At one point Seed looks into your face and tells you: “YOU caused this, this is your fault.”
Hm. Maybe. Kinda. I could have walked away and not played the game I bought but I did. And thereby caused a lot of mayhem and TEOTW. Which was what I was after, I’ll admit.
But then, you Mr. Seed are a vile torturing cult leader who cut his own swath of blood through the county before I showed up. Besides, those Bison weren’t going to punch themselves to death. And your taste in music sucks. So it was never going to play out differently.
Heh. I just killed off Pagan Min (a much more entertaining villain, IMO) in FC 4, a game I put off for a long time. I think 4 is much better than 5 in nearly every respect, except for the UI and basic game engine stuff. I will say Montana is better than Kyrat in general world design, but because it’s so much more “normal” I found it a tad less interesting after juxtaposing it with 4. But the way the 4 interleaves humor with the carnage, has the Sabal vs. Amita thing, and all the epistolary narratives that tie together, it is just a better and more complex game world IMO. Five has the best gun play and general shooter stuff of the series, by far, but the story, narrative structure, and general level of engagement for me was less than in four.
I mean, the Seeds are just horrible. Pagan Min is like Queer Eye gone really, really, bad.
Agreed, I think we just played them in a different order. FC4 looks good, but it was clearly held back by being co-developed with the 360 version. FC5 looks awesome, but it took away my freedom way too many times to let it be my favorite FC. FC4 had a better villain and dynamics between your allies, but FC5’s specialists were so much fun to have around. I listened to Hurk and Sharky banter for well over an hour.
Pretty much. The companions in 5 are pure gold, as is the physical world around you, and the gunplay. As much as I appreciate what I still think was a serious attempt at some sort of meaningful if aggressively payer unfriendly narrative complexity (or trickery, if you will), I have to agree that 5 ended up robbing the player of way too much freedom. The nadir of it, for me, was when you did the whole “would you kindly…” thing on the resistance group who befriended you. Not only did you lose any choice, you were manipulated by the game into doing something that pretty much (along with the brainwashing stuff in general) put you forever outside the pale. Of course, with the world getting axed in the end, it didn’t matter, but that’s another way the game sort of gives you the middle finger. I like this from an academic point of view, but as a player, it’s really annoying.
Pagan Min, on the other hand, is one of the best video game villains ever. And when the game hits you with The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?,” it’s a hoot. I really also liked how the music shifted to the vocals when you’re on your final assault to take out Min; it’s really evocative and well done. And, yes, you get to bust a cap in his fancy-coiffed head at the end.
He’s the most interesting, for sure. Best? I’d give that title to the poor little girl they wanted to turn into a goddess. Everyone else is kind of an asshole.
Okay, just finished this. Oh, that’s why some people were complaining about the ending.
Enjoyed the game. Hated the cutscene triggers. It’s not the ending I wanted, but I’m not sure I hated it. It certainly wasn’t the ending I expected, which is unique.
I think I’m with TheWombat on this one. Which means I guess I need to go back and play FC4, which I bailed on after a few hours. (What about FC3?)
I found FC4 very entertaining, the second time around. Like you, I bounced off of it hard the first time, but this time I really got into the mix of gameplay. It’s certainly not blindingly original or innovative, but I do think FC4 has a great mix of elements that fit together better well more often than not.
FC3, well, I put a lot more time into that originally than I did FC4, but at this point I’m not sure I want to revisit it. The storyline was utterly unengaging, the set piece encounters were more rote puzzle memorization than good action sequences IMO, and a lot of the game got repetitive even faster than it does in most FarCry games.
I’ll be the odd person out here and say I enjoyed FC5 more than FC4 (and I really liked most of FC4.) I just finished FC5 this morning, and I have to admit I didn’t see that ending coming. I can understand why the writers decided to end it like that, probably seemed pretty profound and clever to them. (Which reminds me of the movie producer in one of the side missions who talked about his previous life as a Far Cry writer and how terrible it was! ;) )
Hated the forced set pieces, especially the timed shootout obstacle course. But I very much enjoyed the open world exploration, finding some little point of interest tucked away in a non-obvious location, the side kicks, the guns, and I very much enjoyed the co-op play. Some of the prepper stash challenges were pretty good, challenging without being unfair hard. The overall flow was good, the ability to freely go anywhere and choose what to do pretty much at any time: Want to do a little bit of exploring in Faith’s region, then go explore Jacob’s region? Whatever you prefer. I didn’t run into cases of unfair surprise attacks by the wild animals; if you were paying close attention there was almost always some warning first. I liked the way the perks system worked too.
I read the RPS criticism. I wasn’t expecting Witcher 3 in terms of the story. This is a Far Cry. It’s never been about a serious, deep narrative. Far Cry stories are always a relatively shallow affair that serves to provide a background for some enjoyable open world play. Other than the ending, I was fine with the overall story,
I think that’s the problem. They’re almost all terrible stories badly told, but they think they have something important to say about predestination, choice, and player agency. FC3, FC4, and now FC5 try so hard to be profound, but end up tripping over their own narratives while trying to support the open world mechanics.
I agree they are not terribly successful at some of the things they try to do; I think the medium is ill-suited for what they want, at least in this genre. I would be a tad more generous though in acknowledging their efforts. I’ve said before I think the attempt in FC 5 to make a statement (at least, it seems that’s what they are doing) while not totally successful is actually interesting and IMO a worthwhile failure.
The damn set pieces, inescapable cut scenes, and crap like that though can just DIAF.
If you played a female Rook, the ending leads to an interesting dilemma. If you and Seed are the only survivors in your bunker, do you Adam and Eve it and try to restart the human race, even though he’s vile and nuts and a murderer?
If you’re a male Rook, it’s easier. Play along until he releases your bonds, then kill the futhermucker in his sleep and kiss humanity goodbye.
That’s probably the only logical solution for female Rook too. Restarting humanity with inbred spawn of Joseph Seed probably isn’t going to have better results than the last go-around.
Well, Montana may be glassed, but who knows about the rest of the world? I suspect there are plenty humans running around in places far from nuclear detonation sites, and even with the fallout and nuclear winter, the chances of humanity vanishing are pretty much nil. How good that existence might be for, oh, a few centuries is another story.
Hey, after that ending, I continued the game and me and Grace and Hurk are gleefully searching the countryside in a chopper, tracking down the remnants of the cult and taking them out, as well as any shrines. Montana looks just fine, so I can only assume that after killing Joseph we were all hit with the Bliss and suffered a delusion.
Still playing with my brother in Co-op. He’s in the north and the forced timed combat obstacle course is MUCH easier for him with me with him. I knew what was coming with the last one, and it was fun to hear him when he realized he’d killed Eli.
We’re having a blast with each of us flying a combat chopper across the world, clearing cult sites from the air, with each of us in our chopper hitting them from both sides. Plus it’s just cool canvasing the game world from our choppers. Need to have flight of the valkeries playing while the two of us swoop in and attack from above!
I just had the perverse pleasure of playing the ending with my brother in co-op (I’d already finished the game.) It let me play side by side with him through the entire mission. When he finally had Joseph down and on his knees and getting arrested, he had this big sigh of relief.
Then the mushroom clouds. A “WTF?” over my headset from him. Then the hectic race to the bunker. Oddly it still had me with him on the mission, chasing him on an ATV. Then when he crashes, I’m back in his point of view. He says “Where’s the bad guy?” then when he sees him, he says “Just like the beginning of the game - I’m even upside down.”
After the end of the finishing scene, I was laughing at his “What? WHAT??? THAT’S REALLY IT???”
I told him go play Mafia 3 now for a MUCH better ending…
