Or India Se Kyrat: A Far Cry 4 Diary: Day 7

Once in a while, a game comes along that gets the iLL Staff so hyped, we write spoilerific diaries of our playthroughs. And more than one of us wants to do the review. Such is the case with far Cry 4 and both Tathagata Ray (TR) and Chirantan Raut (CR) are pitching in to give our final verdict, each with his own unique perspective, though they may concur on some aspects. Read on to find out if it was worth the hype.

The Story of Far Cry 4

TR:
The return of the prodigal son to his motherland, what could have gone wrong in this severely Bollywoodish, Masala script? Well, the rhythm of the game. Far Cry 4 is huge, from the time you discover you can shoot to the time you are carrying each of the Special class weaponry, you get used to the Kyratian world so well that you completely forget that it’s just a game. Remembering how sidies like Citra and Dennis were so impactful in Far Cry 3, Far Cry 4 feels a little rushed in terms of the script as some of the plots are heavily predictable or strangely unbalanced, like the guys at Ubi aren’t following up with their QnA sheets. A franchise like Far Cry rides on his anti heroes, Jackal from Africa, Vaas Montenegro from Rook Islands are sheer masterstrokes. The very basic problem with Far Cry 4 is the fact that Pagan shows up way too late, and even so, he is stripped to a bare necessity in the game. There was a lot of potential in the Hong Kong born Pagan, voiced by the legend of Troy Baker, but all seem to have been wasted, even The Clash song. And just when you develop a love for a character, the makers of Far Cry 4 seem to tap him/her out – Noore Najjar, Yuma. All that you settle down for, in that case, is the gameplay.

CR:
Far cry 4 has an interesting core story that has enough pull to make you want to see it through to it’s conclusion. It nods to many recent cultural phenomena like selfies, right from the introductory sequence itself. The main objective that drives your character, Ajay Ghale, though seems rather weak as a motivator. Scattering the ashes of one’s dead mother is hardly incentive enough to wreak rampant mayhem in a rather small country and depose its ruler. Which is why the game’s story missions must be commended for keeping things interesting.

When it comes to the Story Characters though, it’s really hard to find a genuine good guy in Kyrat, who isn’t also a deranged lunatic. By the end of the game, even Ajay doesn’t quite qualify as a good guy, especially if you reflect back on all your actions so far. Some characters have rather interesting quirks to their persona, while others feel a bit forced. As the game says, Kyrat brings out the worst in people.

The Gameplay of Far Cry 4

TR:
The engine of the game, righteously called DUNIA (means “world” in Hindi) is pretty top notch; it glorifies a lot of key elements and gameplay changes: like vertical prowess (riding Buzzers and gliding) and gives the gamer fuel to explore. It distracts the gamer to forget the fact that he/she is in a main mission at the moment. Moreover, the need to craft, which is elementary to the Far Cry series since FC3, comes out brilliantly with the brand new lively engine. Open world activities are pretty dynamic, and so are some of the most wonderfully laid out surprise moments from the game. For example, you may be in a tapir territory hunting benevolent anteaters, but a tiger might have just picked up your trail and is off to finish you. Adding elephants and rhinos to the brand new sandbox causes much mayhem than ever imagined. Riding elephants to liberate outposts is as memorable as distracting rhinos and inciting them to charge into enemy territories.

The Karma events add to the engine’s versatility and you can save hostages, take charge of Royal cargos, take down Royal couriers or participate in liberating or re-liberating the outposts with your fellow Golden Path boys. All this is non-scripted and happens literally any time during the day. And while these events aren’t taking place, you get a chance to fight the real threat of Kyrat – the Black Eagle, a sinister like prowler that makes it so dangerous to kill time staring at Kyrat in FC4.

CR:
Far Cry 4 seems to pick up where Far Cry 3 left off. It has a lot of common gameplay elements like crafting syringes, hunting and skinning animals and loot with funny descriptions. It adds verticality to the already chaotic recipe, though you’re not quite free to climb any mountain you see. The Himalayan foothills of Kyrat and the snowy peaks of the Himalayas make for an interesting and picturesque setting, albeit a very wild, harsh and dangerous one. The Game world is alive and dynamic, and it refuses to let you have more than a few moments of peace. One must take solace in the utter chaos and massive destruction one can unleash in this sandbox.

One can drive any vehicle by simply entering it with a long button press, or commandeering it if there are occupants. The annoying part comes when you try to exit the same vehicle as you need the same long button press to do so, something that loses you precious time in a race or when being attacked by enemies, human and animal. Weapon switching is rather slow and can lose you many firefights. The constant distractions the world throws at you can start to feel repetitive and tedious. Eagles have a knack for attacking at the most inopportune time and they are a hard target to kill unless you spot them launching their attack.

One should make it a point to read the inventory descriptions and character bios from Pagan Min’s Guide to Kyrat as these are a source of quite a few chuckles. The landscape is littered with loot chests and other collectibles and there are a lot of wandering traders to turn in your loot and restock on ammo. You can also buy some signature weapons and maps to collectible locations. Money in Kyrat comes by easily, so you will rarely be strapped for cash.

The Himalayas introduce the mechanic of having a limited oxygen supply for survival and force you to prolong your time by scavenging for more oxygen tanks. But, even though you gather climbing equipment early on in the game, you can only climb atop certain rock faces. To go to the Himalayas, you need a Sherpa to guide you. Far Cry 4 also features the most destructive animal you can ride, the Elephant. These mighty beasts can let you hunt the dangerous predators like Tigers and Bears with ease and  take down outposts without breaking a sweat. This makes them quite overpowered in the early game.

Enemy, Ally and Animal AI in Far Cry 4

TR:
The enemy AI has been improved a lot since the time you would easily chain takedown 5 thugs on Rook Island. This time around, enemies change cover a lot more, absorb additional hits (like the heavy thugs) and combine a lot to give you an extra bit of luck while fending off the hallmarks of Royal Army. The Heavy Machine Gunners and Flamethrowers make every challenge worth taking. However, you would bring freedom to Kyrat with just these pawns standing your way. Enter the wildlife to the crossfire, as you, from time to time, face rabid dogs, honey badgers, Tibetan wolves and Himalayan brown bears, in the middle of a fight. Destroying the animals with a grenade might look easier, but their skin definitely doesn’t count as solid raw materials in that case. The Ally AI is a little weird initially, as I barely used any Guns for Hire Tokens because the mercenaries were literally of no use.

Some of the dialogues that are used by the allies and enemies were getting rehashed, not to mention, the Hindi accent was spot on. You will get to hear some of the most insane North Indian curse words being thrown around by the Kyrati folks. And then there are some insanely wrong “Hello Ajay, miss me?” moments coming out of elderly women of Kyrat. Or some of those young dudes draped in Golden Path shirts calling out to you as “Ajay beta”, Beta means son in Hindi FYI. Every time you liberate an outpost some fool would definitely repeat his lines inside a safe house, as you go to sleep and even when you wake up.

Combatwise, the addition of Hunters, a new breed of enemies, who call animals to help and can seek out your presence by sheer instinct give you a challenge like no other in the series.

CR:
Enemies come in various types which  increase in difficulty as you foray deeper into Kyrat. The animals become deadlier too. The AI drivers however are the deadliest as they can drive in the most unpredictable ways. Auto drive is just as bad. One can however spot interesting things such as Eagles flying off with smaller animals and then dropping them to their deaths or other predators hunting the herbivores.

Side Quests in Far Cry 4

TR:
Some of the predominant side quests from Far Cry 3 return in Far Cry 4, like the Eye for an Eye assassinations, wherein you need to kill a target with a particular weapon and need to click a photo of him dead to erase the slate. Some of the Hunting quests have been expanded, thanks to the diverse world and wildlife in FC4, with Control and Hunting missions laid out separately. Every time you liberate an outpost, you discover more and more side activities. This time around, the side quests are lengthier and more diverse than before, all making way to a great Co Op session with a friend or a randomer. Salsa Sharma is one of the craziest women you will meet in your entire life, and with her side quest unlocked, you can drive anywhere in Kyrat for her Kyrati Film moments. Races vary from speed based to the ones in which you are supposed to change cars, to survival chases. Mr. Chiffon, the once coveted genius in Min’s chamber, is now an anti-Paganite, who will assign Ajay special rare animals to hunt. Hunting them unlocks the elite class of every holster and bag. The Yogi missions were an extension of the Mushroom experience from FC3 while the Shangri La missions looked interesting (and mythology based) but didn’t lead or conclude any part of the story telling.

CR:
Kyrat is designed to keep you distracted and playing far Cry 4, without making any real progress towards the main quest line. While the game world throws a lot of random events at you such as animals to hunt or just hostile predators or some pesky Royal army soldiers, you also need to follow the Tower and Outpost liberation formula to have a relatively easy time in the game world. Towers are well crafted vertical puzzles that make it interesting to attempt the climb. Outposts let you replay taking them with the Outpost mastery Side quests, with bonus points for doing so without raising the alarm. Fortresses are tougher outposts and are more easily taken with the help of a co-op partner. Every liberated outpost or fortress will task you with a sidequest to either free some hostages or Assassinate some enemies or race against time to deliver some supplies to the Golden Path, who are your buddies in Kyrat.

The Arena in Shanath is another distraction where you can try to survive in Far Cry’s version of the Horde mode. Besides these the game world has some collectibles like Mani Wheels, lost letters, pages from Mohan Ghale’s (the character’s father) Journal, Propaganda posters and Masks of Yalung from the victims of a serial killer in Kyrat, besides the plentiful loot chests. Some of these are tricky to reach and the masks can be a royal pain to destroy as the prompt to interact with them would need one to move into just the right position as in old-school point and click adventures. You are also tasked with destroying Propaganda centres to free the airwaves by Rabi Ray Rana of Radio Free Kyrat, though, it may not necessarily be a change for the better as his chatter is equally annoying after the first few times you hear it.

Glitches in Far Cry 4

TR:
The biggest drawback of Far Cry 4 is the server connectivity, the reason why I stopped connecting to an online experience, to bring in a friend. And there were tons of times when the connectivity would interrupt and you would be returned to the main menu, without any autosaves. The contextual button would be jarred at times like the guns from FC2, and it would take your entire might to mash open a car. The GPS was severely bugged at times, and it would continuously hide my waypoint or drive me somewhere else. Even though I loved the dynamic events from the open world of Kyrat, some of the areas, especially around the Kyrat International Airport, was bugged with repetitions of the same Karma events. A Royal Convoy, succeeded by a Royal Courier, would aim to interrupt your game, in turns, eternally. Texture pop-ins and frame rate drops would occur seldom, and the Himalayan peace of mind would be stirred with technical difficulties. The gunplay while driving wasn’t definitely a clean experience, and every time you’d hit the reverse gear the POV would stray from the track. Even though Rabi Ray Rana is a fantastic character out of Far Cry 4, a Nepali Cara Delavigne (GTA V citation), his dialogues and shows get repeated and in time lose the humour. I mean I wouldn’t pay a thousand dollars to hear the Tatti story over and over again.

CR:
Far Cry 4 had a messy launch on PC and there were quite a few bugs in the game. There are certain areas where you can get stuck, causing you to teleport to the nearest waypoint to continue play. The biggest annoyance that indians might notice is the broken rendering of Devanagari fonts on the game world’s textures, an issue that was also present in the last Splinter Cell. The voice acting is also inconsistent with half the cast pronouncing Ajay’s name wrong, including the voice of Ajay himself. The music in the game is also a mix of tracks from all over India like Gujarati or South Indian numbers rather than a focused selection of music one might hear in the Himalayan foothills. All of this tends to break the immersion and dilutes the authenticity of the setting. the guards also hurl some choice Hindi expletives at you, but fail to deliver them with the emotional force required, which dampens their impact.

The prompts for interacting with ingame objects sometimes wrongly appear and you can end up accidentally entering a vehicle instead of looting the dead guard underneath it. This issue is more pronounced with the propaganda posters and the Masks of Yalung. The game can also fail to save sometimes needing you to redo a mission.

Graphics, UI and Music in Far Cry 4

TR:
Playing Far Cry 4 on the PS4 actually took me off my daily routine, quite effortlessly, thanks to the in-game immersive events compelled by top notch graphical display. The Camera Lens flare as you stare at the mountain range, the dirt assembling on the windscreen of your car as you ram down the ridges, are hands down gorgeous. The mythical Sher of Shangri La is perhaps the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen in a Far Cry game.

While the developers wanted to give Far Cry 4 a more stylish aspect, trimming down the health bar to a strip at the bottom left of the screen, it wasn’t actually something in the path of natural evolution. I always admired the ‘around the mini map’ circle health bar from Far Cry 3. Both Kyrat and the missions in Far Cry 4 are huge and intense, and without the right amount of information, the gamer would be mislead or hovering around the objective wondering what to do, just like me while playing it. If only they took away the excessive information feeding from Assassin’s Creed: Unity and made FC4 a little more user friendly, #NotANOOB.

The Soundtrack is absolutely spot on, and accounts for most of the chunk of my final review verdict. From Bombay Royale, an unheard Aussie band to Didi Tera Dewar Deewana from Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, the OST is as Desi as it can be. In fact, the Desiness rises along with the intensity of the missions. For the other times, count on a brilliant soundtrack by Cliff Martinez, especially when you are gazing at the sun to ‘Unfamiliar Paths’ or shooting down Royals to ‘No Respite’. The addition of Panjabi MC in Amita’s mission Advanced Chemistry is a piece of my childhood, reimagined as a berserk, and presented in a stunning new way. LSD tripping and Bhangra, well who could have thought?!

CR:
If you have the latest 9xx series NVIDIA cards, then Far Cry 4 is a graphics showcase. There are so many pretty technologies on display like God Rays, Soft Shadows and Animal Fur. Kyrat is a really beautiful place that you want to only look at and admire. The Dunia Engine has certainly been tweaked to look even better since Far Cry 3, without lowering the performance.

The UI of the game world is more cleaner than Far Cry 3 and the game does not send a barrage of notifications at you. The Minimap is square this time and smartly detects nearby collectibles. The menus look rather plain with the ugly rectangular boxes and could have benefited from more attention. A nice touch however, is the Game prominently showing a location’s name with its height above sea level when you visit a landmark.

The OST is a good selection of Indian music with tunes from all around the country. However, the ingame radio suffers from the constant commentary that plays after a short while and relegates the song to the background. The game’s music does change to indicate the mood such as when hunting or exploring a cave or fighting the Royal army. A nice touch is hearing the local NPCs hum some tunes.

Multiplayer and Co-Op in Far Cry 4

After you are done with your share of being Ajay Ghale, the multiplayer mode invites you to a mythological and trippy version of Ubisoft’s hit agenda – Spies versus Mercs (popular from the Splinter Cell series). In the multiplayer modes you play a round each as a Golden Path warrior (fighting with guns and cars) and a Rakshasa (rain of arrows, stealth and animal summoning moves). There are only three modes to play from: The Outpost, which are loosely based on Domination matches, The Propaganda, based on the M Com station Rushes from Battlefield 3 and the Demon Mask matches, wherein each team searches for the Demon masks. A couple of elements from the main game, like Radio Towers (when controlled by team reveals the enemy positions on map), On the move crafting (the ghost syringe of Rakshasas that allows you to travel in a ghost form and tag enemies) and animals vs vehicles makes up for a few minutes of adrenaline charged action. It is as addictive as Spies vs Mercs, I hope the FC4 servers don’t fall apart like the FC3 ones.

The co-op takes place in the same Kyrat as the single player with your partner appearing as that crazed American, Hurk. Co-op is useful when taking down heavily defended outposts and fortresses. You can also do the missions in co-op, but co-ordination is a bitch. Also both partners need to perform all the actions required by the mission such as looting the corpse after killing an assassination target.

Companion Apps for Far Cry 4

Far Cry 4 comes with two apps for mobile devices. One is a poker game that is frustratingly hard to beat. You need to keep tapping the screen for changing the card in order to assemble the target hand. You get rewarded with ingame cash for your efforts and the game also features microtransactions. The other app is the Arena app which is the more interesting game. You can gather animals and mercenaries from all over Kyrat to fight champions in the Shanath Arena. This app lets you increase your Arena rank, but it is rather heavy on the battery. You can also create challenges for other players to face in the arena in Far Cry 4.

Conclusion

TR:
If “Jaa Simran, Jee Le Apni Zindagi” is the benchmark of every story based in and around Bollywood Masala, then Far Cry 4 doesn’t do anything wrong. But as a successor to the great Maniac Demolisher Single Player Jungle Warrior franchise, Far Cry 4 loses its plot way easily than the predecessors. The high times of the game seal some of my favourite open world experiences of all time. The jungle welcomes you like Dark Souls, when suddenly an Eagle goes for the eye and a Badger goes for your feet. Great visuals and soundtrack, burdened by a buggy server and Capture the Flag final mission.

CR:
Far Cry 4 is a lovely, pretty sandbox that has a setting closer to home for us Indians. The open world is great fun and the story missions manage to keep things interesting. The ending may be an anticlimax, but it doesn’t mar your memories of the game that preceded it. It does give you food for thought after all the mindless chaos you’ve been through. The glitches and inconsistencies detract from the experience and it feels as if the setting was used merely as a prop rather than something which was understood by the game’s designers.
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The Game was reviewed on the PS4 by Tathagata and a NVIDIA GTX 980 powered PC by Chirantan.