I've got a new video card for my newer desktop PC (HIJIRI-PC), so I'm very excited to tackle my Steam backlog finally, as well... but the power cable for it isn't here yet. So it's back to my older, slightly more powerful laptop (SHINKI-PC) for a spot of Forza Horizon 4 now that that's out and about.
I am very conflicted about Forza Horizon 4. For starters, remember, I rambled about FH3 a lot because it set an implausibly high bar. A
ridiculously high bar.
FH4 had to top
that. The absolute perfect road trip video game, of exploring this absolutely gorgeous faraway land, a true feeling of going on an adventure halfway across the world, accompanied by a
beautiful music score greeting you on the title screen. It was absolutely this sensation of escape, of a journey. FH4, understandably, decides not to continue that tack at all, having pretty much nailed it, and opts instead for a world where the Horizon Festival is your home. Everything's made significantly more cozy and relaxed, even as the roads are far more exaggerated than ever (the lessons in video game geography they took from the Blizzard Mountain and Hot Wheels expansions show here beautifully, in long lilting hills with sweeping roads banked like a Talladega Superspeedway commute but somehow feeling plausible). You're able to purchase a log cabin in the woods or a village home (or a castle, if you're particularly loaded), and each time you boot the game up (after the staggeringly enormous
five-hour-long prologue, anyways), you're welcomed home and see your car in the driveway as, if it's been a while, the season changes before your eyes. The
title screen music is more sedate; I'd jokingly described it through the ad campaign as "Animal Crossing with cars", but nah, that's pretty much what it is. Or rather, it's definitely an odd mix of those sorts of games with an MMO.
So far, so wonderful. However, where the core gameplay mostly holds up from FH3, it's the additions that pile up into actively becoming problems.
You're now able to customize your character! You aren't stuck with defaults; you still pick from the same character models, but now can dress them up. You can't buy clothing items you want, though. You get them through random drops. But you can also change their animations! You can't buy the ones you want, though. You get them through random drops. You can also change the sound of your car horn, like in 3! But instead of being unlockable... well. You see where this is going.
In the first Forza Horizon, everything in single-player was unlocked with in-game currency or by completing challenges, as you'd expect. The online mode gave you a "Wheelspin" - random drop - upon leveling up. By FH3, you were getting a Wheelspin for every level up no matter what mode you were in. With FH4, you're getting them
constantly. They replace nearly all other methods of unlock, and everything is lumped into the same category, meaning that where before, you would be getting money or a car with each level up - always good! - you now have a 2-in-5 chance of those, and a three-in-five chance of getting emotes or clothes or novelty horns. So, essentially, even though they've added all sorts of wonderful cars and races and events, these are all absolutely gutted by the game's insistence on foisting absolutely useless trash on you in several-second-long slot machine cutscenes
constantly. They've also added Super Wheelspins! Triple the reward, and higher chance of rarer items - did I mention there's omnipresent item rarity now?
So, yeah. If you can't take that sort of thing - like I can't - the actual progression system is pretty much utterly destroyed by it. FH4 makes good on the promise for a shared open world (every hour on the hour, everyone on the map is offered a co-op challenge in the same place, and seeing everyone flock together to play is
the best thing, like a cross between elementary school recess and a Nitro Circus show), and the seasons making major changes (most non-rally-themed missions are just straight-up borderline unplayable in Winter), but... the baffling insistence on this progression system really prevents most fun or sense of accomplishment. You no longer can progress by just picking whatever events you want, they're separated into categories that you have to individually level. You can't just do stunts in whatever car you want, they're separated into individual skill trees per car that you have to separately level. Everything is made to take agonizingly longer in the desperate hope of keeping you playing longer, and it just makes me want to stop playing, like... now. I'm not having fun. I can't even invite friends to play with the Game Pass free trial because there's a
five-hour prologue before you're allowed online. There is so much greatness here that is actively stifled by poor design decisions that I can't imagine they actually wanted to make.
tldr; Forza Horizon 4 basically gutted 3 and made it a gacha game and I spent $40 on it and regret that
(I don't regret getting to drive the Bond DB5, the pursuit Jaguar from Skyfall, or the Hoonitruck though)
