Forza Horizon 5 (2021) by Playground Games

Forza Horizon 5 is pure fun.

That's it, that's all there is to it. Oh, and lots of cars.

The Horizon spin-off games have always reminded me of the Fast and the Furious films. They aren't exactly "thinking man's" franchises; there are very few big ideas or serious themes to dig through. No big morals to the story, no ethical struggles, no big ideas to consider or difficult decisions to make. They're just pure bombast, fun, and positivity. And sometimes that's perfectly okay. We could all use a few more smiles in our daily lives, I think.

The design of Forza Horizon 5 is clear right from the get go: Get the player smiling ear-to-ear, and don't have them stop until they're finished playing the game. Horizon 5 is packed to the brim with ostentation, ridiculousness, colorfulness. It's an adrenaline rush and a feast for the eyes. Above all else, this game wants to make you feel good. And it constantly succeeds in that.

This is happening? This is happening.

If you have even a passing interest in motorsports and you're looking for a sandbox to play around in, you'll enjoy this game. In my past I dabbled in automobile modification (with my Supercharged 355 LT1 Camaro, near two decades ago now), and I have even participated in a few proper drag races at the local strip back in my younger days. But I'm more than a decade removed from my last "official" race and I haven't turned a wrench on my own car in nearly as long. I've retired into a quiet life of middle age, in which I drive a ten year old Toyota Camry and pay my mechanic to change my oil so I don't get too dirty. But Forza Horizon 5 brought those old years of cruising up and down the highway and taking trips to the racetrack screaming back to me. While Horizon 5 is focused mostly on being an open world sandbox, it also provides copious amounts of tuning possibilities and car customization options for those more knowledgeable about such things. You can fine tune your suspension, purchase modifications by the individual part, customize the look of your vehicle down to individual parts if you want—or you can absolutely ignore all that and let the in-game mechanic do it for you, and spend your time instead cruising around Mexico and looking for various shenanigans to get lost in.

The actual racing is smooth, responsive, and overall excellent, and the game runs superbly for me, keeping between 80-90 frames per second at 4K on high settings. There are few things that equal the adrenaline rush of taking a jump at 100+ mph, other cars screaming around you, an airplane soaring overhead. The environment is equally compelling and varied, as you'll race through different locales within the beautiful Mexican countryside. And all along the way, the game is drip-feeding your points with which to buy new cars, unlock new abilities, purchase more mods, all so that you're better at getting more XP in a vicious, addictive, well-designed gameplay loop that will keep you driving through the game's content. No pun intended.

The one caveat I have with the game thus far is that it has a tendency to crash on me. Usually within menus, and mostly while editing car modifications. However I chalk this up to launch day jank and I expect these crashes to be patched out very soon, as Playground Games have typically been excellent with post-launch support.

That complaint aside, I really can't say enough about the sheer fun factor this game provides. If you want something to put an endless amount of hours into, something that will make you smile as winter sets in here in the Northern hemisphere, something that will take your mind off a hard day of work the second you launch the game, then buy Forza Horizon 5 without a second thought, because this game will make you happy.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Octopath Traveler (2018) by Square Enix

Although Octopath Traveler is breathtakingly beautiful and has a really fun battle system, I can't recommend it simply because the way it manages its characters is so completely broken that it ruins the entire experience.

The game's often a joy to wander through, as the 3D pixel graphics and high depth of field serves to sculpt its atmosphere exceptionally. Each biome offers its own unique feel and enemies, and the pixel art bosses are often stunning to behold. It's clear that a lot of careful design went into making this game the visual powerhouse that it is, and it does a lot to carry the experience. Even something as minor as the art style and menus conforms to this general art direction; taupe, earth-tones, bold lines. I love it. The game looks amazing, plain and simple. I haven't been this enamored with a game's art style since I first played Darkest Dungeon. I really can't say enough about it.

The turn-based battle system is also quite fun. Each enemy having a weakness and a break state is quite compelling, and forces the player to think tactically and make difficult decisions as to when to use their boosts, or instead preserve them to break (the game's term for 'stun' for a few rounds) a tough damager-type enemy. It's very satisfying to navigate efficiently through a battle, and each character has their own utility, which I found a driving force to keep building my team and progressing through the map to find new buddies.

However, the buddies are where the game completely falls apart. The way this game handles its characters is mind-bogglingly awful that it makes the game, as a whole, feel unfinished. It's not that the character dynamics and interplay are bad, it's that they almost don't even exist at all. It's so, so awful I can't believe the game shipped in this state.

The entire point of the game is to recruit eight (hence the "octo" in "Octopath") main characters—each of whom has their own unique story—and join them together in a traveling band. What's so absolutely befuddling about this is that there is almost no character interplay whatsoever! You will come across a new character, they will say perhaps two lines to your main character, then simply offer to join up. And that's it. These characters will never speak to one another again outside of some awfully unnatural canned scenes in which you must press a button to have them play out. It's such an unnatural, obtuse way for party interaction to happen that it renders the entire game dry and sterile, which is quite the accomplishment for a game that looks as good as Octopath Traveler.

This game could easily have been a superb example of a JRPG revival title if it had just had some brief, organic character interplay that regularly occurred. Instead, everyone is silent for the vast majority of the game. Most of the time it's as if the other characters aren't even present. There's a huge missed opportunity here as each character is relatively unique and interesting, but in a vacuum, they read as very standard. It's such a massive disappointment and such a puzzling design decision that I can't believe the developers decided this was the best course of action. It kills the experience of the game for me.

If this game ever receives a sequel, it absolutely needs something akin to the Support system introduced in recent Fire Emblem games. Allow these characters to get to know one another, interact with one another, and be true comrades rather than simply individual stories all occurring in a vacuum, apart from one another. Without something like this, the entire experience is dead and worthless, and the party banter feature doesn't do nearly enough to alleviate things. These characters need to be engaging with one another in story sequences.

Prepare yourself for another boss fight that's going to take 30 minutes!

On top of this fatal flaw, the game also gets more and more tedious and grind-heavy as you progress. Not in that you're required to fight random battles to get stronger, but in that enemies seem to get higher and higher HP boosts, leaving boss fights to drag on for a catastrophically long time, and even forcing general random battles into taking far too long. The game abuses its battle system by keeping the player roped in to certain fights for far too long and upsetting its balance of exploration and battle. There were certain bosses which took me near 30 minutes to complete, the end of which I was ready to quit the session and simply play another game because I had grown so bored of the particular fight's formula of wearing down the boss's guard, disposing of whichever minions they happened to summon, building up boost, healing, rinsing, and repeating, ad nauseam. The game ends up leaning a bit too hard on its battle system, and although it's good, it can't support the entire game by itself, and it's constantly let down by its narrative, which carried no enjoyment for me whatsoever.

This is a pretty game that ultimately lacks heart and is forced to lean far too heavily on its good combat and jobs system. What results is a disappointment unless you're solely looking for a visual masterpiece with a decently entertaining JRPG-style turn-based battle system. If you want even the barest bit of quality story and characters, or find yourself tired out by the more tedious aspects of JRPGs, you'd best look elsewhere.

This is a pretty game that ultimately lacks heart. A catastrophic disappointment unless you're solely looking for a visual masterpiece with a decently entertaining JRPG-style turn-based battle system. If you want even the barest bit of quality story and characters, look elsewhere.

⭐⭐

Playtime: 37 hours