Ten years have passed since I played Far Cry 3 (it was my second playthrough then, and this most recent one is my third), a game so influential that it changed Ubisoft as a company both for better and for worse. I had an itch to scratch, and decided to ditch some of the newer shinier toys I had been playing with lately, in order to greet an old friend. After having gone through the sequels up to Far Cry 5 (sans Far Cry Primal), part of me had feared the old tried and true legend had lost its edge. To my surprise, not only did this entry hold onto its razor sharp fangs, but it's even better than my memory serves despite lacking many of the features and quality of life additions brought to the franchise in later entries.

I remember reading an article back in the day about how the writer for this game was frustrated that the message had went over the majority of the player base's head. Ten years is a lot of time to gain much insight in the field of media literacy, and after having gone through the game for the third time, what I initially saw as simple crumbs is now the entire buffet that is the purposeful meaning behind this game. To keep it simple, Far Cry 3 is a story of colonialism and the American imperialism which only serves to worsen an already terrible situation. One mustn't throw themselves down the rabbit hole and let himself be swept up in the madness without fully understanding its purpose and intent, allowing a cult of natives with malevolent intentions to exploit the naivety of the clueless white American hero to topple the balance of power and help them exert full and total domination. Strength should never be considered a right to domination, but a tool to protect the weak. The Alice in Wonderland quotes that would pop up between chapters now makes much more sense to me, as the parallels to the characters in the story are a lot clearer and easier to see.

If you missed the message of the game, I genuinely do not blame you, because the game actively fights its own message as well. The writer doesn't get to have the final say in how the game is developed in its entirety unfortunately, and this game proves how contradictory it is to its own premise. Story segments are sparse, with wide intervals in-between as you plunder, kill, hunt, and sabotage your way all over the island. What is there isn't enough to hammer the point of the game home either, with all side quests being quick cash grabs that only serve to prove your protagonist as the "true honorable American hero" without taking the time to have the player reflect on his actions. Although the pirates don't have, and frankly don't need, any semblance of writing to ask of the player's sympathy, there were simply no notes at all that served to detail the protagonist's descent into madness over the course of the game. You are simply killing the bad guys on your exotic vacation, then taking time to play Poker or participate in races during your free time, amidst a siege of pirates occupying the island and running a slave trafficking ring. To quote French filmmaker François Truffaut, "There is no such thing as an anti-war film." Film, or rather entertainment which encompasses video games as well, in the end has a purpose and that is to entertain. If there were a video game to better prove him right, it would be Far Cry 3.

So how does Far Cry 3's gameplay stack up? Well, yeah, it's incredibly fun. There's a bevy of weaponry to give the player as plenty of options as possible in regards to tackling hideouts and encounters, albeit with some glaring oversights such as not being able to carry and hide bodies out of enemy sight. Not every weapon is given all the available accessories, such as the only semi-auto rifle in the game being the weakest that also has no silencer attachments whatsoever. With that said, I find these limitations quite refreshing, as they force the player to either adapt more often on the fly, or to find ways to be more creative with their approaches. I still prefer the more gun-ho balls-out approach to chaos in the later games, but this design philosophy is different and charming enough. Grenades and loud explosives can be used to misdirect and are just as viable as silenced weapons. The game really wants the player to use the compound bow, due to its wide range of useful applications beyond just simply being a very slow ammo-efficient sniper rifle alternative. Not being able to hide bodies only serves to make it likelier for enemy camps to go on alert, but with that you can still stay in stealth, hunt them down while misdirecting them as they cower in fear, or even setting up traps with explosive barrels or mines.

There are still some glaring oversights that not only does this game have, but the sequels as well. For starters, gunplay is not the snappiest. Aiming down the sights takes a minute, with weapon switch animations that take maybe a bit too long, and don't blend into usability cleanly. Bullet spread can certainly be an issue especially with snipers, and while I welcome the stress of missing a shot only to alert the enemy to your potential position, it makes fast shots aimed at running enemies all the more difficult. This might be one of those games where adopting the tactic of leading the target and letting it walk into your sights is necessary, though it's worth noting that bullet travel is negligible; all of your ballistic weapons are hitscan. Onto more infuriating elements, the window for context-sensitive actions is annoying. It feels like you have to be staring at a target for a small amount of time before the pop-up which allows you to takedown appears, making surprise kills much harder in a way that feels very unfair. The time needed to hold down prompts to initiate context actions can also ask of you far too much time, and I've had far too many deaths where I had to hold down the heal button only for it to take too long before the healing animation begins.

Some elements I dislike in this game that are unique to this entry are primarily focused on progression; I simply despise being forced to play stealthy without the validity of going loud and proud, if I wish to receive the XP necessary to level up faster. This was corrected in Far Cry 5 where you only lost out on money that was already extremely easy to farm for, and it's a humongous weight off my shoulders to never have to deal with this system in that game. It's extremely annoying here, especially with how easy it is for you to be suddenly discovered. Dogs are by far the worst enemies to deal in this game, as they can track the scent of any gunpowder in the air from bullets you fire back to you, even if they never see the bullet or shot itself. Perhaps the use of the compound bow could get around this issue, but I barely used it much this playthrough and I believe it had a detrimental effect on my experience this time around. It's agonizing dealing with tiny hitboxes with how fast and close they are to the ground in a game with very hilly terrain, and how them discovering you will count as denying you your undetected bonus, albeit the human pirates won't have detected you yet even though they have an idea of the general area you are in.

Many of the side activities in this game are very repetitive and dry, and I do not recommend doing any of the ones without upgrade incentives behind them. Of course, I would be silly not to mention the animations that play out whenever looting a pirate or skinning an animal, and whenever a model is in too difficult of a position to not allow the animation to play out, I jump with joy. It may be a matter of 2 seconds for pirates and 5 seconds for the animals, but it gets annoying fast with how often it happens. It's a minor complaint, but one that bothers me greatly and it involves how you also need to grind and upgrade your wallet in order to even afford some of the guns in the game when you first start out. Finally, there are some technical issues regarding this game; it's difficult to see this game as old, but that is the case. This was originally a game intended for Windows 7, and it certainly did not scale the best up to modern day Windows 10 and 11, as well as newer CPU with more cores. I highly recommend going to the PC Gaming Wiki entry for this title for a bevy of available mods and fixes which could help with some of the performance and compatibility issues. A game from 2012 should not run at a frame rate as low as 20 FPS on my RTX 2070 laptop. Lastly, it's tied to Uplay / Ubisoft Connect, and with it comes all the annoyances and hurdles with using it or even buying the game on Steam.

Overall, Far Cry 3 does indeed stand the test of time, and may even be better than I remembered it. It's not my personal favorite in the franchise, but it still has one of my favorite video game villain portrayals, and still has a unique flavor to the madness that balanced it out but only to push you in lateral directions where you could make the most out of all the tools available to you rather than relying on a single technique every time. Certainly not a game to be missed, and absolutely worth your time.

Not often do you get video games launching for $6, and even less so do you find perhaps the best 3D platforming in such a small title coming out amidst a sea of top tier AAA video games. Pseudoregalia is just as incredible as all the buzz about it from the small communities obsessed with it claim.

At first, I wasn't all that invested what with how limited your platforming options were; just jumping and eventually sliding. I didn't mind it too much however, as I eventually realized that the mechanics enjoyed precise inputs that were snappy and responsive. Ledge grabs were quite generous, and pole climbing was at the perfect speed you would expect. Once I unlocked more abilities, the game opened up even further, and the many corners of the game slowly opened up to me. What's interesting is that many of the moves you unlock interconnect and allow for various advanced maneuvering techniques. You could ground pound into a high jump, then kick off a wall, then ground pound immediately after, cancel out of it to backflip in the air and land on a high ledge. Even simply bunnyhopping after a long jump is allowed, or backjumping after one will get you even higher. The are many possibilities and ways to experiment.

Your options are pretty limited early on in regards to which paths you're able to take, but once you have most of the basic kit, the world is your oyster and suddenly you can flex with your platforming. The best part? The game allows you to, and will let you outsmart if you happen to think outside the box. The level design compliments many different ways for you to solve its challenges, both in intended and unintended ways. Though you won't be able to progress without certain specific abilities, once you have them, you could go anywhere you want as where your own imagination is your limit. The map is mostly interconnected through many different ways, so it's not that difficult to get where you need to go quickly if you know the way.

Combat is pretty straightforward and simple. You can attack while moving to stay out of harm's way, or even slide and jump if need be depending on the enemy you encounter. There is only one true boss fight in this game, which I did find to be a bit disappointing, but considering how combat isn't the focus, it's not that big of a deal. It's pretty quick, painless, but in the end, fun.

Needless to say, I do have some complaints that I think is holding the game back a little. Perhaps the most minor of offenses is how It is possible to lose your weapon, and the only way to retrieve it would be to head back to a save point. It wouldn't be that much of an issue if the save points weren't so sparse sometimes. This wouldn't be too much of an issue normally, but I'll get to that in the next paragraph. The lighting is too dark in this game, making platforming a lot more difficult. It can be hard to tell if there are openings in certain areas or if those areas are indeed closed off, given the low-poly graphics. One area is completely pitch black unless you find a specific power-up which allows you to illuminate better. I'm not sure if I like this design decision, and even less so is one particular area that had a difficult series of platforming challenges that were quite difficult, with no save point in sight until at the very end. Also, not only is there no button-rebinding in the game, but there's no quick reference on what buttons do in the options? That's kind of a huge deal and there's no excuse for this.

Speaking of said pitch black area, I had a bit of a freak accident which led to a miserable session with this game. In order to see what was ahead, I would toss my weapon to light the path ahead, only to lose it on a ledge and have no save point to help me out for a good while. The level was too dark to see where I was going, and so I bumbled my way through for a solid, but having no weapon meant I was blocked off of areas where it was required and I would have gotten to a save point sooner. I'm not sure what the probability of said accident could happen is, but it could easily be solved by simply giving the player the ability to just re-summon the weapon should they lose it. I went back and forth over whether to dock this game's score over it due to the low probability of repeating it. Under other circumstances, considering how it's still a very real possibility given the accumulation of a few minor design choices I don't really like, leading up to one major situation that did not need to happen and only led to extreme frustration, I would have docked the game over it. That said, I'm still very impressed by this game and only wish for it to succeed. I can let it go especially given the small size of the team working on it as well as just how cheap the game is in the first place.

The most egregious oversight however is the lack of a map, which can make progression all the more frustrating as it's difficult to track where one has to go to make progress often enough, leading to the player running in circles until they bump into what they need to do, or have done enough laps that they are familiar enough with the layout. It's the worst part of a Metroidvania. and thankfully this has been addressed with an upcoming patch which does add a map, but until said update drops, I would honestly recommend looking up a fan-made map should you get lost.

Overall, Pseudoregalia is a masterpiece in its own right that deserves to be recognized among the many indie stars of recent years. There's some minor hiccups here and there, but the game speaks for itself with its full understanding of platforming mechanics. Once the game adds button rebinding as well as a high quality map, I'm willing to come back and give it a slight score boost. Definitely a strong recommendation; you can never go wrong with a game this phenomenal that only costs $6.

UPDATE: As promised, I'll be boosting the game's score by a point now that the map has been added to the game. It's not exactly the map with the specific feature I wished for, but it'll do. It highlights when there's undiscovered areas in the map and even names the entrances for other zones, though it does not list items that have not yet been collected. Most progression blocks are due to being unable to navigate a room that leads to another with the next upgrade or item, but I can see this becoming an issue with remembering where to go if the item is in the same room with the platform challenge requiring a specific item. I can see this being an issue with one specific mandatory item where the previous room blocking the progression can be bypassed with some smart platforming. There's also a bevvy of minor updates and tweaks added as well all over the game, which makes me excited to play it again and discover what else is new. Bravo to the Pseudoregalia team for now just adding a highly requested feature, but going above and beyond with this update as well.

I decided to take the Little Tail Bronx seriously and go through all the games, meaning that I had to put FUGA on pause to go back to the platformer that started it all: Tail Concerto from 1998. For the most part, this is quite clunky as you would expect of an early 3D platformer, but honestly? This is still a marginally better package than a large chunk of those platformers from that gen. This is quite an impressive first game from CyberConnect2.

You do pilot a dangly-limbed walking mech and are expected to do some light platforming with it. I'm someone who doesn't usually mind tank controls (I love them actually), so I wouldn't have minded a platformer with that scheme in mind. That said, there's two control schemes for this game depending on the location: a middle ground between tank controls and regular controls for open areas, and regular controls with a fixed camera for confined small spaced. The former is quite bizarre to get used to, as I would hold either side button to change direction only to then run off the edge. I can't say I am a fan of that control scheme for walking, and I would have preferred straight-up tank controls. There's also a bit of a learning curve when it comes to the jetpack segments in one of the islands you can visit. I should mention that there is a side jump option by tapping either left or right with the jump button, and it's very useful for some of the boss fights, yet the game never tells you about it as this was confined to the manual back in the day. Said side jump is quite clunky to pull off, and frankly I wish they simply assigned them to the shoulder buttons given that two were assigned to going forward and backwards, which you could already do with the D-pad anyways. The side jumps only register if you're facing forward, as facing in any other direction would instead just give you a regular jump. There is also a hover mechanic which can slightly help you with certain jumps without necessarily trivializing the jumping.

The platforming is generally fairly light for about 80% of the game, but starts to ask a lot more of you near the latter half, and the game is at its worst when there's precise platforming under pressure. It doesn't happen too often, but they can be brief yet frustrating walls. A major part of it comes from being asked to do risky jumps on small ledges, but the camera is pulled far back so that you can't properly gauge the distance. I normally never have depth perception difficulties, but Tail Concerto might be among the very few if not the only example where I had that issue. Sometimes, you would have threats coming at you during those precise platforming sections, or you had to jump between moving platforms where reacting quickly was a significant concern, yet are difficult to properly react to given the slow acceleration and deceleration of the mech, the slow turning speeds, the wide angles of the turning curves, and the prominent inertia when coming to a stop. All of these elements do evoke the feeling of riding a walking tank on legs, but they work counter to the platforming whenever it's brought up and is a bit more demanding with what it asks of the player.

Platforming aside, there's a nice sense of power trip coming from running around with the mech, catching cats in bubbles or just grabbing them directly. Those moves have a nice weight given the feedback from the animation and sound. The grab having a bit of wind up can get annoying during some of the sections when you have to react to stuff coming at you, especially during some of the later boss fights shooting homing missiles at you, though that's moreso a detriment to the design of those bosses rather than the mechanic itself being bad. Speaking of the bosses, they are pretty fun, even if they're usually very simple by asking you to just move out of the way, shoot at them with the bubble blaster and toss back any bombs thrown your way. Perhaps some attacks can be a bit unfair given how difficult it is to turn on a dime and gain enough speed to get out of the way, and they do juggle around a lot of the same ideas albeit recontexualized, aside from maybe one or two.

The anime cutscenes are delightful to watch, and even the in-game cutscenes are quite fun even if the 3D models do look a bit goofy, but I do appreciate the work that went into the portrait models for the dialogue boxes. I do think the graphics look good for the time this game came out in, and the anime aesthetics of the art style blend in nicely with those low-poly graphics. It's the same idea as what was implemented for the Mega Man Legend games even if not to the exact same proficiency. The story is, well, surprisingly very simple. I suppose we're spoiled by games nowadays, but I guess platformers didn't have much story to them back in the 5th gen, something I seem to have forgotten about as someone who mostly goes back to JRPGs and survival horror games for this generation. That said, there is an attempt at something far grander in terms of the narrative compared to this game's contemporaries, and I did enjoy the story for what it was. I'll refrain from commenting on the quality of the voice acting too much, as I mainly played this on an old 10 year old Homebrewed Phat Vita with a faulty speaker, but it seemed adequate enough for the time period this game came out in.

Perhaps the most egregious element of this game is the final level. It suddenly changes the platforming physics on you out of nowhere. All of a sudden, you have four times the jump height where you can't see where you're about to land, you rise and fall at half the speed, and your hover suddenly halts all your momentum. What's worse is that failing a jump sets you back to the beginning of the level, and you have to slowly jump your way back up the moving platformers. Perhaps raising the camera angle would have helped, but then I would have no means of knowing where to go by not being able to look straight ahead, and it was already difficult enough to even try to correct your jumps. I gave it a shot normally for an hour, before giving up and finishing the level with the help of save states. The level itself is very short, and is merely extended by wasting the player's time through trial and error of missing very difficult jumps. The final boss is quite demanding and expects some near-perfect reactions a lot of the time. I managed to overcome some of the harder bosses just fine without the side jump, but this one definitely demanded that I use it despite how clunky they can be. While numerical scores don't matter much to me with the way I like to review games, and are usually a lot more supplementary to my written reviews rather than being the main focus and are reliant on my writing for context, I did lower it for this game by a point because of this final level.

Overall, I thought Tail Concerto was decent and holds up a fair bit better than a lot of platformers from the era. Perhaps not better than the top platformers of the time period, but certainly better than the ones you don't hear as much about compared to your Crashes, your Klonoas and your Spyros. Once again, very impressive of CyberConenct2 to start out this strong in an era when developers were still lost in the sauce trying to figure out how to make a pizza out of this fenangled third dimension. It's certainly not necessary to play if you just want to get to the likely best parts that Little Tail Bronx has to offer, but at only 6 hours long, it's a nice bite-sized adventure that's at least worth checking out. Also Panta is the best.