This is really just Far Cry 3 Minus because while it plays very similar to its predecessor, Far Cry 4 is always taking one step forward and two steps back.
The setting of Kyrat, while bringing forth more verticality to the map compared to FC3's Rook Islands, make navigate such a pain in the ass because you've only got a grapple hook which Ubisoft out of all studios failed to make fun to use and gyrocopters which is like coming across an oasis in a desert.
Remember when you said; "I love getting attacked by wild life in FC3?". No? Well Ubisoft believes you did, so expect to get attacked by packs of wolves and dive bombed by Eagles with every five steps you take. Could this be Ubisoft's way of encouraging the player to use the animal repellent syringes? Maybe, except they removed those syringes in this game for no reason. Animal attacks are so frequent that a pack of wolves killed an important character that I had to approach to start a campaign mission right before I was able to reach her, which caused me to "fail" a mission I haven't even started and "respawned" me back 1100 meters away. Fuck you Ubisoft.
On a more positive note, the core gameplay hasn't been shaken up all that much but I enjoyed the gameplay loop so much in FC3 it was nice to settle back into familiar territory. The guns feel great to use, blowing stuff up with a pump action grenade launcher will always be fun and the new auto-drive feature is the best thing Ubisoft has done in their lifetime. There's loads of content to do too and the new karma system is nice as well. Karma missions include events like assassinating a general, saving a hostage or blowing up a shipment vehicle and they can be finished very quickly for that easy bonus. The many side missions offer a lot of xp and rewards even if it's just the classic Ubisoft side missions of having only 4 types of side missions and you copypaste them around the map 50 times.
However this doesn't save most of the missions from playing out like complete shit. The levels set in the Himalayas are god awful as enemies despite being stated to have "less vision" they still spot you from such thick gusts of snow and you can barely see a thing. Speaking of enemies, Ubisoft didn't fix those annoyances in the AI from Far Cry 3 because we can't have nice things in Kyrat. Enemies still become the most hyper-sensitive and omnipresent organisms in the entire universe when you miss one suppressed shot on them. Other missions are just so ass to play because they are the usual "don't do this or the mission restarts".
Aspiring game developers who might be reading this. NOBODY and I seriously mean NOBODY enjoys playing a mission in an open world FPS where you are forced to stealth through the level and you get forced to restart if you get spotted.
Pagan Min is a great "villain" and I use the term "villain" lightly because he's the only likeable character in the game and steals every scene he's in. The game gave me two opportunities to kill this guy and I let him walk away because I like to let nice people live. You know who isn't likeable? Just about every character in the game (except Willis, he's cool, and that's not my FC3 bias showing). Sabal is a religious bootlicker who lives in the dark ages and Amita, inspired by Breaking Bad, intends to turn Kyrat into a drug state and forces everyone to work in factories. Yogi and Reggie are such idiotic characters that I wish I could've killed them. Longinus could've been removed from the game and the story would not have been affected and Yuma is nothing more of a plot device to create filler and to drug the player about 23 times. It doesn't help that all cutscenes are unskippable.
The only reasons why this game hasn't been rated any lower is that liberating outposts, taking over bell towers and just causing chaos at your own pace, which is where Far Cry thrives, is still just as fun and satisfying and I don't need to dedicate two paragraphs to explain why that's fun. Pagan Min is a great character that Ubisoft really thought players would want to kill. Now that is funny. This game gets half a star for that.
If you liked FC3 then you'll easily enjoy this game. If you want a good Far Cry game to start with if you're new, just play FC3. The only benefit in playing FC4 before FC3 is that this game will make FC3 feel even better.
The setting of Kyrat, while bringing forth more verticality to the map compared to FC3's Rook Islands, make navigate such a pain in the ass because you've only got a grapple hook which Ubisoft out of all studios failed to make fun to use and gyrocopters which is like coming across an oasis in a desert.
Remember when you said; "I love getting attacked by wild life in FC3?". No? Well Ubisoft believes you did, so expect to get attacked by packs of wolves and dive bombed by Eagles with every five steps you take. Could this be Ubisoft's way of encouraging the player to use the animal repellent syringes? Maybe, except they removed those syringes in this game for no reason. Animal attacks are so frequent that a pack of wolves killed an important character that I had to approach to start a campaign mission right before I was able to reach her, which caused me to "fail" a mission I haven't even started and "respawned" me back 1100 meters away. Fuck you Ubisoft.
On a more positive note, the core gameplay hasn't been shaken up all that much but I enjoyed the gameplay loop so much in FC3 it was nice to settle back into familiar territory. The guns feel great to use, blowing stuff up with a pump action grenade launcher will always be fun and the new auto-drive feature is the best thing Ubisoft has done in their lifetime. There's loads of content to do too and the new karma system is nice as well. Karma missions include events like assassinating a general, saving a hostage or blowing up a shipment vehicle and they can be finished very quickly for that easy bonus. The many side missions offer a lot of xp and rewards even if it's just the classic Ubisoft side missions of having only 4 types of side missions and you copypaste them around the map 50 times.
However this doesn't save most of the missions from playing out like complete shit. The levels set in the Himalayas are god awful as enemies despite being stated to have "less vision" they still spot you from such thick gusts of snow and you can barely see a thing. Speaking of enemies, Ubisoft didn't fix those annoyances in the AI from Far Cry 3 because we can't have nice things in Kyrat. Enemies still become the most hyper-sensitive and omnipresent organisms in the entire universe when you miss one suppressed shot on them. Other missions are just so ass to play because they are the usual "don't do this or the mission restarts".
Aspiring game developers who might be reading this. NOBODY and I seriously mean NOBODY enjoys playing a mission in an open world FPS where you are forced to stealth through the level and you get forced to restart if you get spotted.
Pagan Min is a great "villain" and I use the term "villain" lightly because he's the only likeable character in the game and steals every scene he's in. The game gave me two opportunities to kill this guy and I let him walk away because I like to let nice people live. You know who isn't likeable? Just about every character in the game (except Willis, he's cool, and that's not my FC3 bias showing). Sabal is a religious bootlicker who lives in the dark ages and Amita, inspired by Breaking Bad, intends to turn Kyrat into a drug state and forces everyone to work in factories. Yogi and Reggie are such idiotic characters that I wish I could've killed them. Longinus could've been removed from the game and the story would not have been affected and Yuma is nothing more of a plot device to create filler and to drug the player about 23 times. It doesn't help that all cutscenes are unskippable.
The only reasons why this game hasn't been rated any lower is that liberating outposts, taking over bell towers and just causing chaos at your own pace, which is where Far Cry thrives, is still just as fun and satisfying and I don't need to dedicate two paragraphs to explain why that's fun. Pagan Min is a great character that Ubisoft really thought players would want to kill. Now that is funny. This game gets half a star for that.
If you liked FC3 then you'll easily enjoy this game. If you want a good Far Cry game to start with if you're new, just play FC3. The only benefit in playing FC4 before FC3 is that this game will make FC3 feel even better.