Finished the northern sector and now working the lower west sector. Love all the open world parts, the companions are interesting and actually useful and their back and forth conversations can be fun. Really enjoy the choice of weapons, though the fact that I can’t seem to kill a wild animal with the bow (I can shoot a deer 3 times and it still runs away) has made me drop that for a different weapon (and I used a bow almost exclusively i in FC4.)
However I HATE HATE HATE HATE the forced capture/escape arcade grinds. They don’t make sense in terms of the perspective of the game, they don’t progress the story in any meaningful way, and they are pure drudgery and frustration. I find myself wanting to shut the game down when I get pulled into one. Who thought these were a good idea? And why???
It’s interesting to compare the cut scenes in this and Mafia 3, which I just finished. In this game the cut scenes are super heavy handed and over the top every single time. They take the artistically lazy way and have the characters lock eyes with you or have their face inches away. This is a beginner’s trick to force an “in your face” perspective and it’s way over used here, like every cut scene. The cinematic director in Far Cry 5 didn’t know what they were doing, it’s amatuer hour stuff. Now the mo cap performances were good, they were just given a terrible script and way over the top. And you can’t skip any of the cut scenes! Just terrible all around.
Contrast this with Mafia 3. More varied tone from celebratory to dour, exciting to sad. The main character did a decent job, but the Irish boss and particularly the priest had some great performances. And you can pause or skip every cut scene, even though I suspect the Mafia 3 team worked way harder on them.
We have been balancing linear, non interactive narrative and interactive gameplay narrative for years. Sometimes studios do a good job about this and sometimes they don’t. But we’ll always have gameplay.
Oh, I think it’s certainly possible, perhaps even probably, that there 's a ton of ham handedness here. But I also think that some of this bizarre stuff is on purpose, a sort of art school cinema experiment gone awry.
The guy responsible for this fiasco, who should never work in the industry again, is named Jean Sebastian Decant. Here is an marketing piece written by MS about it:
I really am enjoying the gameplay in the open gameplay areas. But I just got my second “you’re being hunted” message while clearing out the southwest section (finished the north first) and I shut down. I know I now will have the drudgery of the forced capture/frantic set piece I have to get through before I get back to the game.
So much good in this game, offset by a terrible, terrible design decision with these forced capture/arcade grind pieces.
Once, I got that “you are being hunted” message and a never-ending stream of ATV-riding yahoos came, one after the other, rolling down the hillside at me. I got tired of killing them all eventually and just let them take me.
As there are Steam sales going on right now for all of the Far Cry games, I need advice. I played 1, 2, and 5. If I enjoyed 5, would I still enjoy 3, 4, or Primal or are there advances in 5 that cleared up annoying parts of the others?
People who enjoyed FC5 seem to have enjoyed it because of the graphics, location and NPC banter.
FC3 and FC4 are completely solo affairs. FC:Primal adds an animal companion. FC3 has a wingsuit, but no flight. FC4 has a wingsuit and small, weaponless gyro copters. No flight in Primal.
But, really, you’ve somehow managed to play the worst of the FC series. FC3, 4, and Primal are each fantastic games, each far, far better than FC5. FC4 is better than FC3. Primal is the best, but you should probably like idea of being a caveman with bows and spears.
I really liked Primal. It changes the game formula drastically not to have automatic firearms. For one, stealth has a real benefit in Primal. This makes the game more stressful and intense, which fits with the game narrative of being a tribe hunted to near extinction.
Animals are more of a threat and more important for resource gathering.
Having a base and a tribe you can upgrade is new, although I don’t think the game is especially strong in this area. It does give you a tangible benefit to rescuing other survivors from your tribe though.
All in all Primal is a very different experience than the other Far Cry games. I think they did it a disservice making it a Far Cry games in some way because of the expectations people automatically had for it because of the franchise.
I’ll second the Primal suggestion. I’m not as sold that FC3 and 4 are very similar, and if you like yourself as the action star and tire of having to round up the right help for each job, those are a fun way to go.
But Primal is almost a completely different game style, using FC control and map progression system. It’s worth checking out someone playing it on YouTube so you can see what we’re talking about.
All three you asked about use a material gathering before upgrading approach that you’ll see some people commenting about. It is what it is, you’ll need something to upgrade and those upgrades all come from collectibles you find around the map. They also all use a waypoint/tower/fire system for marking things as “under your control” and able to use for fast travel.
BTW, when someone say FC4 is an entirely solo experience, that does not mean it is not Co-op friendly. I had a blast playing FC4 co-op with a good friend; in fact, that was my favorite aspect of the game. Loved trying to take a fortress that was high on the hard scale with him, and it was a blast flying the little ultralight buzzer chopper with him on back trying to put grenades on convoys down below.
Um - I’m getting close to the end of the John Seed section, so I called up Nick. Only problem: He’s on foot! I unassigned him, then reassigned him - he’s still on foot! How do I get him back in his plane???
