In many ways this is exactly what I wanted from a GT game: licenses are back, the cafe menus structure makes for a nicely directed single player 'campaign' and the car fandom/museum aspect is even better (and quirkier) than ever. The problem is that once the credits have rolled I've found absolutely no desire to go back to it.
I've talked about the curate's egg in other games as a lazy shorthand for a good game negatively affected by a single aspect. In this one I think it's closer to the original story of a rotten core that you can try to get around but eventually cannot avoid. In this game it's the GAAS implementation. Credit rewards are far too low - I can't even afford one of the high end cars from Brand Central after 20 hours in the game, assuming the game actually allows me to buy one. The game's always online and it fails silently if you do something like go into rest mode in the middle of a multi-race series. I've lost multiple races' worth of progress from this. Most of all though is the way the game cycles stuff in and out to make you try and log in every day. I've packed in multiple mobile games recently because of the amount of time I was spending doing my daily logins and this is in a similar place. At that point it stopped feeling like a fun game and went into that cynical GAAS hole, where I just won the right to buy that Koenigsegg but only for the next 7 days, better get earning credits! Want a particular car? Well you'd better wait for it to turn up!
When I went through the game I really enjoyed the progression from my Mazda Demio up to the racing thoroughbreds in the end, via some real classics on the way. After playing another Forza Horizon game where I could rely on two or three cars (FH4 in particular just boiled me down to driving a Ferrari F40 around everywhere) it was a much better sense of progression. In the end though, I do want to buy my Ferrari F40 but the game won't let me. Apparently it was in the Legends area a fortnight ago, at over three times the price it was in GT Sport. I guess I missed out.
I've talked about the curate's egg in other games as a lazy shorthand for a good game negatively affected by a single aspect. In this one I think it's closer to the original story of a rotten core that you can try to get around but eventually cannot avoid. In this game it's the GAAS implementation. Credit rewards are far too low - I can't even afford one of the high end cars from Brand Central after 20 hours in the game, assuming the game actually allows me to buy one. The game's always online and it fails silently if you do something like go into rest mode in the middle of a multi-race series. I've lost multiple races' worth of progress from this. Most of all though is the way the game cycles stuff in and out to make you try and log in every day. I've packed in multiple mobile games recently because of the amount of time I was spending doing my daily logins and this is in a similar place. At that point it stopped feeling like a fun game and went into that cynical GAAS hole, where I just won the right to buy that Koenigsegg but only for the next 7 days, better get earning credits! Want a particular car? Well you'd better wait for it to turn up!
When I went through the game I really enjoyed the progression from my Mazda Demio up to the racing thoroughbreds in the end, via some real classics on the way. After playing another Forza Horizon game where I could rely on two or three cars (FH4 in particular just boiled me down to driving a Ferrari F40 around everywhere) it was a much better sense of progression. In the end though, I do want to buy my Ferrari F40 but the game won't let me. Apparently it was in the Legends area a fortnight ago, at over three times the price it was in GT Sport. I guess I missed out.