Brief Feedback Review of Primal
Hi all, just recently finished my playthrough of Primal and wanted to put down my thoughts.
I'll preface this to say I'm a pretty standard fan of the franchise. I first played them out of an interest in open world games, and in my view 3 and 4 are some of the finest in the genre. Whilst I've played each of the titles so far, I'll never replay them though, and for me Primal was a disappointment.
The main gripe - well it's got to be the absence of guns. It was one of the most fun aspects of the gameplay, and frankly the melee portion of the franchise has never been that great. Thus putting a game revolving around it gave me reservations from the start. I'm not sure how much effort was put into it, as the absence of a block seems a pretty obvious omission. Most fights I would end up with the two handed club and just charge swing everything. It didn't really need much strategy, and one of my favourite parts of the previous games was sniping outposts before trying to take them. I suppose this is partially possible with the bow, but not to the same extent in my book.
Another thing I really missed was vehicles. I found riding the animals had far too much motion, and genuinely felt I was better walking most of the time in Primal. The vehicles really did add a lot, if nothing else speeding up exploring with little consequence. In Primal I find I am bumping into enemies every few yards, and it does start to grate when you simply want to just look around your surroundings.
Story. It was forgettable, I'm sorry. Little more than a battle of tribes in the end. Whilst I respect the attempt to use traditional language, having to read cutscenes really took me out of the exoerience. It's like when you watch a foreign language movie - your eyes are reading text whilst you are missing out on the nuances within the acting performance. Admittedly, some people are better at coping with subtitles than others, but I'm not one. It's a great shame, as had it been in English I may have engaged with it better, but as it stands it just felt distant and flat.
Other points. I liked the animal control and capturing, but I couldn't shake the feeling they were having more fun in combat than I was. They were also pretty useless when you went up against a group. I liked the map, the skill trees, the crafting - but those are all lynchpins from other titles really.
It took me about 19 hours to complete, which was about a third shorter than 3 or 4 for me. Thus I understand why some have complained it feels like a DLC - especially as a lot of assets carried over from 4. What happened to co-op too? I didn't try the survivor mode, as I've no interest in replaying - I'm just in it for the story and the experience.
It was an interesting experiment, but for me too much of the soul of the series was missing here. My highlight of the franchise is probably Blood Dragon. I loved how it didn't take itself seriously, and was genuinely funny to boot. (The tutorial was hilarious - "Press X if you can read") It had amazing music, art design, and some solid gameplay too. I'll join the chorus of those calling for a full sequel to it, as I'd pick it up in a heartbeat.
Anyhoo, that's my view of Primal. I had moderate fun, but for me it is was one of, if not the weakest entry in the franchise.