Just Cause 4

Ok... So... Just Cause 4... Just Cause 4 Reloaded is... absolutely fine. That's it, fine. Not awful, not bad, not horrendous like some people say, it's just fine. When compared to JC2 or JC3, yeah, not good looks, but looking at it as it's own game, it's fine, even great at some fronts.

Just Cause 4 finally has a different story than "overthrow an authoritarian regime in Central America", also, finally some character development too, Rico is a bit more grumpy than expected, but still a good character. The story has... Something! They tried for once, it's no God of War but it gets the job done, and of course, ends on a cliffhanger. I will never forgive you if you don't give us a JC5 Avalanche >:(

Gameplay is better in every way imaginable (M/KB), some things were added, some removed, some changed (don't know who had the idea to auto-retract the tethers >.>), but overall, I still like it. Much easier to control Rico in the wingsuit and use all the gadgets.
Gunfight is still the same as JC2 and JC3, and by that I mean that it still awful. Using the rifles feels like you are shooting stone statues with a healthbar and that's it. No impact animations, no blood wounds, no physics, no gore, once their health reaches zero, the stiff statues become a ragdoll, and that's it.
Use explosive weapons or shotguns, believe me, much better.

Action is still awesome, destruction physics are the best of all JC games, the tornadoes ripping through the land and taking everything along with it is marvelous, I do wish we had more control of the weather effects tho, it's pretty complicated to control the Tornadoes for example. Ah yes, the turret sections are fun too.

The mission structure is... Strange, you have to release a few regions to unlock main missions, it's fine tho, can get tiresome but nothing extreme. I just played the main campaign, wasn't in the mood to 100% the game, I just released the regions and made the main missions, had a pretty decent time, but if you do all sides it will probably take forever and be boring.

Graphics are a mixed bag, the horizons looks beautiful, the explosion effects are among the best I have ever seen, the particles, fire, rain effects, all brilliant. As for the atmosphere, it has a darker tone to it, specially when compared to JC3, it's taste, I like it but I get those who enjoy a more vibrant experience. As for the bad, man, the lightning and texture work of the cutscenes are HORRENDOUS, my god, what happened there? Literal PS1 textures, sometimes the hair glitches, Sheldon looked like he had metal hair and beard on some cutscenes, the cutscenes are waaaay too dark and low res (literally 480p), I don't know why they did it, the in-game cutscenes are MUCH better. Last, of course, the ocean, yea the water is strange man, while it looks good at night with winds, during the day it looks like paper. Awful.

The performance is also fine for me, no framedrops at all, not even in tornadoes, the FPS is completely stable, much better performance than JC3 in all possible fronts and I had a single crash while playing and reproducing a stream on my second monitor. The only stutters I had was when I completed a leaderboard challenge, but once I disabled those in the menu, no more stutters.

As an old time fan that played all JC games (Really old, JC1 on PS2 was fire), I actually like it. Not the best Just Cause, but not the atrocity people make it.
I would give it mixed rating, but since I like it more than dislike it. Soft recommended.

I can recommend getting JC4 only on sale. I feel like the devs got tired of making the game but felt that they still needed to get compensated for all the work they've done so far and decided to put it out as is regardless of what players and fans would say. The game plays good but there will be one big lag and some awful stutter. After doing some search, you can eliminate the stutter by simply going in the option menu - game play - and Select leaderboard and put it on show none. Crazy right! This could have been fixed easily. goes to show you there is no love from the devs this time around. I gave it thumbs up to support them. We can all fall from time to time. But also I have finished it and also got one of the DLC's. So I did have some fun but the game is not even close to JC3 or JC2 in terms of quality.

It's a great game, shame there's a lot of bugs and crashes, and no more patches.

Alright, I'll just go on and say that his game isn't perfect. Just Cause 3 is better. However, this game has its own charm to it. I've played this game fully a total of 3 times. First on Xbox, then PS4, and now PC. I've had fun each time. Is that not what a game is designed to do?
Unlike Just Cause 3, you don't blow up military bases and liberate them. Sadly, they replace that with a mission based system. Upon beating the mission, you unlock that region of Solis. These missions get repetitive real quick. However, these are important to the big "weather" missions which are actually kinda fun.
There are a total of 3 types of side stuff. They are split by 3 people: Javi, Garland, and Sargento (the most annoying character in this entire game).
Javi - The more interesting set of side quests. You look for hidden ruins across the map looking for the secret of Solis (this is expanded upon in Los Demonios). Their is a good amount of ruins I'd say; not too much and not too little.
Garland - Basically female Michael Bay. Her goal is to make a movie about Rico... that's it. Her quests are fine, it's just the challenges that are the most tedious part about this game. Each settlement, landmark, and military base as a set of "challenges". These challenges are split into 3 categories: Speed, Wingsuit, and Vehicle. Speed just requires you to go through a ring at a certain speed (Hint: Use the Brawler Mech DLC's dash. It is basically an in-game cheat because of how fast you go) as long as you're in a vehicle. Wingsuit is like the wingsuit challenges in JC3 except 10x easier and you only have to go through 3 rings. Vehicle requires you to go through a ring with a certain vehicle. All of these get really really tedious, especially if you are trying to 100% the game like I am. However, a lot of these challenges are required to unlock certain vehicles for your supply drop. There a total of 251 areas you have to complete (from what I remember).
Sargento - This annoying mother fucker is in charge of adding weapons to your supply drop. In order to get them you have to complete is quests to train the rebels. Along with this, you have to destroy Black Hand Blimps around certain areas. His stuff isn't bad at all. He is just annoying.
In my opinion, this game adds a lot of QoL things that were not in JC3. For example, their is now actual air traffic you see across Solis, weapons now have a secondary action like a grenade launcher, and you can now rotate your supply drops before dropping them. Along with this, you can actually customize how Rico looks! You can change his wingsuit, parachute, and can even change Rico to look like how he did in JC2 or JC3! This is a very nice edition.
Get this game with all its DLC on sale. For me, I got it when it was only $10 USD. The DLC adds a lot to this game and makes certain challenges MUCH easier. But first, lemme tell you my thoughts on each expansion DLC:
Dare Devils of Destruction (DLC 1) : 6/10 - Adds a lot of fun challenges and vehicles, but doesn't do a lot in terms of story. I had fun all 3 times despite it not adding much to the lore of JC.
Los Demonios (DLC 2) : 5/10 - Adds a good chunk to the History of Solis lore. However, its main gameplay bits are just annoyingly difficult and it doesn't add a whole lot of usable weapons. However, I recommend looking into the Tendrilizer. That weapon is interesting.
Danger Rising (DLC 3) : 9/10 - Easily the best DLC in the entire game. You get a hoverboard, amazing weapons and vehicles, and you get gameplay like JC3. The story is actually interesting and possibly sets up what is going to happen in JC5 (God, I want that game so bad). Having to fight against the Agency actually brings up the difficulty curve in a fun way. A must-have DLC if you choose to only buy certain DLC.
Overall, for me, this game is a solid 7/10. While it isn't as good as JC3, it is still a fun game to play.

I got JC4 and all DLC on sale for $11 and would recommend it at that price. Overall it was fun but I had a really tough time with some of the controls (using keyboard/mouse) and had some troubles with the driving and hoverboard. For that reason I didn't go for 100% on this game. Take retractor Speed first as yank breaks connections, for balloons start with invulnerable.
DLCs: "Digital Deluxe Edition" has the weaponized / booster wingsuit and that's a NEED, do the orange wingsuit challenges ASAP to make the game a lot easier. "Danger Rising" in the Expansion Pass has a hoverboard I only use for surfacing when underwater and a "SMG" with a homing alt-fire that became my primary weapon in the game. The "Adversary Vehicle Pack" has the X700 Flycatcher VTOL which is amazing, and the hover mode moves over 60kph for clearing early speed challenges. I didn't find any other DLC item particularly useful in practice, but could've missed some.

Just Cause 4 was a bit improved compared with the previous game.
But still it wasn't amazing, atleast not if you play it on mouse & keyboard. The control of bikes, planes is pretty horrible. But I can appreciate the fact that the wingsuit was way more enjoyable on keyboard compared with Just Cause 3.

In the beginning I hated that they removed liberations and the challenges seem pretty hard, but after a few hours I started to LOVE the new challenges. In this one you have a lot of towns / military bases and in each you have 2 - 7 challenges, depends how bit the location is.

+ Wingsuit was improved and much controllable.
+ Challenges revamped which made the game even more fun, no more leaderboards.
+ Pretty interesting weapons and enemies.
+ Garland, Sargento & Javi your new buddies asking you to do different jobs for them, and complete all their taks was interesting.
+ The Graphic was improved a bit, probably a new engine but this will go on CONS aswell and you'll see why.
+ New tools, grapling hook that can tether in 2 points and lift stuff, the baloon tool was interesting and we have some boost tools but i never used it.
+ The story was pretty good and theres a big chance that you'll get attached a lot of characters. They were well done.

- Graphics are improved but in same time made some characters to look dead inside. Bulgy eyes and no light behind them.
- I encountered some problems with the water. Most of times when I plunge into water game fully crash and get some weird error.
- The game needs to be set in Full Screen and 50 FPS otherwise on a mission where you have to go underwater for some generator the game will crash non stop if you are not locked on 50 FPS.
- During game I plunged into water from helicopters and with cars and the bug reappeared even with 50 FPS locked.
- With new engine the hair and the character details sometimes looked weird.
- When you fully finish the game, they dont show on map everything, so you'll have to waste a lot of hours to search for hidden towns if you wanna make all stunt challenges.

I played this game on my YouTube channel took me 30 episodes and a total of 43 hours, 7 minutes, 13 seconds, and I didn't made it 100%. Still missed a good portion of challenges and all those Rampage races + 11 statues for Javi.

The game is good and I recommend it, is worth playing and offer a lot of content if you want to waste lots of hours to complete everything.

P.S.: YouTube in Steam bio if you are interested.
Happy gaming!

OVERHATED GAME ALERT
As a fan coming off of Just Cause 3, I can understand the frustration at release, especially with how the marketing material presented the game as far more than what it's worth.
As is typical for Western games, the game also released broken and unfinished.
I got it years after release for chump change, and with all patches and DLC.
Ultimately, this game isn't as good as the predecessor, but a lot of it is down to personal preference.
First,
The Cons
Let's get the elephant out of the room: The downgrade in GRAPHICS and PHYSICS is laughable.
However, I think one needs to understand that, unlike the predecessor, this game wasn't made with Unreal Engine 4, but Avalanche's proprietary Apex tool. Which is to say, a lot of time and money that could have gone into development was siphoned by making this tool. I imagine they didn't use UE4 because of licensing fees.
The SOUNDTRACK suffered, too.
But again, Avalanche can't really be blamed. You can beat Henry Jackman, who composed Just Cause 3 alongside Zach Abramson, and I imagine Jackman doesn't charge pennies either.
However, Abramson has done as good of a job as he could to learn from working with Jackman, and I think the effort should be complimented. The adaptive mixing is also back and better.
Personal Issue: The WINGSUIT CONTROLS are easier.
It was quite fun to spend hours crashing in Just Cause 3, but now being able to look back at just how good I've gotten at daring wingsuit maneuvers. It seems that in Just Cause 4, your wingsuit loses momentum much slower, and thus, the experience is also not as kinetic, since the momentum simulates wind resistance, and you hardly feel any of that here.
Now,
The Pros
The STORY is a mixed bag, but generally, I prefer it.
While Just Cause 1 and 2 were not to be taken seriously at all, 3 did have some important and personal beats, and generally communicated its theme rather well.
Di Ravello was also, while generic, a good dictator antagonist.
Here, both villains, Oscar Espinoza and Gabriela Morales, are eternally in the background and hardly interact with the characters. Especially Gabriela, being the sister of Rico's friend and sister in arms Mira, has so much missed potential.
However, Oscar Espinoza ties very well into both Rico's personal history, as well as that of the country of Solis, and is generally interesting because of that. I just wish we'd actually gotten to see him act like the crybaby which he looks like. I do like that he's an oligarch who uses a mercenary army, though, as both of those things are underexplored in ficiton inspired by contemporary politics. Like how Di Ravello served as a baseline example for fascism, Espinoza does for oligarchy.
The sci-fi tech is kind of out of the blue here, as, while it was already present in 3, there it had a coherent theme that suspended the audience's disbelief, that being the mineral Bavarium, which only existed in its ficitonal country of Medici.
Here, the Black Hand just have all sorts of insane sci-fi weapons, tools, vehicles etc., just 'cause Espinoza has unlimited money and can buy stuff from wherever he wants.
I really like the other CHARACTERS.
I found most characters in 3 to be pretty damn annoying (except for the radio propaganda guy, David Tennant), and I like how much of the personalities of 4's cast tie into your interactions with them.
The new radio propaganda isn't as funny as Tennant's was, but I like it being a talkshow where the hosts, Thiago and Santiago, legitimately believe the garbage their script says.
There's Sargento, the strategist of the Army of Chaos, who coordinates the army behind the back the one-man-army that is Rico. He's inexperienced, but he's got heart, and Rico inspiring and teaching him is cool.
Javi is an archaeologist who used to perpetuate the Espinoza dynasty's propaganda about how they were supposedly the ones who had been improving Solis in the centuries since the Conquistado Diego Espinoza de Malaga arrived, and who, after being locked up for getting sick of lying, now tasks Rico to help him uncover the relics of the last dynasty of indigenous ancient Solino rulers, in order to prove Espinoza a liar.
My favorite is Garland King, who is just female Michael Bay from New York and who wants to Rico to be her stuntman in what I can only assume to be the most idiotic movie since Morbius. I love her.
Many disagree, but I actually like that you take over BASES by completing certain tasks now, instead of just destroying all the chaos objects.
They are, of course, a staple of the series, and their meaning has now been reduced so much that they even respawn upon restarting the game, but the developers at least found some good use for them, which is that they make the arcade-style score counter relevant again, by essentially acting as experience points. Every time you fill the chaos meter, you get an additional squad of insurgents, which you need to take over more areas.
The new GRAPPLING HOOK is also cool.
Random tasks which you are given while exploring the map are nice, and they reward you by unlocking mods for your grapple, depending on which character gave you the task. It gives you a lot more to do while randomly exploring.
The DLC for this game is much better than the undercooked additons of 3.
While they added cool mechanics and expanded on the lore, 3's DLCs were really just tacked on.
4's three DLCs all add new missions all over the map which completely switch up your gameplay and have their own themes.
Verdict:
Some things better, some things worse, but generally overhated. Buy on sale if interested. Better with mods.
8/10