcomes would change the story which is yet another aspect other Telltale Games of late have not made me want to do. The new spins on classic Batman characters is rewarding as a DC Comicbooks and Batman fan with none of them going too far in the changes to make them alien but different enough to make them fun to experience in this story. I said of the first season that outside of the Arkham series, this is perhaps the purest Batman experience you can have in a video game right now and this second season continues to both impress me on multiple levels as well as delivering a superb Batman game experience.

Episode 2 is a strong chapter and if you have yet to pick this up there really is no better time as Episode 3 looks to dial up the experience to a full 11/10 setting. I cannot sing the praises of Telltale Games enough with how they are handling the Batman license from DC and so far in just two episodes, this season is already the best work Telltale have done in 2017.