iLLGamer Tathagata has been taking Far Cry 4 to his heart, and is exploring the Himalayan fallen paradise inch by inch. Besides all that firing and Kyrati adventure, he is also maintaining a diary revisiting the key events of the day. You can read some of his previous pages to step into his shoes. In case you want to keep off the spoilers of Far Cry 4, you can consider to play the game before you start following his journey.
Read Day 1 Chronicle: http://www.illgaming.in/2014/11/india-se-kyrat-far-cry-4-diary/
Day 2: Survival of the Fittest
I woke up with a headache, didn’t realise how the day’s going to be like until I stepped on yet another red alert. I had disobeyed Sabal to help Amita out finding out more about enemy intel, leaving the lives of 9 helpless Golden Path mates to the murderous rampage of the Royal Army. Sabal, completely pissed off with me, wanted to teach me the ways of the Golden Path, the very ideals that my father, Mohan Ghale, forged into the minds of the extremists. So I drove to a secluded monastery, aiming to find Raju, the next Kyratian I was supposed to team up with. I was chasing the wind at a speed of 120 kmph downhill when a giant enemy truck went past me. The mission marker said, chase the royal vehicle and shut it down before it reaches its destination. Fighting through down slopes and Himalayan trees blocking my way, I raced to end this, once and for all. The enemy vehicle called out for help and from behind the bushes came out 5-6 armed guards. I was about to ram through them, when suddenly an eagle dived from out of nowhere and made my job easier on this broken paradise. I went ballistic, throwing grenades at the sides of the truck and driving to ram it off the cliff. In the next second, the truck came narrowing close and like gravity, all it needed was a push. Off it went through the ridges, crashing underneath, killing the driver instantly. I drove it back to a nearby camp and got myself some XP and handsome cash, besides a good stack of Karma. Well, that settled my Himalayan breakfast, and a very good morning to you too, Rabi Ray Rana.
Reaching the Chal Jama monastery, I was stopped by a Sadhu baba, one of those half clad sages that decorate Hindu temples in India, smoking his chillum (pot) away. Entering the monastery I found peace everywhere, from the incense sticks that were lit up in every corner, to the sound of the Tibetian Mani bells resonating in the chambers. Raju took me through the Karma session, every incense stick lit, every Mani bell spun, and every stranger saved adds up to your Karma he said. But peace is a mere intermission between wars, and so came charging the royal army into the monastery. They were rigging bombs and ramming the idols to show Pagan Min’s stern indifference towards gods and thousand years of faith. Running around trying to stab anyone trying to destroy an idol, I had to make way to the top of the monastery to stop a chopper dropping enemies in a chain. Flipping my AK-47 for a grenade launcher I dispelled the threat with a bang in the air, I saw the chopper drop like an eagle from the sky, burning like a phoenix. Making way from the monastery, I quickly headed for the next rampage that was in store, it seems that a guy called Longinus needed my help.
Longinus is an African origin priest doing his bit to revamp the stature of the fallen kingdom. He immediately casts this Dennis (Far Cry 3) reboot impression on me. At Kyrat, nothing is what it seems to be, and not even a straight line is a perfect one eighty degrees. Longinus is a priest who knows his Bible by heart, recites it to reassure himself, calls him the lord’s yardstick, and his way to his maker is not by peace, it’s by war, absolute war. He makes you believe that you fight fire with fire, that fire is the absolute way of baptising the fallen. I won’t be surprised if this character was spurred from Samuel L. Jackson’s famous lines from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. And Longinus sends you backpacking on your first ever visit to the Himalayas, the snow capped, visibility hindered, mountain tops that contrasts the lush Kyrat. On his saying, I as Ajay Ghale, went up scouting for guns from my enemy. Using my grapple hook and limited oxygen mask (that needs a refill every now and then) I had to traverse this challenging new area and use it to my benefit. At first I was being hunted, by enemies in thick fur coats, snow eagles and leopards, but then I fit right in. Using the avalanches and thin ice soil both above and below, I created more havoc than my enemy could embrace. Dashing through the snow in a motor propeller, I found my way inside a cave, where the drop was resting, and as expected, there was a beast waiting for me within it. A seven feet tall, furry and bulky bear that had a minion snow leopard charging at me in turns. Killing them off with a shotgun that I picked up from a dead enemy, I found the enemy fun supplies to be nothing but a small box of nothing. I rushed towards the Sherpa waiting for me at the foothills to take me back to Longinus, I was disheartened, like seriously dude?! Longinus opened the box and showed me why it was an important excursion, it was stacked with jewels, and that helped Sabal and Amita open their own ammo garage.
At the Chal Jama garage, there was a heated conversation going on. One of Pagan’s Kyrat Tea lockups was serving as poppy farms for his thriving drug business. Amita wanted me to sneak in, grab their drug and bring it back to her so that we can sell it off, Kyrat being a natural resource deprived nation. Sabal on the other hand wanted me to burn the place down so that the smoke sends out a big message to the Pagan day dreaming in his royal palace. The choice was obvious; Make it Bun ‘Dem! (If you didn’t get this one, then you missed a great deal in Far Cry 3) Setting the poppy fields and stacks ablaze with my flamethrower, I finished this mammoth task with a single Recurve Bow and a couple of molotovs. The enemies went down faster than their hounds, and using their machine guns against them, I went from being a calm Ajay Ghale to a mad Jason Brody.
Coming back to Tirtha, one of Pagan Min’s most coveted townships in Kyrat, I met a fellow who was being tortured by a Royal Guard. Sneaking behind him, I stabbed the guy and earned myself some Karma points. The sun was about to set, there was an evening cloud engulfing the Kyratian sky, as I heard jackals and wolves howling away to announce their time of the day. Jumping into a car, I chased the drowning sun as fast as I could, ramming a poor mountain goat in the midway and deducting some Karma off the charts. The wheel spun off control, as my car crashed yet again, down a waterfall, got out of the car and found a strange cave inviting me to unravel its history.
Do you remember Hurk, the mad American on Rook island, yes, the one who called Citra a MILF (Malaysian I’d Like to Fuck)? Well guess what, he’s back! And he’s going to stick to you like a monkey, while you will be his banana. The dude’s got it all mixed up whom is he fighting for, but when it comes to lending a hand (Co-Op Mode), he will punish anyone who dares steal his banana, or french fries. If you have the Preorder Limited Edition of Far Cry 4 like me, you will enjoy special Hurk missions meant to give you 2-3 hours of more carnage. Anyways, he sends me back to the snow capped Himalayas again, this time through a glacier, searching for an old monkey relic, that descended from the monkey god. Hurk’s mission gives you an opportunity to showcase the gunman that you are, while at the same time taming the terrain and making the most out of it. You swim through an icy lake to reach the final area, done fantastically like the Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag underwater missions, minus the sharks.
After beating Hurk’s mission, it was time for me to come down, towards the plains and explore more Kyrati stories. Upon my arrival, I discovered an old hut and a guy called Gopal sent out a proposal to aid his truck loaded with Golden Path ammunitions while it was being driven through one of the enemy outposts. The driver suggested me to pick up the short range grenade launcher (that became my second favourite weapon in Far Cry 4, after the Recurve Bow). As he drove the truck down the canopy slopes, enemies poured in from the forests and in cars, and with the grenade launcher I simply wrecked carnage at the heart of Kyrat. Shooting at a car to launch it off the mountains, shooting at a group of brawlers to blow them into pieces, the Truck Assist mission is by far the best side mission in Far Cry 4 if you love dirty action just like me.
As I was spending my Krati Rupees at an outpost, I realized that I needed a better holster to at least equip all of my favourite guns, into each slot: A Grenade Launcher (sidearm), the Recurve, the Warrior (a special weapon), and my hunter like SA-50 Sniper. For that I needed to hunt and skin at least three Honey Badgers. And I already hated them. If there’s something that you should worry about in Kyrat, it is the fact that even the tiniest of enemies put up a heroic fight. The Honey Badgers are a little bigger than full grown rats, but they do tons of damage if they charge you. Far Cry 3’s Komodo Dragons just got replaced by these mini predators. As I was down to the last drop of health while killing the last Honey Badger, I looked around as I could easily hear a hissing sound. Thank god I healed enough with a bandage, otherwise the slithering snake would have killed me right there. After biting me, it slid inside the forest, in Kyrat you don’t get to breathe.
For a long time I saw a Y icon hover on my map, didn’t care to check what it was, until now. I wanted some more of that side story action, as Longinus and Hurk completely won me over as sidies, unlike Dennis and Dr. Earnhardt in FC3. So I followed the map, wait for it, on an elephant, shooting at enemies from atop like a hero right off the Mahabharata, and reached the marked spot. It was Ajay’s ancestral house, the burnt down house of the people’s champ and national enemy number one – Mohan Ghale, father of Ajay. Opening the door, I was startled by two hipster hippies – Yogi and Reggie. The two have come down from the states like Ajay, and have been granted the permission to stay, because of Min’s benevolent regime, yeah that! (this I read from the character info, you should do, it’s got some of the best writing mocking the dictator’s controlled freedom of speech) After hearing their side of the story, Ajay obviously had to ask them to fuck off. And that was a bad idea! The next moment he got drugged by the two and woke up in…. The Shanath Arena.
The Shanath Arena is the highlight of Kyrat, and is one of the reasons why Far Cry 4 gets my nod ahead of Far Cry 3. The challenge arena is controlled by the Vice Lord of Pagan – Noore Najjar, the hottest woman you’ll meet in Kyrat. She is adamant, strong, and cares a lot about the people who serve her. As a token of gratitude and as an entertainment sequence for her people, she pits fallen Golden Path warriors inside an arena, battling it out against each other, against the toughest of carnivores (like tigers, leopards, wolves), round after round. After this story sequence you can actually participate in the Shanath challenges to unlock rewards. But the beauty of Shanath is its jump scare moments, breathtaking gunfire and gorgeous audience support. It keeps drawing me closer to it. In rounds of 5, you need to survive against waves of enemies (as they become fiercer after each round). The franchise takes a unique dip into the age long horde mode, existing in mostly every major release. Every time you gun down an enemy, the crowd cheers your name, as Noore announces your feat through a loudspeaker; every time you stab kill someone, the audience just cannot contain. They even throw ammo crates, medikits and bet on you all the way. The Gladiator Fights at Shanath are better while experiencing, but here is how I survived my trial by fire:
In sweat and blood, I conquered the trial and achieved a standing ovation from the crowd assembled, as I started taking my road back towards those two backbiters. On the way Rabi Ray Rana appeared. My rage at the two was temporarily dispelled by his sense of conviction and cheap humour. Rabi claims his assistant Chhotu has been farting all this time and denying it, even though there are just two people in the whole of Radio Free Kyrat, and the answer’s pretty evident. Completing his cheap talk, Rabi plays an outright Punjabi tune that reeks of Sohniye, Balle Balle and Mundiya. Rash driving to the Bhangra track, I break through the door of the Ghale Homestead. The two are, as expected, smoking pot and chilling out.
On the verge of being killed by Ajay’s rage, they calm him down with yet another interesting plot in the story. They claim that the guru they idolised once went to a mythical place called Shangri La, and the journey changed him forever. Ajay gets triggered by this offer, and off he goes searching for that strange looking door hidden somewhere in Kyrat that unlocks Shangri La. Far Cry 4 adds to the in game challenges by introducing a new kind of enemy that you must dutifully be wary of: the Hunter. The Hunters are specialized Kyrati ninjas who call sense your presence even if you are hiding, and often call wild animals to assist them. And one more thing, they snipe poison arrows at you, so yeah. After beating them, you come across the door and jump, leap, grapple across to reach the real Shangri La. Spoken in pure Hindi dialect, in layman’s terms the Shangri La is a melee challenge map in a psychedelic backdrop. The story goes that of a Kyratian Guru called Kalinag who dared venture into the Shangri La, whose stories would excite him as a child. His father told him how the great bells of Shangri La would dispel all the evil on God’s abode – Paradise. Unfortunately, the Paradise was lost due to a mythological war between the Rakshasas and the King of the Jungle, the Majestic White Tiger. Ghale relives Kalinag’s chronicles as he aids the tiger and defeats the Rakshasas within the Shangri La to ring the First Bell of justice. Be ready to be blown away by Hindi liners, flower garlands and heavy drum rolls that often stir up a typical Indian festivity. The level champions anything Far Cry ever created to trip the gamer out of his jeans, it outruns the previous Mushroom trips from Far Cry 3.
Each time you visit Shangri La, you unlock a piece of its story. Assuming there are many more Shangri La trips to come in the near future, I return to the Ghale residence and setting an alarm for the next day, I return to bed. I have survived a whole fuckin’ day!
Read Day 3 Chronicle: http://www.illgaming.in/2014/11/india-se-kyrat-far-cry-4-diary-day-3/
