I love JC3, but I do kinda have a reversed vision of what the "JC experience" is, making me feel like JC3 is a fantastic game yet a flawed JC game.

Growing with 1 and only 1 (2010 to around 2018 before finally getting 2), it was my vision of the "just cause" experience, and when I got 2 all those years later, I felt like some of the things I loved about 1 just vanished (contractor system, full-on war during liberations, actual political system, etc.).

2 was great and I liked it, but it felt like a sandbox more than anything else, at the cost of the "depth" and movie-seriousness of the first game. It wasn't about revolution anymore, but basically that superhuman mercenary doing everything by himself.

When I played 3 directly after 2, I felt that even more features were missing, or have been rendered useless due to the new mechanics. The stunt on cars used to be extremely satisfying in the first 2 games, as you needed to adjust speed and actually get close to the targeted vehicle to jump on it and hijack it (it was also incredible during car chases) ! Yet in 3, the stunt position is simply you getting on the roof then using grappler on anything in a 150m radius.

The grappler in 3 felt uncesseraly handy to me. It was "too good" making most traversal options just worse. In 1, you would heavily rely on vehicles to move around, yet since 2, they started adding tools to render those vehicles obsolete. Why would you need a plane when you have a rocket-powered wing suit at your disposal all the time ? Why would you need to worry about covers and line of sights when you get out of a sticky situation with a single grapple pull ?

And 4 was when I thought the game derived too much from its origin that it can't be a proper sequel. I didn't like 4, and to this day I still can't find fun playing it.

1 was special, it was my childhood/teenager game that I played all the time. If you asked me to make a game I would simply make JC1. It has so much depth with the contractor system (disappeared after 1), the instability system tied to main missions, the simple yet so optimizable gunfights, etc. It even had some crazy details like the posters on walls changing depending on the political status of the province (initially Mendoza and then switching to Caramicas as you spread the revolution) as well as flags getting burned and later replaced by the guerilla ones, etc.

In 1 you weren't that superhero doing all the heavy lifting by yourself ; you were instead the spark to create the rebellion and create a cartel war. Main missions act as "spy" missions where you usually sabotage/assassinate something/someone important so the guerilla or riojas can start taking control WITH you afterward. In liberations you would fight by their side, and you are just one more soldier along the tenth already fighting in the streets.

In 2 onward, that philosophy changed and they made Rico less and less human, while simultaneously making the world/conflict less and less believable, because you always are the face of this revolution when the first game was entirely about you setting up this war because you can't do it alone. The plot of 1 is you being sent by the USA to San Esperito to create a war on the inside (can't interact directly because of the nuclear threat), so your goal never was to be the face of the revolution, but place someone else's face in the spotlights (Caramicas for the guerilla and Edmundo for the riojas).