With Far Cry: Primal coming soon, I figured now was a better time than any to dive into Blood Dragon (we all know the backlog struggle is real). While I knew it was generally well-reviewed, I never got around to playing it between Far Cry 3 and 4. Although I only spent two nights and a handful of hours with it, I think it was time well spent. The humor is excellent and it is a great blend of 80s stereotypes and over-the-top action (See Far Cry series, The). It reminded me of Kung Fury, which, if you haven’t watched yet, I highly recommend. Blood Dragon does a lot of things nicely, but here are some of my thoughts on the not-so-good:
Barrage of tutorial pop-ups
Now I realize this is probably intentional and part of the ridiculous humor that is the core of Blood Dragon, but the barrage of tutorial pop-ups at the end of the tutorial was incredibly annoying. Instead of following their initial pattern of 1) tutorial message, 2) let the player execute the action, 3) rinse and repeat, they throw one after the other, expecting you to memorize multiple controls instantly. While I had no issue with this, having played Far Cry 3, someone who did not might feel overwhelmed with that barrage of pop-ups right before their first combat scenario. Hopefully, most found it funny and didn’t mind the lack of hand-holding, which I’m sure was Ubisoft’s intention.
Directional reticle
There were a handful of times I had to traverse half-way across the map to get to my next objective. While this wasn’t an issue, the directional reticle was atrocious at times. It would give me a distance of how far away I was, however, it gave no indication of whether that was a higher or lower portion of the map. Now I’m not the safest driver in games, but a simple up/down arrow would have prevented me from plummeting my jeep into the water because I was simply following the reticle. I realize this is not a mechanic used in many games but perhaps the addition of something like a compass that displays directionality in relation to heights and depths of the map would be beneficial, primarily in open-world games that require quite a bit of traversal.
Leveling system
Blood Dragon’s leveling system deviates from Far Cry 3’s skill trees, which allowed you to level up in accordance to your playing style. Now I know this is a “spin-off,” but I feel like the leveling system in Blood dragon was not explained very well. Giving me an on-screen message that I have leveled up but subsequently giving me no information about what this entails was frustrating. I don’t recall any prompts to visit the menu to see how the predetermined leveling system was laid out. Until I was level 10, I thought it was just a completely arbitrary leveling system based on the accumulation of combat points.
Additionally, I know Rex is a cyber-commando with unique preset skills, but this system gives you no freedom to choose your play style. I never felt the need to do anything but blast my way through garrisons, as my character had no special stealth skills, which was one of the most fun and fulfilling aspects of liberating outposts in Far Cry 3.
Conclusion
With all of that being said, I still recommend checking Blood Dragon out if you haven’t already and giving it a few hours of your time. Once I realized the garrisons provided a predator mission and rescue mission, I quickly realized this re-skinned Far Cry 3 would get repetitive very quickly and proceeded to only complete the seven main missions. It is a fun game, and a welcomed deviation from your normal game setting, that throws in lots of funny moments and 80s nostalgia; however, there are some usability issues that could have been addressed to make the experience even better.
Feel free to post your thoughts about the game in the comments below!