This game does only 3 things right: map, physics, and graphics. Yes, they are incredibly important for the racing genre, however everything else just reeks of laziness. Yes, it's fun to drive around. Yes, that's where the depth of the game ends. Yes, it's somehow still the best modern racing game on the market.
The map is amazing, the department that was responsible for making it was the only one that actually worked on the game. It's pretty, it's enjoyable to drive around, it has plenty of elevation, it feels authentic to the setting. Simply put, it's the best map this series has seen, and probably one of the greatest maps in the whole genre. I'd even go as far as saying that if the map were replaced with FH5's, this game would end up being worse than FH5, which is already the bottom of the barrel for Forza.
Graphics are amazing and optimized. However, there is no art direction. They do not try to make the game look interesting with post effects or color balance. It has unmatched fidelity for the listed system requirements, but it's absolutely and inexcusably bland. There is no individual style in the render aside from it being the definition of "safe realism". Nights are bright to not scare away the dimwits who only know how to accelerate; forests are unnaturally illuminated to make the same people feel comfortable while driving through them; seasons also have minimal impact, even in winter every road is perfectly cleaned because people whined about cars being undriveable in FH4 (yes, they chose to make seasons meaningless gameplay-wise instead of making a feature to auto-apply setups or even just winter tires).
The physics are just Forza Horizon physics. Over 6 games they gradually improved them to the point where it's really hard to find any holes in them. That doesn't mean there are any, though. For me, the greatest fault of these games is the fact that any car can be good at everything. Especially when it comes to off-road. Hypercar? Slap some rally tires and you have a Group B machine in the palm of your hand. But don't worry, even such a minimal amount of effort is needless, you can just jump onto dirt and drive completely fine: 99% of the trees here are made of frail, dry sticks; handling is barely impacted by dirt and grass. Roads are basically optional, for every car, and these games have been going even further in this direction with every installment.
Did [i] I [/i] have fun just with these 3 aspects? Definitely. Would I actually recommend buying it to someone who isn't itching for a AAA racing game? Absolutely not. Especially at full price. At 30%+ off and if nothing better has come out yet? Yeah, sure.
Why? This isn't really a [i] game.[/i] It's a demo for their unmatched game engine at best, which this series has been since FH3.
Story? Forget about it. The best they can do is unrelated mission batches with awful dialogue that was written by their HR department - the epitome of "everyone is happy and everyone is welcome, no you can't frown - that's offensive". There's no edge, no spice, no uniqueness, no conflict, absolutely nothing. The game would actually become better if every piece of this "story" were to be removed.
Music? There are maybe 10 memorable songs through all radio stations. Half of them are censored. No the censorship isn't a simple radio edit. They think that words like "blood", "kill", "scars", "god" are the definition of satan and must be muted. Then why even add these tracks, you prude ♥♥♥♥♥?
Progression? The best they can do is add vague car rank limits to events. The game still rains million-dollar cars on you from the get-go. However, the further you get into the game, the more the means through which this rain happens (wheelspins - their version of gambling) get exhausted, leaving you with FEWER rewards as you progress. This is probably the only game I can remember where you get LESS in the endgame than in the very beginning. Yes, this is somehow [i] better [/i] than whatever they did in FH3-5.
AI is awful; they drive like you aren't there, they lack any kind of unique quirks about them even though the pool of AI names is identical every time. Once again, it's just bare minimum.
Somehow, a racing game set in Japan is 50% off-road events, 50% road events. Oh, and 50% of these road events don't even count toward "progression", so to reach the "end" you actually have to struggle through 75% of events not even being on the road; with some jumps, drifts and speed zones sprinkled here and there. Sounds [i] very fitting for Japan, [/i] right?
Maybe there's some race event diversity? Nope. Sprints and circuits, maybe they sprinkle in extremely generous timers in some "side story" events, so even the biggest dimwit could progress. That's it. No drift races, no speed trap races, no knockout, no car deliveries, no boss battles, no championships to combine race types.
The car customization rework was a marketing ploy, they removed bad old wings and bumpers to add new bad wings and bumpers. In a game set in Japan. Laughable.
The character customization is awful. Everyone is ugly, everyone is somewhere between a man and a woman, 100 million prosthetics, 20 thousand hearing aids, no beards, no facial sculpting, nothing. Yes, this aspect also, somehow, got worse since FH4.
There's also their FOMO ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ playlist - their attempt at live service. You redo the same races with different cars, or take photos for most of it. No, they can't even be bothered with mapping out some new tracks weekly. Yes, they have the gall to add exclusive rewards for participation in this nonsense.
I genuinely think that if you rip out this game's engine and use it to remake some 2000-early 2010s racing game (even though I abhor remakes and remasters), it would become the best racing game ever made, instead of the best racing game tech demo.
