I will start by saying I really enjoyed Just Cause 3, I freed all the towns, destroyed all the bases, destroyed everything I could. In fact I was destroying so much I almost never actually finished the game. So I was looking forward to Just Cause 4 for those reasons. Sadly I did not have the chaotic fun with 4 that I did with 3.
The Basics
Just like in 3, in 4 you are fighting against an evil overlord with an army at their disposal and you have rebels, a wing suit, a parachute, and a grappling hook on yours. The big difference this time around is that the enemy has the power of the weather on their side this time. Now you’d think that would be a big deal, and that it would be a really cool game element. Sadly, it isn’t. The whole weather thing doen;t really come into play that much and even though as you progress you even get the chance to have it on your side, I myself never once used it.
You also have a bunch of upgrades you can unlock by doing side missions. These are given out by different NPCs and who you help out earns you points to allow you to upgrade. Help one and you earn points to modify your air lifter, another gets you points to mod your booster, and finally the third will score you points to modify your retractor. This would be great to make the game longer and add some variety, but I saw no appeal in any of these mods so I really didn’t take the time to do any of these missions after finding out how repetitive they were.
That brings me to the map. One of the things I really liked about Just Cause 3 was freeing the towns and destroying the bases in order to free up the map. Well, that is gone. You now do missions to free the map. Sounds like an upgrade, but it isn’t. You do the same handful of missions again and again to earn troops and free up the map. I really miss sneaking into town and ripping down statues, it was a nice change of pace from the main missions. Now everything is pretty much the same.
They also changed another big item that made 3 fun, supply drops. Used to be you could put together a sweet load out and call for it to be dropped in on you then let the destruction begin. Now there are more pilots to make a drop for you but each can give you one thing. Yep, just one… If I am going to wait for a huge crate to drop in on me why would I have it drop anything but an armed helicopter? Part of the fun of the drop in 3 was the ride, the crate of weapons, basically being able to call in a full load out. Well, no more.
On the Plus Side
- Still tons of stuff to blow up
- Side Missions (if you are into them, there are tons of them)
- Some cool non-traditional weather weapons
The Negatives
- Very repetitive
- If you liked the freeing of the towns from before, that is gone
- The story is not great
- Supply drops changed for the worse