Okay, I'm about 16% in and around 10 hours down ont this damn game. And you know what? It's pretty good. Pretty damn good. Like, duh, it's a far cry game which is based on the gameplay loop of the odds of Far Cry 3, but still. I had way too much fun with Far Cry Primal.
I think the main reason is the Beasts you could try to tame. I mean, other than the legendary beasts (Bloodfanged Sabertooth aside) and a leopard. But I am really a huge fan of that mechanic.
In full honesty, I do remember watching the trailer a while back and seeing that there was a sabertooth tiger you could pet and since I was a huge fan of Ice Age and Diego especially, I was sold. Like, fully sold. Damn near fully sold. I love animals and really freaking love games where you get pets of some kind.
And the beasts are very cute. And damn good at killing. I feel like a little too good at killing to be honest, you know? I want to stealth encounters but then there just the giant murder cat next to me and well... I wouldn't mind letting my Sabertooth kitty maul a guy. You know, as a treat?
But when I commit to a mixed approach, such as part stealth and than fully loud when I get found out, or just defaulting to full assualt. I mean, in my defense, I have a bear, a giant bear, that can maul most human enemies I've encounted so far. Why shouldn't I just bum rush enemy camps and maul everyone?
Well, there is a few reasons. Namely beasts can be injuried and some outposts or encounters have people who the enemies would just kill if they get alerted to any conflict. Besides, stealth is still overpowered. You can't get hurt if you never get into a fight.
Plus some of the beasts I managed tame that work better for stealth. Namely, the Owl and so far, the Jaguars. The Jaguars could easily down one human enemy (normal human enemy mind you) without alerting all the guards, unlike the other beasts I've tamed. And the Owl can survey entire areas and, with the perks I've got, down one normal human enemy.
But, my go strategy is currently just sneak up to the enemies with my Sabertooth tiger, send the tiger on one guard, snipe as many enemies as I can and try to keep the Tiger free from being hit in anyway. Fun.
Also, you can use some beasts as a mount. I mean, I don't know how accurate riding on the back of a Sabertooth Tigar or Brown Bear is, but you can do it. It's pretty fun. A little faster than walking but it greatly limits how effective the beast is at fighting so you should rather just hop off if a fight breaks out and support your animal pal on the ground level instead.
And note, you can do this with Mammoths as well. Although, I haven't actually tried that much yet. I am not strong enough to start the quest which needs that and I've been trying to tame all the beasts there is to tame. Mostly Sabertooths.
All right. All right, dear reader. Fine, there is animals that aren't Sabertooth cats. I just like Sabertooth Tigers, you know?
Alright, right of the bat, there's African Wild Dogs. Which aren't called African Wild Dogs (they're called Dhole), and make hyena sounds, and some having hyper-pigmentation, but they are there. They aren't dps or tank classes, but they will bring back all the goods of an enemy you downed or any loot from a hunt. Which since the game is set in the Neolithic, hunting and reasource gathering is important.
After those cute little guys, you get Wolves. Wolves come in three flavours, Normal wolves, White wolves and a striped wolf. Honestly the important thing to remember is that each colour option links to a state change. So, White wolves fight better than normal wolves and stripped wolves fight better than white wolves and so on. It's pretty neat as a way to get players to want to spend more time in-game to collect all the types of all the tameble beasts.
Such as the Jaguars. Jaguars come in their natural colouring and than a pather colouring, with the panters being more resistant to fire. Honestly, Jaguars are just cute as per usual. They're just hard to tame. They rush at you, try to maul you and sometiems just run past bait. But with some patience you can get a new friend.
I haven't caught a Leopard yet, so onto Mountian Lions. Mountain Lions are pretty cool. They let you pre-tag enemies and they're also very cute. Plus, they hit harder than wolves and are a little bit faster. They also come in a regular colour and a rare colour.
Brown Bear's are the tank solution to beasts. They're pretty big, hit hard but are slow and rather noticable. Suprise, surprise, a freaking bear is a little noticable. But, that also means most enemies try to attack the bear before you and the bear usually can knock out most human enemies. You just need to make sure to keep an eye on the bears health and keep a snack handy if the fight is going to be longer or bigger than about three enemies. Also, unlike the last few beasts, brown bears do not have a rare colouring, rather having a whole separet legendary bear that you have to tame.
Sabertooth tiger's are the lightning bruisers. They can nip halfway across a field, tackle one enemy, and get to the next one in the time it takes you (or me more accurately) to line up a arrow with one medium distance enemy. But unfortunately they are also noticeble. Less so than the bear but more than the Mountain Lion or the Jaguar.
Techincally the Sabertooth tigar and the Brown Bear is a seperate class of beasts, Apex Beasts. The major selling point is that they also let you piggy bacck ride on their back like a drunk friend that needs a hand. They are also, way more scary to try to tame. Sabertooth Tigers are more likely to maul you and the bear has a bad habit of trying to charge at you. BUt in lo of a horse, you've got no other choice if you would like a mount.
Badger's are tinyish, black and white blurs of spitting in the face of death, fangs and claws. They are real animals and they act kinda the same to their in-game levels of bravery. Try to hunt them and deal with a tiny furry rocket of fangs and claws that will not stop. On the plus side, Badger's are tameble. Coming with the perk of being able to "die" once and come back and being terrifying to every single other animal in the world. I love them, but honestly, they are terrifying.
Cave Bear are the tank class of bears. It's like comparing a World War one panzar to modern tanks. Cave Bears are massive, bigger than Brown Bears, and they hit hard. Sadly, despite being larger than Brown Bears and the same species, you can not ask the Cave Bear to give you a piggy back ride even if you say pretty please. But, since these guys hit like a truck, it's honestly not that bad of a drawback.
Well, since it's the Neolithic age, you've got some rather old school tools and weapons. A bow, club and spear are the first few weapons you get. THe club is good for close combat, the spear for close to medium range and the bow is best of "long" range. You're not going to be enounctering anyone more than just above a stones throw away so long range is not that long compared to the modern age of distances you can reasonably shoot or video games that give you a scope.
In the first few minutes, you will be struggling to get arrows, replacement spears and clubs at first. Mostly because clubs and spears break and arrows and replacement spears and clubs need to be made in the weapon wheel. Which wasn't really explained. But once you've got that done and a few other goods like hardwood and flint, you'll be able to make an unreasonable amount of arrows.
Plus, you get newer and upgraded forms of each of these tools before you've spent all that much time in the game. Namely, I funneled my inner Skyrim and tried to harvest everything that wasn't either nailed down or too out of the way to get.
Humans and animals mostly. If not entirely. There is so far, two seperate tribes which either want to hurt or control our tribe and they've just gotta go. They're not very neighbourly and keep either killing or trying to capture our tribesmen.
The Northern tribes, the Udam, are a group of raiders who, due to ever increasing problems of the ice age, have moved South and started raiding and eating our tribesmen. They're not really that difficult to clear out but you've got to be careful as they have numbers while you... You're just you and maybe a cat or bear or dog.
The Southern tribes, the Izila, are these slightly more technologically advanced peoples who use fire. They are worried about the heat death of the universe and are trying to gain power and nations including ours. They're slightly more scary as they have both numbers and smarter tactics, such as relying on fire and poisons to weaken you and your pets.
Both tribes have very different styles and building structures. With the Udam being more nomadic in building, having mostly just small camps which they set up. While the Izila are more structured in one place, building more impressive strongholds instead of camps. Which, makes sense as the Northern tribes are only raiding our lands while the Southern tribes are trying to settle on it.
They may be more but I am only about 16% into the game. So, I guess it'll be a surprise.
Our tribe, The Wenja, is a lovely group of slightly weird folks who mostly just want to live so far. We've got a few Jayma, Sayla, Tensay, Wogah and Karoosh. Our group is very rag tag and made up from the suvivers of the original tribe prior to the raidings.
Saylah is the first Wenja you'll meet on your own. She's dealing with the loss of her tribesmen and first assumes you're one of the Udam before she calms down. She's mostly fixated on saving her tribe and keeping the Udan out of our lands of Oros. Which also means she gives us our major overacrhing quests of building up our vilage, finding new people to join and rallying the troops to kick the Udan and Izila out.
Jayma is a huntress who gives you most of the beast hunting quests and later on the legdenary beast quests which are much more difficult than normal hunting missions. She's a little annoying at first because she mostly mocking your character for being slow and loud but she's okay.
Karoosh is a warrior who wants revenge on the Udan for taking his eye and killing his son. He is mostly a to-the-point person, wanting to help those he can and focusing on warfare and fighting above all else.
Tensay is a bit weird. He is the tribes shamen and will give you drinks that let you experience visions and learn about the other tribes, but outside of that, he's just a little odd. He has a very mixed disposition, jumping from energetic to slightly unnerving to solem. But he is also so far, completely helpful and trying to keep the tribe together and spiritually well.
Wogah is odd, but a genius. He lost an arm to the Udah and turned into a hermit to stay safe from them, building traps and contraptions to help himself before you recurited him. Now, he tries his best to help the Wenja where ever he can. Even if he has taken to calling the player character "piss man" he is another pretty good guy.
You've mostly got to go out and either hunt or gather stuff to build up a proper village or do quests to deal with helping the tribe or chasing off the raiders.
The most common pattern is that you'd randomly encounter Wenja who need help and rush over somewhere else nearby to save some prisoners or defend a location or do a quick escort mission to help them move to safer places. The rewards are usually increasing the population of your vilage.
The other long-lasting quest is gathering reasources to upgrade and build locations to house your tribe and yourself in your vilage. Such as gathering pelts and wood to build a tent or to spruce up the cave you live in.
My one complaint is why is everyone not letting my pets into the village? Like, if you warp or walk over to your village, your beast just disappears until you walk back out. It's just odd because the only reason every tasks you with things in the first place is that you can tame beasts. But now suddenly they don't want to be in the same area as a Sabertooth?
It's really not a serious issue but why is that a mechinc? I think maybe it was to prevent some bugs or glitches.