Here are a few things I liked better in Horizon 1 than in Horizon 2:
The roads. In H2 they didn’t feel as good as in H1 for a few reasons:
The roads were too wide - I wanted to get used to them and not dislike them from being nit picky, but in the end driving down those wide roads just wasn’t as fun as squeezing past traffic on H1’s narrower roads. Also the wide roads in the city looked very unrealistic and weren’t nearly as fun to drive as Carson’s narrow roads lined by raised sidewalks (the Fatlace hatchback race shows how well-made the urban roads were).
The H2 roads were either very short sections segmented by intersections, or bigger sections which were mostly straight (the coastal road being an exception). I think this was to avoid people cutting the track due to the checkpoints system. The roads in H1 were long sections filled with many curves, or high-speed roads with narrow kinks through intersections, and they were more fun to drive on compared to FH2’s roads.
No penalty for driving off the road, making the tarmac feel more like a suggestion than a necessity.
The racing. The racing in H1 felt more involving with narrower roads that took some skill to stay on, and there was no corner-cutting on every 2 out of 3 turns. H2’s racing tbh didn’t feel engaging for some reason. This may seem like progressing backwards, but having barriers lining the race course to discourage corner-cutting and having at least some speed penalty for driving on the grass (in H1 you’d either slow down with wheelspin or flip from the bumpy gound) would encourage you to take better lines through the corners and hitting apexes.
A bit too much oversteer tendency in cars, especially rwd saloons. Along with the trigger feedback that only goes on when you break traction without warning you beforehand, this kinda reduced my enjoyment of driving most rwd card (I drive without TCS). Also the cornering speeds and sense of speed in Horizon 1 was perfect.
The atmosphere of Horizon 1 was better imo. From the map and music to the characters (even though they were cliche) even with how festival events had unique titles as opposed to 4 random races for Supercars in Castelleto , Horizon 1 felt more alive than Horizon 2 (which felt like going through countless randomly chosen races). It would be nice if FH3 had events and progression like FH1 (even if that just means just adding a title and some artwork to the events).
If you agree or disagree with my perspective, please feel free to write why you think that below
True, it’s kinda weird because I do feel that the cars including RWD are more grippy, especially when taking fairly tight bends. They also kinda feel less planted on the ground, more unstable when you have the thumbstick at full lock during a turn, which might either be due to changed scaling in the steering assist and/or the less stiff thumbsticks on the xb1 controller. Hopefully Forza 6’s driving engine would have more balanced oversteer like Forza 4, and that it would carry on to FH3. Also there were rumours that a hardcore controller would be announced for the xb1 at e3, and I’m hoping its thumbsticks would have better feel.
The handling is fine, perhaps your build needs to be different as many things can affect it, cars handle as I expect and good builds win races. FH1 was too restricted and im glad its more open world however wish searching for paints was easier as it gets tedious in H2
Personally I would prefer to see multiplayer go back to something similar to Horizon 1 or better yet, multiplayer like Motorsport where ‘I’ have the choice of what class to race in public lobbies. This was really the biggest disappointment I had with Horizon 2.
I agree with OP that the roads seem a bit too wide, I would also prefer narrower roads.
Also, do the fireworks at night need to be so loud that they drown out all other sounds? Some of the sound leveling in Horizon 2 is completely bonkers.
I have to agree with SatNite that the handling is too grippy, I suppose that will depend on personal preference though. I too think the RWD cars need to loosen up a bit.
I have to agree with multiplayer changing. It’s the biggest reason I really don’t play FH2 anymore. I would love to see it go back to the way FH1 was and have lobby racing instead of road trips. I understand what PG was wanting to do, but they need to place more emphasis on winning. After all, this is a racing game. It would be great if they would make racing lobbys and also skill lobbys.
As for the cars having too much grip, I would love for the cars to be less grippy and a little more difficult to handle. But seeing as Horizon games are geared more towards a larger audience, I see why they want to make the cars a little easier to drive. Just take multiplayer back to the ways of FH1 and I’ll be happy.
Horizon 3 (if there will be one), should be like the first and the second Horizon. The first sequel had great on line, which never happened to get on Xbox One. Horizon 3 should be inspired by the graphics and physics, although the world should be bigger while the feeling of always doing the same thing (I’m talking about offline championships) is quite annoying.
Finally, about the hateful players who crash into everyone on the first corner to end last, you can’t eliminate them from one game to another. Unfortunetly.
THIS. I like the atmosphere, the festival, the fact that there were actual characters (and the characters themselves), the music, the progression. I liked all of this better and made it feel more realistic.
I think horizon should be like horilson2 I love the tuning and is less need for speed like…if I wanted a game that played like nfs I would buy nfs just saying
