Okay, so i’ve mentioned some of this elsewhere, but i wanted to extend on it. These are my opinions & whilst it’s correct to praise a game where applicable it’s also correct to do the opposite, more so in the sense of constructive criticism in the hopes these choices/mistakes won’t be made next time. I love the Forza series but taking off the rose tinted glasses it’s clear this game has gone in a bad direction. You might agree or disagree & that’s cool.
As someone that spends the majority of time playing solo/single-player. This game is such a step down from H3 in many ways & yes it does some things better I’m not denying that. Much of what i’ve heard about the online parts of the game haven’t exactly been great either, especially in the couple months after launch.
I honestly left this game for months after launch & only recently went back to it because in the very short amount of time playing it i could sense it wasn’t great. Content wise, whilst what their is, has been very enjoyable, it feels like half the game H3 was. I think i read somewhere this had almost half as many unique races as H3 & it feels like it. 18-20 races each of 4 categories & that’s it!? Not only that but because theirs a horrible progression system, everything is front-loaded. No matter where you come in a race you’ll get virtually the same credits/influence as winning & unlock everything just as quickly. Then not only that, you can’t see where you came in a certain race afterwards so you don’t know which ones to improve on (not that you need to know because doing well is pointless now). Showcases are just all given to you within the first couple hours (I saved most to near the end, doing playground games job for them so i felt at least a tiny amount of achievement). There’s nothing to work towards in this game. There’s no feeling of building your way to unlocking the next showcase, building up or unlocking a new festival site, a new cut-scene, nothing. I got a 20sec voice-over from whats-her-face after getting to road racing level 20 or 25 (far, far too quickly) saying well done, here’s a gold bracelet. Not that i care but you don’t even get a wearable gold bracelet. That’s it. That’s the end game. Not even a cut-scene.
Rewards. Probably makes me the most disappointed with this game. You get barely any money for doing races, even with difficulties all turned up. Example, 10 laps of Goliath (same car & assists) on FH3 gets you +900k, 10 laps of Goliath on FH4 gets you 600k. Then of course, the rewards were far better in H3 without all the clothes so you were far more likely/often to get money etc. So to buy cars, houses, enjoy the FH4 how you’re meant to etc. You have to rely (luck) on getting good rewards from the wheelspins. I must’ve had roughly 175-225 wheelspins & I could barely afford anything throughout my whole time playing. I couldn’t buy more then two of the cheapest houses & 90% of the cars i had were pretty terrible ones from wheelspins. I couldn’t enjoy the game & buy cars i wanted, buy any of the houses that cost over a couple million to unlock the various perks they came with. I’m level 152 or something & can barely afford anything. 80% of wheelspins have been clothes, like seriously, just why. 15% terrible cars & 5% money, which when it has been money has 99% of the time been £5k’s or £20k’s. I recently built up over 20 wheelspins as i heard you have a greater chance of getting more money with more wheelspins at once (probably rubbish). So i saved up, raced the same small amount of races i’d already done a bunch, did a couple blueprint ones specifically designed to get you money through wheelspins etc. Opened my 20+ wheelspins… One £10k. Two cars from the 1940’s-1960’s. Everything else, clothes. The rewards system in this game is ridiculous.
Small note on the ‘weekly seasonal races’. It’s terrible. Firstly championships should’ve been in the game normally, like with H3. Secondly they aren’t even new races!? Here’s a bunch of races you’ve done before, probably multiple times. As a ‘live-service’ it’s pretty terrible aside from the added story every couple months. But again, that’s every couple months. Why would i keep coming back to a game to play the exact same race layouts that i’ve already played a bunch of times. They should’ve been brand new routes at the very least.
The car pass hasn’t exactly been great. Half the cars have been interesting/exciting, the other half probably never or barely used by anyone which isn’t great knowing you paid extra for them. Especially when quite a few cars are just reused from H3/FM7 & of course now that the pass has ended, you just know the paid car packs they add now will include the cars people wanted since before the game released. Still waiting on that Aston DBS Superleggera, that I’m sure will be in a car pack. It’ll be the last time i buy a Forza Car Pass. Just as a side-note, putting unique cars you can’t buy from the autoshow as rewards to the seasonal championships is a horrible move especially for anyone that can’t play that specific week or doesn’t know there’s a car reward that isn’t in the autoshow as it varies. When nobody wants to sell those cars in auction it’s even worse. I paid for this content so why are you locking it behind timed exclusive events.
Fortune Island was also pretty terrible. Considering what was being promised & all the hype surrounding it. It’s probably the most shallow Forza expansion I’ve played. Whilst i completely enjoyed aspects like exciting coastal/cliff edge routes, the expansion is clearly catered towards off-road & drifting. It gets dull real quick & the map design is mostly bland & feels very small compared to past expansions. Again content is so completely minimum too & took barely any time to complete. Paying the same for Fortune Island as Blizzard Mountain & Hot Wheels is a complete rip-off & i didn’t even enjoy the zaniness & restricted boundaries of the Hot Wheels expansion all that much.
It’s still buggy at times & after 5 months i still have to change my speaker settings & sound card settings every time before i play it so i don’t get horrible stuttering audio, as they didn’t decide to support some popular Creative sound cards etc. Also i have to unplug my keyboard every time i play as it causes the Xbox controller to disconnect every once in a while. But that’s a Windows/Microsoft issue i think.
Lastly, a few small things. I just had a small look under Xbox achievements in the app & i’m pretty puzzled to see the incredibly small amount of players that have gotten certain very simple achievements after 5 months. Considering all the boasting about how this game has been far better then H3 in sales & amount of players etc. Less then half have made it past the 2-3hr prologue & like 2% of players have all the barn finds which considering you need to buy the 10-15million castle for the last one & the fact the rewards in the game are terrible, it’s no real surprise. Another thing, the start of race/end of race screen is horrible how it takes you out of this great world they’ve built to a bland white room with some dancing idiots (don’t get me started on emotes). Why choose this!? Why break the immersion to this great game world you’ve built!? Horizon 3 did it perfectly, it kept you in the world which was far better & gave you all the info you needed. You could’ve done the same with H4 & added in the top 3 cars & dancing idiots if you really wanted. Also the autoshow, another thing H3 did great. Go look at/buy your cars from the festivals in a nice glass building with great views into this great game world. H4… a horrible, bland white room again. Why not have some glass panels looking out onto the festival since there’s only one this time round. Lastly that cutscene from the E3 reveal where the car actually drives out the house & onto the road, a really cool moment/animation which again nowhere to be seen. It looked great, maybe they couldn’t be bothered to do the animation for all what… 7-8 houses.
Why after making so many great choices & them working really well in H3 did they feel the need to completely change it all. It just feels like things were changed for the sake of change & not to benefit the game. The progression, story/purpose/cut-scenes, rewards, amount of content, unique races, championships, UI, DLC & expansions etc. All these were so vastly better in H3. It feels like this game was made for reviewers more then anything. Really disappointing, this game could’ve exceeded H3 easily just by retaining the things that made that game great as there’s a bunch of things this game does better then H3.