Far Cry Primal - Review in Progress Update
I am now about 10 hours into Far Cry Primal and I am still thoroughly enjoying the game. I now have a vast majority of Takkar’s village upgraded and have almost all of the animals tamed. These small upgrades make a huge change to how powerful you feel as a character. Wildlife is more manageable than it once was and I am not quite as fearful of the environment. That being said I still cringe when I hear a sabertooth tiger growl.
The animals, for the most part, are still useful in their own right. I predominately swap between my rare jaguar, sabertooth tiger and cave bear. The jaguar is the stealthiest of all the animals and is incredibly useful when you are trying to discreetly clean out an enemy encampment. The cave bear and sabertooth on the other hand are the bruisers of your animal repertoire and are best utilized when your stealth attempts take a turn for the worse. The sabertooth is also mountable and allows you to quickly traverse the valley of Oros.
I have poured a majority of my time into the side content, often doing missions to increase the population of my village or to progress side stories with the specialists of Takkar’s tribe. These missions vary slightly, but for the most part still consist of go here and kill this. They are not boring, but I wish that there were some more variety to the mission. There are no side characters or villains that reach the uniqueness of Vaas or Pagan Min of Far Cry’s past, yet the characters do have enough personality to make a caveman interesting. The main missions are slightly convoluted and I feel like the mission structure could be laid out better, yet I do enjoy the missions this far.
In previous Far Cry entries I always looked forward to the unique hunts. You would often have to face a tougher version of an animal with an assigned weapon. These missions have changed for Primal. Now you face an incredibly difficult animal that you must first track and then fight. These missions are incredibly hard, as they should be; yet they border more frustration than fun. The animals have incredible amounts of health and quickly dispatch of your tamed animal. Tough animals such as the sabertooth or cave bear do not stand a chance against these legendary animals. Typically it is a multi-staged fight where you damage the creature a specific amount and it then runs and must be tracked again. My biggest frustration is the fact I have so little resources, even with an upgraded kit. I quickly run out of spears and arrows and must either rely on my club (bad idea) or try and scavenge resources to create weapons on the fly. It may just be that I have tackled the more difficult hunts early on (the legendary mammoth and legendary sabertooth), but I hope that the difficulty scales down slightly for the remaining hunts.
So far I am still enjoying my time in Oros. It is refreshing to be at the bottom of the food chain and it feels great to be back in another Far Cry world. The animal taming is a welcome addition that I hope will somehow transition to future entries in the series. I will continue to update my thoughts on the game and will post a final review upon completion. Until then I will continue to enjoy headshotting cavemen with my bow from the back of a wooly mammoth.
