Forza Horizon 5 has been a decent experience so far but one thing that’s really been a big let down yet again is the story/campaign and progression, where do I even begin with such a topic.
I feel the progression is far too fast and its simply unrewarding, even more so than the last 2 games. The expansion of the fesitval sites happen so damn fast that you have all the races and Horizon stories unlocked just like that due to the poor “accolade system” bar filling up so quickly and your driver level, I had only been playing a few days not intensively either and I had unlocked everything up to the Goliath and plenty of super and hypercars that’s just not acceptable, what happened to earning more races, earning the chance to use better cars, the game throws these events at you and gives you these annoying and forgettable characters to hype you up and thats it, with no explanation behind anything, no motivation or character rivals at all to help push you to complete all these events. This is where the wrist band progression system from the OG Horizon game was undoubtedly better you felt like you were making progress when you unlocked that first super car or hypercar and when you unlocked Goliath.
To make matters even worse the car list is somewhat of a let down this year as well, which makes doing races more of a chore than anything because you are limited to the car list from FH4 which is 95% the same , so if you do want to experience something different you are very limited, I’m sure they’ll be adding cars in Playlist but give the player new experiences from the get go, dont hold it all back through that and DLC.
This all needs to be addressed for the next game because this is poor. Very poor.
I agree, the progression is, way, way too fast. Personally, I think the only Horizon game that had decent progression was FH1 (which was my introduction to Forza in general). Every one since has been such a frantic pace (especially FH4 and FH5) that it feels shallow and meaningless. FH5 is a bit better than FH4 was (the story content ran out after just a few short hours and turned into a grind slog to level up enough to unlock the final tracks), but is still way too fast.
I think I understand why they do it this way because of how progression is tied into multiplayer and there’s a lot of players who just want to jump into a specific car on a specific track and don’t care about a story, but then we end up with the worst of both worlds where SP focused players get a shallow story and unbalanced progression, but MP focused players still have to grind through the SP content to a certain point to unlock the tracks an cars they want so they can start playing the part of the game they want.
Personally, I think Horizon should return to the separate solo and MP modes like FH1 had so we can get a story focused mode that doesn’t need to worry about getting MP focused players into their hypercars instantly and can potentially be replayable without wiping out the entire save file.
I was feeling that too all the fun of building your self up to the top , you can get all the best cars have the fast upgrades for your cars there is no progression in the game every thing is too easy to come by hald the cars i have won from wheel spin will not use,i would like that you have to use old cars build them up slowly to win race’s
I agree with most of what you have said. Horizon 4 and 5 have terrible progression systems. Everything can be unlocked in 4-6 hours of play time. There is absolutely nothing to look forward to. Think about it, after 4-6 hours of gameplay, there is nothing that must be done to progress. This turns into senseless end game grinding.
Horizon 1 was excellent, and in my opinion Horizon 3 is the bench mark. Both of those games had a truly progressive story line which forced players to complete single races which unlocked championships, in order to earn points toward unlocking the new outpost, and leveling existing outpost. This all leads to a real finale, and a feeling of accomplishment.
Progression seems to be based on completing the ForzaDex. For people who enjoy linear campaign, it’s a turn off.
Forza Horizon is Xbox’s Pokémon. A few years ago Pokémon was made ridiculously easy to attract even more players. I see in FH5 and other recent Forzas much of what was in older Pokémon games like Black 2/White 2. And the ultimate goal in Pokémon has always been to complete the PokéDex.
That being said, FH5 has its “moments” when it comes to difficulty. AI cheats a lot!
Curious. I remember back in the days in FH4 people complaining a lot about how tedious and boring was the campaign progession. Now that is faster, people still complain. Classic
I find the campaign in FH5 way more dinamic and less boring than in FH4. But i guess its a question of tastes. Apparently.
FH5 is almost exactly as FH4 in every single aspect.
The main differences are - redesign of some UI elements to make em faster to deal with, and faster transitions between events.
And the map, bigger than Fh4, of course. Everything else is a rehash of FH4 that just changes how some things are unlocked, thats it.
And lastly, the change from driving in the left side to the right side.
AI? i found it exactly the same as Fh4.
Graphics? exactly the same as FH4 (in fact, i laugh so much when i see low res textures in FH5 all over the place, even if i have max settings…).
There are more graphic assets, thats why people think graphics are “better” (for some reason) than FH4. But they arent. The aliasing is as terrible as was in FH4.
Overall, i liked FH4 way more. But i was expecting that. Also, 75% of the roads being dirt or cross country doesnt help either. It doesnt help either all the problems and bugs that FH5 has right now.
Things like the cursor not hiding automatically when you are driving should be something completely basic and essential in any videogame, and yet we still see things like that in a game like FH5.
Graphics. Im amazed that in 2021, we cant enjoy good graphics without seeing low resolution textures when up close or graphics that are close to a game from 2010 than anything else.
So, the campaign? honestly, im glad it changed it so now you have more things to pay attention to and you can progress doing many many more things than in FH4.
In Fh4 the campaign was so boring and unrewarding that after a while you just wanted it to end lol, and forget about it to focus on online and festival playilist lol.
Not sure if it’s quite the same thing but I have almost finished FH5 far quicker than FH4. I have a few drift zones to get 3 stars and two stories to complete (ignoring the one that can not be completed because there are no cars to pass and get near hits or whatever they’re called). Apart from fulfilling certain things to get accolades, which is just a boring grind I feel the game is more or less over. FH4 seemed to have lasted longer but maybe my memory of it is off. Regardless I’ve nearly finished it in under two weeks (I will admit I played it everyday mind you).
It’d probably felt longer if people actually participated in the Live Arcade events. But as no one does nor do I.
