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The Forza Horizon game has been about drama. Not only to cling to the excitement of the competition, but also to the natural touch of nature – the sun is rising above the dense city, the rain clouds are moving over the valley. There are moments in the game – perhaps after emerging from a dense forest, or climbing from the ground – when Mount Fuji briefly appears in the distance, silent but beautiful, the Platonic form of a volcano – and it almost takes you away. Fans of this series have been waiting for years in Japan and now here, the whole country, reduced, recreated and remade as a pilot’s paradise.
In many ways, Forza Horizon 6 is a continuation of what the series has been about. You enter driving competitions like festivals and then drive on a large map full of different races and challenges, and earn reputation by competing well and buying new cars in your big garage. There are a few changes this time – you start as a rookie and not an established legend, so you have to be eligible to join the festival, and Playground has brought back the need to unlock the series and bring back the idea of progression from the oldest titles in the series. You start to cry in low-end cars on easy tracks and you have to work hard to start fighting with high-end cars like Ferrari J50 or Lamborghini Huracán.
Progressing is winning races of course, but also doing challenges like running traps and jumps, or just pulling off cool drifts and other cool maneuvers as you explore. And you don’t just open festivals, there’s a whole game called Discover Japan, where you take part in a driving tour through beautiful landscapes, your guide pointing out interesting places as you approach 150mph. There is also a Crazy Taxi delivery mode, where you complete deliveries in a cute little car to unlock better jobs and more money.
Money is spent on cars, naturally, and after 20 hours I have a collection that billionaires would fire 85% of their workers to own. An Aston Martin Vulcan, Jaguar XJ220 S in sky blue, classic 1986 Audi Quattro. It goes without saying that these things are perfectly modeled, and as before, you can repaint them and cover them with decals, or just search the user-made market for good designs. My GMC Jimmy SUV was painted sweet pink and decorated with manga artwork. Besides cars, you can also buy different buildings on the map, then modify and upgrade your garage so other players can come in and admire your cars, like a testosterone-fuelled version of Animal Crossing.
None of this would mean anything if the handling wasn’t fun, but oh well, it is. Races take place on roads, mud fields, slopes and twisty mountain roads, and all cars perform exactly as they should. The Jeep Trailcat grips the mud like a magnet, the Honda NSX-R GT corners faster than a runaway roller. On tarmac, the tires are given enough to allow for an impressive ride (this is Japan after all, the home of racing), but you can pull it back without spinning the bush. Braking control is the first skill to learn in urban races or hill climbs where the corners are tight and unforgiving. However, when we run in the fields, there are places to slide and slide with a pleasant abandon.
And you don’t play alone. Sure, you he can treat the game like a big campaign, but if you’re online, there are other people playing your streets. You can choose to compete against other people in campaign races instead of AI drivers, or choose Horizon Play! and participate in crazy races against dozens of strangers. In our tests, the servers performed well, with no issues and little waiting time between matches. If you want to meet your friends and blow up the street of Hakone Nanamagari, hitting speed cameras to beat them, you can.
If I have a complaint about the game it’s that its version of the city of Tokyo doesn’t feel Tokyo enough. All the famous sites are wonderfully designed and instantly recognizable (radio tower, Akihabara, Shibuya crossing), but without the crowd of pedestrians, the noise, the style, the noise of the high-rise city, everything feels sterile, even post-apocalyptic. Almost the best way to get to know the city in the game, is from a distance, walking along the beach in the Ito area of the game, and seeing the skyscrapers shining in the sun. Perhaps it was impossible to expect in a racing game something as exciting and exciting as the Tokyo of the Yakuza series.
But mostly, it’s business as usual at the Forza Horizon festival: a beautiful map filled with beautiful scenery and different weather conditions (including hidden cars!), smart but challenging gameplay and plenty of challenges to take on. Forza Horizon 6 increases the size and beauty of the environment, it brings the opportunity to look more and more interesting and exciting, including the players. driving, unlimited fast travel and high quality features. It doesn’t change what the series has always done, there’s nothing dangerous here to attract new players. But that’s good. There is no other way that most of us would sit in a Porsche 911 GT3 and go to the parking lot of Daikoku with the Yellow Magic Orchestra playing on the radio. For those events, and more, the organizers of this beautiful game should be praised and applauded.
