A rough gem that could have truly shined if it wasn’t stymied by its grindy filler sandbox design, Mafia 3 is still the best game in the series in my opinion and a game that is woefully underappreciated.
The narrative is genuinely one of the finest I’ve seen in an open world crime game; Lincoln is a great protagonist and the supporting cast are all strong, most notably Father James, who adds so much to the documentary style framing device which made it feel genuinely inspired. The atmosphere is also wonderful too with a great sense of place with its setting in 60’s Not-New Orleans. The soundtrack is fantastic with so many great licensed 60’s songs picks and how well utilized they are when they pop up from time to time in the main story missions, Sympathy for the Devil especially. Thematically it’s also a neat exploration of how broken the American system is through the lens of the 1960’s. America was founded on white supremacy, genocide, and slavery and that won’t go away no matter how much American exceptionalism you try to paper over with it. The rot is in the foundations.
The combat itself is solid, the gunplay is fun and so is the stealth even though its super easy because enemies are easily lured away one by one by just whistling so you can easily stealth kill them. The turf system is a neat idea too and how you have to balance the favor of Lincoln’s lieutenants, it just really needed to cut out the grind because you need to dive into it to progress through the story so it does get rather tedious having to dredge your way through them to get to the great story missions. The game should have been like half its length.
The DLC campaigns were also a neat explorations of different genres for Lincoln and his supporting cast to find themselves in, ranging from Lincoln teaming up with the not-Black Panthers to go all Dukes of Hazzard on a white supremacist rural sheriff and his Klan buddies, a Vietnam War era spy story, and a cult horror story. It all really left me wishing we had some more adventures with Lincoln in a similar vein.
Mafia 3 has some deep flaws, but if you can stomach the grind you’re in for a genuinely great game otherwise.
The narrative is genuinely one of the finest I’ve seen in an open world crime game; Lincoln is a great protagonist and the supporting cast are all strong, most notably Father James, who adds so much to the documentary style framing device which made it feel genuinely inspired. The atmosphere is also wonderful too with a great sense of place with its setting in 60’s Not-New Orleans. The soundtrack is fantastic with so many great licensed 60’s songs picks and how well utilized they are when they pop up from time to time in the main story missions, Sympathy for the Devil especially. Thematically it’s also a neat exploration of how broken the American system is through the lens of the 1960’s. America was founded on white supremacy, genocide, and slavery and that won’t go away no matter how much American exceptionalism you try to paper over with it. The rot is in the foundations.
The combat itself is solid, the gunplay is fun and so is the stealth even though its super easy because enemies are easily lured away one by one by just whistling so you can easily stealth kill them. The turf system is a neat idea too and how you have to balance the favor of Lincoln’s lieutenants, it just really needed to cut out the grind because you need to dive into it to progress through the story so it does get rather tedious having to dredge your way through them to get to the great story missions. The game should have been like half its length.
The DLC campaigns were also a neat explorations of different genres for Lincoln and his supporting cast to find themselves in, ranging from Lincoln teaming up with the not-Black Panthers to go all Dukes of Hazzard on a white supremacist rural sheriff and his Klan buddies, a Vietnam War era spy story, and a cult horror story. It all really left me wishing we had some more adventures with Lincoln in a similar vein.
Mafia 3 has some deep flaws, but if you can stomach the grind you’re in for a genuinely great game otherwise.