TM2020 was made for players who were already very familiar with the stadium car from previous games.
The sluggish and incredibly punishing handling of the main vehicle will only feel comfortable to those experienced enough to also know the 20 years worth of time saving bugs that this game won't try to teach you.
It's still an incredibly addicting game thanks to its structure, depth, and endless amount of tracks made by talented mappers, but it simply doesn't care about teaching you or helping you learn how to play - not through tutorials, not through good learning tools, not through approachable controls, not through content with a gentle difficulty curve.
Prepare to be punished for small details while you don't know the basics of what you're doing.
Also, ice is just a disaster of a surface.
The sluggish and incredibly punishing handling of the main vehicle will only feel comfortable to those experienced enough to also know the 20 years worth of time saving bugs that this game won't try to teach you.
It's still an incredibly addicting game thanks to its structure, depth, and endless amount of tracks made by talented mappers, but it simply doesn't care about teaching you or helping you learn how to play - not through tutorials, not through good learning tools, not through approachable controls, not through content with a gentle difficulty curve.
Prepare to be punished for small details while you don't know the basics of what you're doing.
Also, ice is just a disaster of a surface.
Honestly, it's good as a game that wants to be taken seriously as a potential major esport, apart from Nadeo's repeated bad decisions with it, but it's just not as fun for me as the earlier titles. The heavier vehicle and acceleration penalty feel overly punishing, the endless new gimmicks which find their way into every map + poor tutorials make it increasingly hard to get into, and most players just care about quick hunting maps. Competition is strongly emphasized over community. There's nothing like the TMNF's oldschool casual teams here, or if there are, they're much harder to find. Also not a fan of the subscription model.
This game gets better with every new car added. In terms of ground types the variety in this game is off the charts, but before October 2023 it had the problem of only featuring the Stadium car. Gets old at some point. With now 3 cars at the time of writing we're slowly getting there. Almost worth the money now.