Far Cry: Blood Dragon Review

Far Cry: Blood Dragon is a rather odd game, I have beaten it at least 3 times by now and I only beat it for a 3rd time because I needed a quick game to beat and I bought the PS4 version of the game on a sale recently while playing the game through backwards compatibility on PS5.

In spite of the fact that I have beaten it around 3 times, this might be one of the most unremarkably remarkable games I have ever played. Nothing BD does is outright terrible but at the same time, nothing it does is out of the ordinary either.

It's a Far Cry 3 with retro neon visuals, synthwave soundtrack and 80s music and refrences. Rex Power Colt is just as much a typical macho action movie hero from the era as well as the 90s FPS protagonist that borrows from them like Duke Nukem, Michael Biehn sounds bored while also overly stoic at the same time, his performance did grow on me the more the game went on.

The story, writing and presentation were sort of novel at the time since the game came out before 80s homages were really beaten into the ground and it can be pretty charming especially when doing the main story missions only, the game can almost feel like you are going through an 80s movie. The synthwave soundtrack is fantastic and it was probably my first time hearing music like this when I played the game around release on PS3.

Might as well discuss the gameplay now. It's...decent but at the same time, this where I argue reusing Far Cry 3's assets hurts the game more than benefits it.

Before I discuss that, the guns generally feel pretty good but at the same time, some aspects annoyed me, the shotgun feels fantastic and using the Terminator 2 shotgun even when official Terminator games like Resistance doesn't even have it does feel like a novel concept to this game. The reloading animation for it is a lot of fun to watch. The Sniper which is I think is supposed to be like the Cobra Assault Cannon from Robocop feels fine but the reticle for it doesn't feel very accurate especially when aiming for the head, not sure if the hitboxes were off or because I couldn't tell if I lined the enemy up correctly for a headshot. The Chaingun feels fantastic and it should but it also feels like an easy weapon to abuse since even the titular Blood Dragons go down pretty easily even on hard mode. The Auto 9 stand in feels awful to use and is a poor stand in for the pistol from Robocop, it's super inaccurate even when sights are aimed down, has high recoil, and it takes more than one clip to take down one enemy due to the above mentioned issues. The Auto 9 in Robocop Rogue City feels far better to use by comparison. The assault rifle is functional but has way too high of recoil for me to want to use consistently.

A big issue with the open world even back at the time of this game's release is that it felt out of place. You don't really have to do any of the outposts to do story missions and you won't be put at a disadvantage if you do so. You get all your guns back after doing the 1st mission after the prologue and the later Serious Sam style mission has all your guns be upgraded to their strongest form and after that you will never use them again since you get the Killstar. There is no final boss either so no need to do the outposts to get better gear so you might have an easier time against him.

Stealth is barebones and is pointless, there will be many forced action segments throughout the game and characters like John Rambo and Matrix only used stealth on occasion when they didn't have access to heavy ordance. In the base FC3 game, it was done while Jason Brody still needed to level up and get better gear in BD, it doesn't much sense for Rex to do it since you are already blowing stuff with a chaingun at the start of the game.

I ultimately feel if BD was a linear game, it would benefit it a lot more, the open world and outposts could be reused for more story missions and the game's main campaign wouldn't be as long as feature length film, that and the game can slowly introduce new weapons and throw in new ideas as it steadily goes as opposed to most of the game being outposts and 30% of the game being story missions that can be beaten in 2-3 hours.

The game is also pretty easy even on hard, I probably made it harder for myself by not keeping the Chaingun with me at all times, but generally you are always nearby shops and there is always enough healing items to look for and buy, the hard part of the game is being lit on fire and having the game figure out whether Rex should put out the flames or he will waste a healing item or waiting for the healing animations to play out if you run out of syringes.

Overall, I don't dislike Far Cry Blood Dragon but every time I replay it, I get why I never am overly impressed with it. It's never bad to the point where I can't stand playing it but it's never amazing enough to the point where I would use it as my go to example as a favorite or even "good but nothing amazing game".