So I loved FC 3 and 4. Thought they were superb games. When I went to read reviews on Primal, I read a lot of negative reviews, such as "...this is a reskinned FC4". Is this true?
If I get FC Primal will I have a different experience than I did with FC 3/4?Or have I experienced everything if I played FC 3/4 and there isnt a point to getting Primal?
Would love honest opinions from people not "fan-boys". Thank you.
Well, it is a game set in an era where humans were hunter/gatherers, so a lot of what you do in the game is hunting and gathering stuff. You are basically a member of the wenja tribe, going to become the beast master. Your goal is to gather lost members of the wenja tribe and unite them in that wenja village which you are going to create and protect them from the 2 rivaling tribes of the Udam and the Izila. So a huge part of the game is as well to fight the Udam and the Izila and free wenja tribe members kept hostage by those tribes. The final goal is of course to get rid of those rivaling tribes. As your gear you have basically clubs, spears, bows, knives, and a variety of bombs with fire, poison or mind-altering effects. The main characters are interesting, but they are not as interesting as Vaas in FC3. Crafting is necessary in FC Primal, you cannot buy stuff, but your wenja tribe members are helping you to acquire resources.
What is interesting is that instead of cars you have the ability to ride a variety of animals - well you can learn it, you cannot do it right away - and some of them are really fast, others are really strong and can be used as weapon. Your beast companion, which is following you around can be used as weapon as well - each of the animal types have different characteristics - and then you have an owl, which is basically like a surveillance UAV and can outside of survivor mode as well be used to attack enemies from the air. If this is a game for you, you will have to decide for yourself, but this is basically what the game is about. It runs pretty smoothly but you should expect the fps to be nearer to 30 fps than to 60 fps - my game runs around 40 fps and it feels very smooth.
How much fun you might have will as well depend on how you setup your hud - with all hud features on the game is more like going from point of interest to point of interest, but if you play with a reduced hud, it gives a far better experience IMO - so this is something to consider, with all hud features on, it feels too much guided, without hud it can be challenging. And for the real experience I suggest to not use fast travel, then you will have a real feel for the size of the map and you will have to plan more strategically. Fast travel takes a lot of the challenge away, like in other games which have this feature.
Well the structure of the map has similarities with the FC4 map - but how much I cannot tell, because I haven't played FC4 yet. I think that it was not a good idea to put FC primal under the far cry label, it has it's own qualities and I think, you will have the best experience, if you are able to go into the game with an open mind towards an experience, which is different. Wildlife plays a huge role in the game of course, especially for your character Takkar, who becomes early on the beast master and can tame a huge variety of beasts and use them as companion. See it as a different game and setup your hud in a way, which reflects this low tech environment and it will be a very different experience from other FC games. With full hud features active it will feel more like far cry, but be less fun to play. In survivor mode or if you switch off most of your hud, navigation alone can be challenging already - it really depends a lot on how you play the game, what your experience will be like.
I think a comment like that you mentioned is like saying Assassin's Creed would be more of the same in a different city - while it has some truth to it, it would be totally missing the whole point of the Assassin's Creed franchise. And it is a bit like this with Far Cry Primal as well. There might eventually be a 2nd installment to far cry primal, the end sequence has a hint to a possible sequel. I would really love that, I am having a lot of fun in far cry primal. But I play it with nearly no hud and I have special rules for myself, like not looking at the map in other places than where I can rest and sleep, to make it more "real". And this means, if I get lost, I have to find a place to rest first, before I can look at the map again. But each to his/her own, I like to play it like this.
A lot of the mission types are of course similar to other far cry games - escort someone, free someone from captivity, conquer strongholds, claim bonfires and camp fires to have more respawn points and uncover part of the map (in the case of bonfires). Then of course get new people to your village, get specialists to your village and do quests for them to advance further - this is all far cry like, even IMO the game feels different from typical far cry.