Buying Advice: New to the Far Cry Series

Hey y'all,

Considering the mixed reviews this is getting, my question is whether I should be buying this, Far Cry 3, or 4?

I enjoy this kind of game and I'm looking for a new shooter - but I haven't played FC3 or 4. Should I take this as my opportunity to jump into a more refined FC5, or jump on the discounts available to get FC3 or 4 instead?

Any advice is appreciated,

Thanks

I never beat it but i enjoyed far cry 3 a whole lot.

If you're playing on PC, I don't think you can go wrong with either or Blood Dragon. Blood Dragon is pretty cool, it's lower commitment and probably gives you a good idea if you want more FC when you're done with it. If you're on current gen consoles, well, your option's narrowed down for you.

Take a look at clips of Vaas (FC3), Pagan (PC4) and Blood Dragon's aesthetics and decide what you like best.

Far Cry 1 is one of those games that I like to go back to every once in a while just to remind myself of where the series came from. It's a bitch to install if you have the 5 CD version and no PC that runs a 32-bit version of Windows, but Steam is a thing and I'd say that the game itself is still playable despite it being from an older generation of shooters. The Crysis series was kinda born from Far Cry 1.

Far Cry 2 is considered the black sheep of the series because of it's approach to realism. Weapons can jam up on you at the worst possible moments. Your character having malaria and occasionally needing to get more medicine is another common annoyance I've seen. And the respawning guard posts really got on people's nerves. I personally can muscle though its faults and can enjoy how, at best, unique, at worst, niche it is compared to the rest of the series.

Far Cry 3 is the watershed moment for the series that's pretty much the foundation for what Far Cry is these days. Vaas is the quintessential villain of the series which to me makes Pagan in Far Cry 4 just a "me to" character by comparison. And playing the game during the summer last year, that game still feels pretty modern. I'm sure that people could argue whether or not the additions of skill trees and crafting either add to the immersion or slow things down in terms of gameplay, and also that playing as a douchebag rich kid trying to save his asshole friends and family is compelling or not, but I'll say that Far Cry 3 is in my top ten for favorite shooters alongside Deus Ex Human Revolution.

Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon is pretty rad. It goes in hard with the 80's neon grid aesthetic with some metahumor here and there, both of which are pretty cool. Definitely worth checking out for some hokey fun.

And, because I haven't played them, I don't have much to say about Far Cry 4 and Primal outside of their respective Quick Looks. Far Cry 4 is like 3 give or take some story beats and gameplay features, and Primal is your per-historic/paleolithic Far Cry Cave Man game. These two are on my back-burner.

3 is by far the best game. Blood Dragon is pretty good too, but it's sort of it's own thing, and probably not the best introduction the series. People like to hate on Primal, but I quite liked it. Although it is a poor mans Horizon. 4 is totally forgettable. Seriously, Steam says I have 30 hours played and the only thing I remember about it is what the main villain looks like. 5 is, well... I bet in about a years time I'll barely remember any of it either.

I'd definitely go for one of the past games—they hold up perfectly well, and even the people enjoying FC5 haven't (for the most part, from what I've heard) been holding it up as better than 3/4 by any significant margin.

Personally, I would suggest Farcry 4 as being the one to pick. The story is slightly better than 3, and the gameplay is full of minor but (imo) out-and-out improvements. I also far preferred playing as its main character. Both 3 and 4 are still worth playing, though, and the differences are minor, so if you feel like you'd prefer the setting of one over the other then go for that one.

Instead of playing Far Cry 1, play Crysis. It's the same game, but better, and still fucking gorgeous in some ways 11 years later.

Far Cry 2 is an interesting if failed experiment in how to do a first person open world shooter when no one else was doing that. Also still a looker in some ways! You decide if you want to play a game that's more interesting than fun.

Far Cry 3 is a really good game that came out before the Ubisoft Open World Formula had really run its course. Play this one.

Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon is far and away the best one of the bunch. If you're only going to play one of these, make it this one.

Far Cry 4 is 3 again, but slightly better mechanically. At least from what I understand, I bounced off of this game real hard a few years ago. So hard, in fact, that Primal and 5 just made me turn my nose up and say "no thanks, I've had enough of this series".

Bonus: Track down a copy of Instincts for the 360 and see what you think of that. I remember liking the Xbox Original version but that was ages ago and it might not have aged well at all.

EDIT: To make things clearer - play Blood Dragon, and if you like what you've played, then play either 3 or 4. If you're going to play 3, do it on a PC or an Xbox One - the PS3 and 360 versions of that game have frame rates that bothered even people who don't normally say anything about frame rates.

if you get blood dragon, don't get it from steam. I had major issues with it and and never really got to play much of it, it may have been fixed by now but i would just get them from uplay as you have to run their store either way.

They're all good. I got into the franchise with Far Cry 3, which is awesome but kind of stumbles in the second half. Specifically (but not too specifically because I don't want to ruin anything for you), the game's best villain is predominantly in the first half. You'll miss his banter when you get to the second island.

Far Cry: Blood Dragon is only six or so hours long (it was a DLC stand-alone mini-expansion thingy) and is incredibly insane, 80s action movie, neon madness. It's marvelous.

Far Cry 4 refined a lot of the systems in Far Cry 3 and was a hoot. Honestly, the only two criticisms I can throw at that thing are: A. Not enough Pagan Min (the main villain) and B. The best assault rifle in the game involves either hours of the fighting arena or playing a mobile game on your smart phone on and off for six hours as you go about your day. I did the app because the arena was kind of tedious. Technically, you could take a stock assault rifle and modify it to be almost as good as the best unique assault rifle... but eh. Did the app. :-P

Far Cry Primal is enjoyable too, but it's a caveman game and if you're looking for guns... this isn't it. Instead, you have spears, bows, clubs, and pet sabretooth tigers. I liked it, but you might not if you're more into shooting than poking and bashing. It also re-used the first half of Far Cry 4's world as a template to build its own, which irked some people (it's different enough that you probably won't notice... unless you play it immediately after Far Cry 4, and then you'll crest some hills going "hm"). Oh, it experimented with non-linear storytelling... which was good and bad. The game was very free-form in how you approached all its challenges, which was nice, but the lack of structure kind of impeded the story build-up you might expect over the course of the game.

As for Far Cry 5, the mixed reviews tend to revolve around the story and politics. If you're looking for very refined gameplay systems and great absurdist fun that has garnered 9 out of 10 reviews from multiple critics, you'll find it. If you're looking for a political thesis on the nature of isolationism and conservative America... you're not going to find it, and you might wind up as disappointed as the peeps giving this game 6 out of 10 stars. I personally side with the 9 out of 10 peeps... but I've played the past four entries to this franchise and liked each one, so I'm a biased fan of sorts.

Oh, and all of the above save Blood Dragon have major tonal whiplashes. If you jump in, get ready for very dark and disturbing imagery followed by childishly playful humor and tongue-in-cheek side-quests. I think they have different writing teams doing the side-quests and main quests, with the side-quest peeps being told to let loose and have a grand ol' time while the main quest team get strapped down and shown graphic war crime documentaries and snuff films. *shrug*

Edit addition: I might jump into Far Cry: Blood Dragon first and see if you like it. If it floats your boat, you'll know where you stand on playing the others. Also, it's a much shorter commitment since the others all have much larger open worlds.

Personally, I'd go with 4. Far Cry 3 has the best villain in Vaas, but the rest of the characters are absolutely insufferable and make you immediately want to put the TV on mute. FC 4's Pagan Min is almost as good as Vaas and you get about 150% less obnoxious millennialism from the rest of the characters, so I think it wins out.

I have not enjoyed my time with Far Cry 5 thus far. The AI is sort of broken, it's buggy as fuck, and the plot is more full of holes than swiss cheese. The prior games were very video game-y stories you could just ignore on your way to shooting stuff, but in 5 the story is actually distracting in its badness.

That's what makes 3 so great though. Sure, they're insufferable, but they're memorable. Who's the main character and his buddies in 4 ? (tbh, I actually don't remember, so I might be wrong about them being bland). But looking at 5 you play as Deputy Blanderson, and your buddies are Bow Girl, Fly Boy, Soldier Lady etc etc (although, the pets are sorta great) and you work for Old Sheriff, Bunker guys and Bartender.