Just a few of the issues I had with this game (mainly going over the big ones here):
1) Very boring setting: One of the strong points of the series for me was that it took you to exotic locals, like Tropical Islands in Farcry 3 and The Himalayas in Far Cry 4. Instead, this game takes one of defining aspects of the series and throws it out the window, landing us in buttfuck nowhere in the middle of Kansas. Couldn't have chosen a more boring setting if they tried. The map seems one-note too, with just endless forest stretching out in every direction and an uninspired color palette. And while the mountain region was cool, it doesn't stand up to the verticality there was in Farcry 4.
2) Sub-par villains and Story, at least compared to prior games. Far Cry 3 and 4 didn't have stories to write home about, but at least the villains and some of the plot lines were fairly interesting. Here tho, there's four of them, and they all feel one dimensional, and they use the "evil church cult" trope. You get kidnapped like 13 or so times during the course of the game, and it feels pretty obtrusive to be honest. Joseph Seed just doesn't do it for me, and the monologues, just compare them to Vaas and Min's to see what I'm talking about. And if the grim/darkness of the story feels at odds with moment to moment to FarCry gameplay. And, that ending. Ugh, that was horrible.
3) Silent Protagonist. Why? There's literally no point of having silent player characters, aside from JRPG's or some shit. Actually having your character to speak here and there, and be called by their actual name and not just "deputy" goes a long way. In Both Far Cry 3 and 4 your character had a personal motive to do what they did. Here it's just "Hey random, use your superhuman skills to kill this screwed-up cult single-handedly, k bye". It just feels like there's a disconnect here.
4) Hunting Animals is totally sidelined. In past games, hunting animals was useful for expanding your inventory space and such, while you just trade it in for some cash (which you can find everywhere abundantly anyways, so there's just no point in doing it anymore). Also, there's no animation for collecting the animal hide anymore.
5) Lack of Downtime. Holy shit, can I please get three seconds without getting 40 enemy vehicles and a dozen bomber planes on my tail, PLEASE. And when its not that, it's a couple of Bears or Cougars. I feel like the devs were afraid that they would lose the player's attention and would get bored. Especially egregious when it happens while you're talking to an NPC. I guess I'll add the fact here that your ammo doesn't reset after you die in a mission (when you spawn again you are at the ammo amount when you died), which is annoying.
6) Generally Unpolished with a lot of bugs. Not much to say here, the game was quite buggy for me when I played, with some hilarious ones, but with some infuriating ones as well. A lot of the time, the "Death from Above" perk wouldn't work for me, when it worked reliably in past games (its where you can jump on enemy from above to melee kill them). Also, the quest with one of the boss fights (the one in the planes) bugged out for me for a while. Once it was just permanent night, and I had to reboot to fix the day-night cycle. Far Cry 3 did have some bugs when I played it, but it didn't turn out like this. And Far Cry 4 felt fairly polished.
Also, stealth seems way less viable in this game, and certain smaller things I liked from FC4, such as kicking barrels, jumping from car to car or riding animals.
Now, it's not all doom and gloom, there are some things I think the game does right. Namely, the removal of towers, and how the map discovery works (either by just encountering them during normal play, or by reading magazines and such that reveals locations of points of interest). The companion system is also superb, and should most definitely make its way to next game. Co-op is well implemented. Prepper stashes were pretty neat, and shooting feels a bit better here. Graphics are absolutely superb and some of the best this gen. It's still a fun game, the sandbox mayhem the series is known for is still obviously there.
However, it's especially disappointing for me, given that both FarCry 3 and FarCry 4 were my game of the year the years they came out in (granted both of those years in gaming were sorta weak, but still), and this one I heavily anticipated, but it take a some big steps backwards in my opinion.
I would like to hear people's thoughts. Additionally, given what my stance here is, would New Dawn be a worthwhile purchase for me, or does it fall into similar trappings?
1) Very boring setting: One of the strong points of the series for me was that it took you to exotic locals, like Tropical Islands in Farcry 3 and The Himalayas in Far Cry 4. Instead, this game takes one of defining aspects of the series and throws it out the window, landing us in buttfuck nowhere in the middle of Kansas. Couldn't have chosen a more boring setting if they tried. The map seems one-note too, with just endless forest stretching out in every direction and an uninspired color palette. And while the mountain region was cool, it doesn't stand up to the verticality there was in Farcry 4.
2) Sub-par villains and Story, at least compared to prior games. Far Cry 3 and 4 didn't have stories to write home about, but at least the villains and some of the plot lines were fairly interesting. Here tho, there's four of them, and they all feel one dimensional, and they use the "evil church cult" trope. You get kidnapped like 13 or so times during the course of the game, and it feels pretty obtrusive to be honest. Joseph Seed just doesn't do it for me, and the monologues, just compare them to Vaas and Min's to see what I'm talking about. And if the grim/darkness of the story feels at odds with moment to moment to FarCry gameplay. And, that ending. Ugh, that was horrible.
3) Silent Protagonist. Why? There's literally no point of having silent player characters, aside from JRPG's or some shit. Actually having your character to speak here and there, and be called by their actual name and not just "deputy" goes a long way. In Both Far Cry 3 and 4 your character had a personal motive to do what they did. Here it's just "Hey random, use your superhuman skills to kill this screwed-up cult single-handedly, k bye". It just feels like there's a disconnect here.
4) Hunting Animals is totally sidelined. In past games, hunting animals was useful for expanding your inventory space and such, while you just trade it in for some cash (which you can find everywhere abundantly anyways, so there's just no point in doing it anymore). Also, there's no animation for collecting the animal hide anymore.
5) Lack of Downtime. Holy shit, can I please get three seconds without getting 40 enemy vehicles and a dozen bomber planes on my tail, PLEASE. And when its not that, it's a couple of Bears or Cougars. I feel like the devs were afraid that they would lose the player's attention and would get bored. Especially egregious when it happens while you're talking to an NPC. I guess I'll add the fact here that your ammo doesn't reset after you die in a mission (when you spawn again you are at the ammo amount when you died), which is annoying.
6) Generally Unpolished with a lot of bugs. Not much to say here, the game was quite buggy for me when I played, with some hilarious ones, but with some infuriating ones as well. A lot of the time, the "Death from Above" perk wouldn't work for me, when it worked reliably in past games (its where you can jump on enemy from above to melee kill them). Also, the quest with one of the boss fights (the one in the planes) bugged out for me for a while. Once it was just permanent night, and I had to reboot to fix the day-night cycle. Far Cry 3 did have some bugs when I played it, but it didn't turn out like this. And Far Cry 4 felt fairly polished.
Also, stealth seems way less viable in this game, and certain smaller things I liked from FC4, such as kicking barrels, jumping from car to car or riding animals.
Now, it's not all doom and gloom, there are some things I think the game does right. Namely, the removal of towers, and how the map discovery works (either by just encountering them during normal play, or by reading magazines and such that reveals locations of points of interest). The companion system is also superb, and should most definitely make its way to next game. Co-op is well implemented. Prepper stashes were pretty neat, and shooting feels a bit better here. Graphics are absolutely superb and some of the best this gen. It's still a fun game, the sandbox mayhem the series is known for is still obviously there.
However, it's especially disappointing for me, given that both FarCry 3 and FarCry 4 were my game of the year the years they came out in (granted both of those years in gaming were sorta weak, but still), and this one I heavily anticipated, but it take a some big steps backwards in my opinion.
I would like to hear people's thoughts. Additionally, given what my stance here is, would New Dawn be a worthwhile purchase for me, or does it fall into similar trappings?
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