Game is awesome in many ways, but after playing a good number of hours (level 135), there are many gameplay elements that can make it cheesy (and cheap, and gamey) at times compared to previous titles.
getting skill points: go in the outback with any car, drive randomly like a madman and see you skill score and combos increase like crazy. There is no skill in this at all. It devalues most skills.
You can farm skill points there in no time without even a skill song or a HE skill car.
skill song. Cheesy beyond belief. A radio announcer bragging: “and now, a skill song !”. Like, really ?
races against a drivetard™ in head to head, especially to add to the lineup: these races are very short and very easy. There is almost no point. You can cut like a madman to reach the destination while the drivatar will not. IIRC they were more challenging and courses longer in FH2.
drivatard AI: many issues depending on races and car combination. drivatards being too aggressive, ramming, slowing down when they shouldn’t (or the opposite)… Bad AI makes the game feel cheesy and like it is actively working against you.
I’m playing the french version and the guy in charge of the garage and barns find sounds like a real retard, being overly excited all the time for no reason.
Maybe the original voice actor is better. Give me Dak from FH1 any day !
barn finds: there are too much of them spread in too little time. It’s like Australia is barn finds spam country, with all these barns looking identical with that same animation when they are opened.
That much barn finds so quick devalue them and makes the entire idea gimmicky. Barn finds were much better handled in FH2.
the way you “manage” the festival by extending festival sites: I was so sick of seeing the same animation over and over at the end. It also makes the progression feel weird and unnatural compared to previous FH. The map gets overcrowded quick as you get spammed with events, and you have to filter it by what you are currently doing for your own sanity.
Showcase events: always more over the top than ever. What’s next for FH4 ? Race to the moon against a rocket ?
HE cars: I know players love them, but it makes me feel as if the game has no confidence in its XP/credits/skill system and normal progression and needs an included cheat.
And these cars are not rare at all. They would be rare if there was, say, 1000 copies of the same HE car, dropped over several months.
Anna: because 2016 players cannot decide what to do by themselves and need an assistant to tell them. I can nearly ear the rationale for Anna in the T10 design room.
you finish the last showcase, see the credits, and think “Huh? That’s it ?”. Feels weird even if there is ton to do after that.
probably more I forgot. Anything that breaks suspension of disbelief, breaks immersion, and just reminds you abruptly that you’re in a game.
FH2 had its flaws but on a number of points, it feels way less cheesy and more confident in its gameplay and progression
FH1 despite its limitations is still a masterpiece: it has the best feel at being at a festival, great AI, some of the best races, in particular point to point. There’s no unneeded fluff and it feels the tightest of all 3 games. The lack of true open world in this game is sometimes and advantage (no silly cutting through the wild with a supercar).
i agree it’s extremely cheesy. That moment at the start of the game when the guy in the baldwin trophy truck comes up and says “ive got 800 horses and im not afraid to use them!” was by far the most ive ever cringed at a video game.
that line is physically painful lucky most of the rest of his dialog is fine but that line is painful most just because it sounds like he is hamming up the accent a lot more, the rest of the game it sounds right
I agree with those points. Last night I got the credit screen and I was like [Mod Edit - Abbreviated profanity, profanity and profanity that is disguised but still alludes to the words are not permitted - D]… that’s a weird place to show me the ending credit screen… I just started the game lol.
The map filled with races, I don’t really mind it much. But for an OCD completionist like me, it drives me crazy @.@ and is so overwhelming too
And yes there was alot of barnfinds too early and close together. But say what, they are now off my checklist.
Do people realize that Horizon is supposed to be this way? It’s an arcade game. Arcade games have always been this way: over-the-top ridiculous feats mixed with carefree attitude, and a general air of fun and machismo.
The fact that Playground Games has managed to marry that with the more buttoned-down tone and mechanics of Forza Motorsport is amazing! It aint easy bein cheesey.
Many of your points are really petty tbh. But I do agree about the barn finds. 15 of them and you earn one every other level?
Granted the barn find cars are, for the most part, gorgeous and absolutely worthy of barn find status, but the fact you keep finding them so frequently just keeps them from being as special as they should be.
Horizon 1 had a sheer lack of things to do mind you. Horizon 3 on the other hand? I’ve barely done half of the festival upgrades, yet alone the actual races they unlock, and I have every Barn Find already. They definitely could have gotten away with spreading the Barn Finds out a lot more.
One of my pet hates is the ching ching noises for xp and credits after every race online and offline. All I want is music or car sounds not all these sound effects every time. And the wheelspin sound - i can see i have a wheelspin i dont need this annoying noise each time. Would love the option to turn these off
I haven’t checked the way audio is distributed properly but… Isn’t that why there are audio sliders? If you want car sound and radio sound on 10 and everything else on 0, then go to settings and mess around with it?
Most of these points sound verrrry biased and quite irrational. Seriously? You’re complaining about Anna? Magic: go to your options and gasp turn her off! whoa. Plus, thing is, the game is supposed to be laid back and a little cheesy, (arcade open-world racing game here).
Agreed! Nothing wrong with a little cheesy. The whole point of Forza Horizon is to have fun and take a breather from all that “racing games are serious business” stuff in Forza Motorsport. Forza Motorsport is James May giving a 3-hour PowerPoint presentation the intricacies of power-to-weight ratios; Forza Horizon is Jeremy Clarkson bellowing “POWER!!!” and turning $1000 worth of tires into smoke and skid marks – so a bit of cheesiness comes with the territory
Some of these points are stretching a bit, but I agree somewhat.
An example of where you are stretching:
Forza Horizon 2 handled barn finds in the exact same manner, with the copy-pasted animations and what not. Granted there was noteably fewer and a smaller map, so more dialogue and detail was put into each setup, but there is no question about it - the game mechanic and the presentation of said mechanic is the exact same.
Your point about the showcases being too over the top. Your point? Showcases were boring point-to-points with an untouchable vehicle running in the background in the last game. People complained about that factoid in FH2, I find it ironic as heck that you are arguing for the opposite end of the spectrum here. Showcase events have you actually doing stuff with a significant involvement with that you are racing. The one with the jeep being carried by the helicopter has a degree of content to it, having the jeep hit the ground in the final stretch and you race that for that bit. And you race in the river behind the speedboats, and can fail to beat the train and run into it failing to hit a jump in the train one. They are just better.
Also, nothing was really changed with the drivatars here. I don’t get how they can be better in FH2 if they were handled in the exact same way, to the point where there’s almost no difference. By the way, they cut through the woods as well in this game, just at less than optimal points (which even that is an improvement over FH2).
Not sure how Warren sounds any different to the last barn find voices, they use the exact same positive tone but with different accents. Even use some of the same lexicon to an extent when describing the vehicles.
This sounds like a very self-serving post to the opinion FH1 is the best horizon, but the argument for that is too weak and sparse. There is little to do in that game and it doesn’t even have tuning or drivetrain swaps, let alone the fact that customization and car variety was so few in that game.
First, I must say again that I really love FH3 and having a blast. My post is minor criticism about a certain feel I have of the game, that most of the time does not diminish enjoyment.
It’s an accumulation of small details.
The thing is that just before the release of FH3, I played and completed FH1 for the first time thanks to Games with Gold (before that I completed FH2, months ago).
I really loved FH1 and played it as much as FH3, in a short while. At no point I thought “this detail is cheesy”.
To me it has the tightest racing, without fluff and gimmicks. Or if you prefer, it stays on point. Yes it is limited and yes in many ways FH3 is miles better. But for the core stuff which is racing, FH1 is fantastic. Despite its 720p resolution, less detailed world and no free roam outside of roads. I do not recall AI drivers causing problems too.
For some reason, the FH1 showcases felt more intense and more memorable to me. But I fully understand how and why they evolved to their current form in FH3 with that added “spectacle”.
But Warren screaming some dialog in that jeep from the first helico showcase ? Cheesy. Not unbearable but unnecessary. Yes I know, it is a detail. Let’s hope it doesn’t become AAA military FPS with vehicles bad, with splosions everywhere, where you have to save Warren.
Barn finds in FH2 were better executed and not only in term of pacing. French Warren is horrible and gimmicky compared to the nice lady from FH2 or Dak from FH1.
Drivatars in FH3 are good to great for some car classes / track combinations. But I find them problematic in some cases, mostly high speed classes and offroad. Head to head races are a lot weaker (not as long nor difficult) than in FH2, and rather uninteresting.
I understand your reasons for criticism, but I still don’t understand:
How are they actually different in any way? Was their core programming significantly changed or am I missing something here? This is why I called it a stretch. Functionally, both of them are the exact same. I see no difference in the distance in the head-to-head races, as mechanically, there is no significant difference here.
However, there are convoys, and convoy races, which are something new and separate from races (these have a fair bit more player input as they follow your GPS point or you directly if there is none). Could you be referring to that?
This and a few other of your points I hold heavy doubts on. Some of these features aren’t anything but improved or expanded on from previous games. I’m not deflecting your opinion or anything, I’m just surprised to see some of these even up here.
