Far Cry 4 - Final Thoughts

So I’ve finally finished Far Cry 4’s campaign, along with its platinum trophy. After clocking about 35 hours into the game, I think it’s fair to say I’ve gotten my money’s worth, and I’m still playing it!

Overall, the game was fun in several aspects; its main draw being that it’s a great open world First-Person Shooter. This in itself is really nothing special, but Ubisoft Montreal knows the drill when it comes to making a great open world game. We’ve seen it in Assassin’s Creed, so I’m assuming they’ve taken what they’ve learned over to the Far Cry series. They’ve also taken what they’ve learned from Far Cry 2 and 3 and fine-tuned it as best they can. I can’t speak much about Far Cry 2 and 3 since I’ve barely touched those two games, but people’s opinions seem to get increasingly better as the series progressed.

I’m completely new to this kind of game, never really playing any open world First-Person Shooter games. I guess you could say that it’s not really my type of genre because I don’t like games with such an open nature. Hell, I haven’t completed any GTA game until GTA V came along. So I guess my tastes have changed, with Far Cry 4 suiting my newfound needs very well. I think this will remain my de facto standard to the genre, until Far Cry 5 comes out.

This isn’t a bug

Being new to the genre allows me to enjoy many of the simple things this game has to offer. I’m not too big a fan of stealth, so I’d often have Ajay (the protagonist) on an elephant, charging at my foes. Throughout the beginning of the campaign, I found myself gravitating to shotguns because they allowed me to take over the map with ease. Later on, I expanded my selection to include sniper rifles for the very same reason. After finishing the game, I grew to love the LMGs as well. Basically, every gun has served its purpose and I was able to change my style of play on the fly.

Guns aside, exploration was also a key point to this game. I spent a lot of time exploring most of Kyrat because it was a fun experience. I enjoyed scaling bell towers and rock faces, as well as jumping off of them and using my wingsuit to fly—It felt very Assassin’s Creed-esque; a good thing in my books.

While Far Cry 4 is mechanically sound, there were a few odd hiccups here and there (that were fixed in a patch) but one problem still remains: the audio. For the most part, the audio is perfect and the voice acting is top notch. Troy Baker, enough said. What was really odd with the audio was at random moments, some sounds got muffled out. Things like my footsteps, reloading, and some dialogue sounded out of place. I checked my audio settings, my headset, and even tried another pair of headphones but nothing seemed to help. Oddly enough, boarding one of the in-game vehicles miraculously resolved my audio woes. Whoa, what a weird fix.

Invisible camera?

While the voice acting was top-notch, the characters fell a bit flat. The main draw was the antagonist Pagan Min, who was seen briefly throughout the game. Seriously, there was only about twenty minutes of him, with some radio chatter throughout the game. This disappointed me quite a bit, considering that I put about 35 hours into the game. Other characters, like Amita and Sabal, didn’t have much depth as I would have liked. Minor characters like Yogi and Reggie brought some great comedy, but there were only four missions with them. I yearned for more.

Needless to say, the game ends up being more about the ride then the destination. I forgive the lack of character depth, and it’s not like I was expecting an open world BioShock, but I wanted more. More character depth, more comedy, more Pagan Min. Maybe a Far Cry 4-2? I’m not a fan of DLC to be honest but I may bite if it’s good enough.