Game Review--Crysis 3 Remastered (Switch)

"When they came to me with the nanosuit, I sacrificed Laurence Barnes, the man I was, to become Prophet.  When my own flesh and blood held me back, I sacrificed that too, replaced it, like a spare part.  Victory costs.  Every time, you pay a little more."

--Prophet, Crysis 3 Remastered

The opening scene of Crysis 3 finally sees the series reach a introspective depth of characterization and tease a (mild) cosmic horror that I have seen some people greatly exaggerate with regard to the first games--the first cinematic is already more personal and Lovecraftian than the entirety of the preceding two games, even though Lovecraftian horror is not the only kind of cosmic horror.  At the same time, this progress comes in the game with the smallest number of levels in the trilogy: a mere seven levels, the first of which is less than half an hour, await players.  Compared to some other games that are relatively short but not structured in levels, like God of War: Chains of Olympus, the actual length of the game in hours is not totally abnormal, but the miniscule level count is an odd choice for the finale of a trilogy like this, especially since Crysis 2 had almost 20 missions.  It is nonetheless a triumph of sorts that the storytelling and lore are enhanced across these levels for once.

Production Values

The graphics are still some of the best among the Switch ports of old yet then-groundbreaking shooters, just like the graphics of the other two Crysis Switch ports.  The problems with the game and its series do not have to do with the visual quality of the games.  While the writing and storytelling is much better in this case, as characters are actually developed and there are plot twists beyond discovering the presence of ancient extraterrestrials on Earth or being betrayed by a powerful figure, the fact that Crysis and Crysis 2 go in directions that are mostly random compared to those of the other two games in the trilogy.  In spite of this, the Alpha Ceph entity both is visually evocative of a Lovecraftian-style alien and serves as a better ultimate antagonist than the earlier Ceph.  Starting in the same video the Alpha Ceph is first mentioned in, the voice acting also establishes the individual humanity of the protagonist, sets up the scope of the looming threat, and shows that the writing is also dramatically improved here over the lines of the prior games.  Prophet is developed as a character far beyond his small but pivotal moments in Crysis 2 (which that game did certainly make the most of) even as other characters get to show more emotion or more complicated motives than the franchise is otherwise known for.

Gameplay

To some degree, the gameplay of Crysis 3 is identical to that of what came before in the series.  The nanosuit still has its iconic stealth and armor functions.  You can still lift objects and enemies to hurl them away.  There are still sections where vehicles can be used.  Finally, there are still both human and alien enemies, the latter of which are revealed to be connected to the Alpha Ceph, a tentacled-creature that unites the Ceph under a hive mind.  The additions come in the form of a new weapon, the ability to sprint without draining the nanosuit's power supply, and revamped suit upgrades.  The most obvious of the new combat features is the bow and its variety of arrowheads that can be switched out for different purposes.  Out of all of them, the standard arrow type is the one best paired with the stealth function of the nanosuit.  Players can silently kill some enemies with a single shot without ever giving any visual indicator's of one's presence besides the dead body, but unless you are fine with running out of arrows quickly, reclaiming them from corpses or the environment if they missed their targets is necessary.  The ability to hack turrets, computers, and even landmines also gets added to the nanosuit's capabilities.  Slowly, Crysis expands the suit's usefulness and capabilities until the third game has by far the most tactical and combat options.  You can also now upgrade the nanosuit upgrades themselves by completing challenges related to each upgrade, with one example being that the regeneration of 5,000 units of suit energy will improve the energy recharge rate.  One of the differences here is that the basic nanosuit upgrade points that unlock a special passive ability (so that it can be further upgraded) are obtained through kits instead of dropped by Ceph aliens upon death.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Years after Prophet dies and Alcatraz bonds with his nanosuit, the latter, now immersed in Prophet's personality, is pulled out of a cryogenic stasis to help thwart the CELL corporation that has taken over the world.  The organization's success turns out to be linked to a creature called the Alpha Ceph, a Ceph that Prophet has visions of, seeing its power and arrival to Earth.  Alcatraz and Prophet's AI-duplicated voice and memories struggle to deliver humanity from extinction with the threat of the Alpha Ceph on the horizon.

Intellectual Content

Prophet lives up to his name as he deals with seeming foresight of a grand extraterrestrial entity that could destroy life on Earth, with Crysis 3 focusing on his personal journey as a soldier who gave more of himself for humanity than many others would if they had the same opportunities.  What storytelling and broader philosophical depth Crysis 3 actually does have comes more from this than it does from an exploration of something like extraterrestrial life or transhumanism (which the nanosuits are a great fit for tackling).  If only the earlier games had take even this approach to more characters, by this point they could have been directly grappling with the existential, epistemological, and metaphysical ramifications of something like the Alpha Ceph existing.  It is in one sense an unexpected gift that Crysis 3 turned out to have more substance beyond the gameplay and graphics for the first time in the trilogy. 

Conclusion

Crysis 3 is still overall a better shooter than it is a storytelling device, but this time the story is at least more personal and focuses more on just how foreign the Ceph are to Earth's normal life forms.  One of the biggest wasted opportunities of Crysis 3 is simply that the earlier games do little to nothing to consistently lead to the story and thematic components of this final installment in the trilogy.  Like the sequel Star Wars film trilogy, the main Crysis games have little to do with each other besides a very loosely connected timeline, setting up or picking up from plot points that have only minimal connections to the previous or next games in the trilogy.  If the first two games at least had more abstract themes or more emotional character moments, then the philosophical and narrative context of Crysis 3 Remastered (or just the original release) would be the conclusion, up until the fourth game was planned, of a far better series.  As it stands, only the third game amounts to more than a shooter with great combat and visuals.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Shooting enemies with arrows is bloodless, but stabbing or using ordinary firearms to kill human foes involves quick, small sprays of blood.

 2.  Profanity:  "Shit," "fuck," and "bastard" are used.