What the DLC thinks it is: https://youtu.be/zi6WRi97EZY?si=PuK8h1iDqPTdcvvn&t=22
What it actually is: https://www.gtplanet.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/forza-horizon-5-map-4k.jpg
What it actually is: https://www.gtplanet.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/forza-horizon-5-map-4k.jpg
Lindo, mas nada divertido. Muitas vezes maçante e caçar os 100% aqui é uma lástimas. É medíocre então não recomendo, não é qualidade Forza. Recomendo se caso conseguir por um preço extremamente baixo ou de graça...
It was a lot of fun exploring the best map in a Forza Horizon, and the little things like off-cambered turns, road bumps, and surface changes all add up to make the driving feel different. The rally-lite mode is a fun novelty, and the game and map look gorgeous as ever. Not a barn-burner by any means, but absolutely worth tearing through each race at least once.
While not as bombastic as the Hot Wheels additions, is a fun new way to play centered on Rally with new radios, new cars and new events with new rewards to earn. If you want more Forza Horizon, this will give you more Forza Horizon with new twists and a fun progression system.
Plusy: nowe radio, przyjemne trasy, Focus Colina robi robotę
Minusy: skandalicznie mała mapa, JEDEN samochód rajdowy w dodatku o rajdach, content na 2-3 godziny, cała masa assetów z podstawki
Minusy: skandalicznie mała mapa, JEDEN samochód rajdowy w dodatku o rajdach, content na 2-3 godziny, cała masa assetów z podstawki
I rolled my eyes when I saw a rally expansion get announced and especially one that was in Mexico without expanding the main map but this surprised me in how much it held my attention. The map has actually nice roads to drive on both visually and design wise. Can't give it too much praise I still hate the characters and I'm not big on off road but it had more value than any previous forza expansion. Felt almost like the normal campaign which is a low bar but better than nothing.
meh
Como expansión de rally no es muy allá, pero el mapa nuevo es precioso, los trazados nuevos son mucho más técnicos y muy divertidos y, en general, sigue siendo una gozada simplemente conducir por este mundo.
Un buen broche final a un juego excelente.
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It's not that great as a rally expansion, but the new map is gorgeous, the new tracks are a lot more technical and fun and, overall, it's still a joy just to drive around this world.
A good swansong for an excellent game.
Un buen broche final a un juego excelente.
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It's not that great as a rally expansion, but the new map is gorgeous, the new tracks are a lot more technical and fun and, overall, it's still a joy just to drive around this world.
A good swansong for an excellent game.
Uninspired, banal design. Can’t believe I’m saying this but this was the final straw to convince me that Horizon should be a live service game, with yearly content additions to a growing, somewhat contiguous world. At least that way there would be some incentive for Playground to make something (anything) new. The formula is way past stale.
Also I never want to be called “superstar” ever again, which automatically disqualifies this DLC.
Also I never want to be called “superstar” ever again, which automatically disqualifies this DLC.
DLC ruim da porra
Everything that's interesting about rally, softened to be accessible in a way that I'm not sure was entirely necessary. Do these courses feel more rally-like than the base game? They do, but only by the slimmest of margins. They're the base game's off-road races with tighter turns and fewer straightaways. As a result, it requires better understanding of your car's handling than any of the base game's off-road courses, but it still pales in comparison to other rally games (even the ones with comparably arcade-style mechanics).
The rest of this review is going to dig into that last point, so I want to go ahead and get the "selling point" out of the way early: You buy this DLC if you want more off-road and mixed-surface races, or if you want to test Forza Horizon's absurd vehicle selection/tuning options on more technically demanding off-road courses. I spent a significant amount of time in the base game on the joke idea of trying to turn a Koenigsegg Agera into a viable rally car - you can! You can do that. Now you get more chances to test it.
Here's why it's a "softened" rally experience.
Pace notes are present but have been greatly simplified. I don't mind that they've ditched the numbering system that the most popular rally games use - turns are now "flat-out, easy, medium, hard, hairpin" - but there are other reasons why they're not useful here. You will get no information on whether a turn opens or tightens, whether it's safe to cut or not, etc. You can still "sight read" a lot of the courses just fine, you still have a minimap, and the limited vocab used in the pace notes makes them feel more like "flavor" than a "feature". You can't adjust the timing either, which has been pretty inconsistent in my experience - the most egregious examples have the co-driver telling me the turn I'm already navigating.
The races themselves take place on the same wide roads with decent lines of sight to the next turn, so those pace notes I mentioned can be completely disabled for the daytime events. The races are still one-and-done, single-stage events that (by default) retain the cosmetic-only damage model from the base game, meaning that you don't have to worry about endurance, or comeback opportunities on future stages, or any of the things that make longer rally events so thrilling.
Leave the difficulty on the same setting you did during the base game and you'll have a much easier time clearing these, too. I found that "Highly Skilled" provided a consistent enough challenge for me across all race types in the base game, but after cranking it up for this DLC I often still found myself 5-6 seconds ahead of 2nd place by the second or third split - in a single-stage event! I'm assuming it's still simulating Drivatars in the background but they do not seem to be doing too well.
The most loyal Forza Horizon players I know - the ones that eagerly await every DLC - they treasure the game for its variety. It is a big, plastic box full of toy cars and you can play with trucks or hyper-engineered hyper-speed hypercars and drive them on a long highway or over a big ol' jump, whatever you like. It's perplexing to me that the DLC with the most straightforward concept - "use whatever car you like in some mixed-surface races with a bunch of turns" - is the one where they seem the most afraid of stepping on the player's toes. I'm not asking for another simulator, because I know that's not what they're trying to do, but I still think this is a miss. Leaving both pacenotes and the minimap enabled by default is the most obvious symptom of the bigger issue here: it does not ask players to have the skill required to navigate a challenging environment at speed, and the tools it gives you are not developed enough to allow the customizable difficulty to compensate. These challenges are what makes rally exciting, what gives it a flavor distinct from the kinds of races that are represented in the base game. Don't get me wrong, the DLC is still enjoyable, but it's because the first three words are "Forza Horizon 5," not because of any interesting take on rally racing.
The rest of this review is going to dig into that last point, so I want to go ahead and get the "selling point" out of the way early: You buy this DLC if you want more off-road and mixed-surface races, or if you want to test Forza Horizon's absurd vehicle selection/tuning options on more technically demanding off-road courses. I spent a significant amount of time in the base game on the joke idea of trying to turn a Koenigsegg Agera into a viable rally car - you can! You can do that. Now you get more chances to test it.
Here's why it's a "softened" rally experience.
Pace notes are present but have been greatly simplified. I don't mind that they've ditched the numbering system that the most popular rally games use - turns are now "flat-out, easy, medium, hard, hairpin" - but there are other reasons why they're not useful here. You will get no information on whether a turn opens or tightens, whether it's safe to cut or not, etc. You can still "sight read" a lot of the courses just fine, you still have a minimap, and the limited vocab used in the pace notes makes them feel more like "flavor" than a "feature". You can't adjust the timing either, which has been pretty inconsistent in my experience - the most egregious examples have the co-driver telling me the turn I'm already navigating.
The races themselves take place on the same wide roads with decent lines of sight to the next turn, so those pace notes I mentioned can be completely disabled for the daytime events. The races are still one-and-done, single-stage events that (by default) retain the cosmetic-only damage model from the base game, meaning that you don't have to worry about endurance, or comeback opportunities on future stages, or any of the things that make longer rally events so thrilling.
Leave the difficulty on the same setting you did during the base game and you'll have a much easier time clearing these, too. I found that "Highly Skilled" provided a consistent enough challenge for me across all race types in the base game, but after cranking it up for this DLC I often still found myself 5-6 seconds ahead of 2nd place by the second or third split - in a single-stage event! I'm assuming it's still simulating Drivatars in the background but they do not seem to be doing too well.
The most loyal Forza Horizon players I know - the ones that eagerly await every DLC - they treasure the game for its variety. It is a big, plastic box full of toy cars and you can play with trucks or hyper-engineered hyper-speed hypercars and drive them on a long highway or over a big ol' jump, whatever you like. It's perplexing to me that the DLC with the most straightforward concept - "use whatever car you like in some mixed-surface races with a bunch of turns" - is the one where they seem the most afraid of stepping on the player's toes. I'm not asking for another simulator, because I know that's not what they're trying to do, but I still think this is a miss. Leaving both pacenotes and the minimap enabled by default is the most obvious symptom of the bigger issue here: it does not ask players to have the skill required to navigate a challenging environment at speed, and the tools it gives you are not developed enough to allow the customizable difficulty to compensate. These challenges are what makes rally exciting, what gives it a flavor distinct from the kinds of races that are represented in the base game. Don't get me wrong, the DLC is still enjoyable, but it's because the first three words are "Forza Horizon 5," not because of any interesting take on rally racing.
Car go sideways, smile go big
A solid return to rally racing for Horizon, although the inclusion of rally raid trucks and buggies over actual rally cars is somewhat questionable.
80/100
Still fun but uninspired. The map feels a lot like the base game's map but with an even greater emphasis on Rally (duh) and tight turns. As such, it's disappointing they didn't just connect it to the base game's map rather than make it a separate map. I always enjoy my time with the Forza Horizon DLCs but they also often have me wishing I was just playing the base game instead.
Its a fun DLC. I love rally, it has some concepts missing, but the overall experience was a fun, with the variety of improvised tracks, and a huge car list to hit the dirt
Underwhelming
I like the vroom vroom (but this time on drifts and bumps)
Uma boa DLC, nada demais.
It's solid enough. Definitely the weakest of the four expansions I've played across FH4 and FH5, though. It's not really very unique like the others, but it still adds some new solid content to explore and unlock. The map is very well designed for rally races, so if you like them the DLC probably improves that experience. Certainly could've been better, but it's just more of the same great game.
I tend to be pretty unfussy about Forza, and this expansion is no exception. One of the few series where "more of the exact same" is honestly more than enough for me.
Doesn't really deviate from the main game much in terms of visual aesthetics or content like the Hot Wheels expansion did, but the Rally focus had me engaging with the tracks in a way I'd never really done before in any other Forza title. I am now a drift king.
Doesn't really deviate from the main game much in terms of visual aesthetics or content like the Hot Wheels expansion did, but the Rally focus had me engaging with the tracks in a way I'd never really done before in any other Forza title. I am now a drift king.
I can see how this would appeal to some people, but I don't think rally just means "take the base game offroad races, add way too many switchbacks to each race, and make it a 1 person race with co-driver callouts to sell the point even further.". Like it just felt very lazy to me. Even on top of that, 100% requires you to do every race Twice. By the time you've 100%'d it, it kinda just feels like they reshaped the main map into something much smaller and was like "look its rally go have fun".
Idk maybe it's just that FH5 itself was already the most disappointing Horizon game to me so far, but this especially was just boring.
Idk maybe it's just that FH5 itself was already the most disappointing Horizon game to me so far, but this especially was just boring.
Considering this still has to be "Forza Horizon", the expansion does what it can to make it feel like rally. The co-driver, tighter roads and even the suggestion to disable the driving line help add more flair to the experience.
Progressing each team and having some side banter with the NPCs was more enjoyable than I thought, it certainly felt more interesting than any attempt they had with the "stories" at catching my attention at least.
Extra note: Microsoft could really do better about the localization for Brazilian Portuguese at least. It was for the whole support of the game somewhat embarrassing, but this expansion had so many troubles, including no audio for the pace notes, that I ended up changing my language to English. From what I've seen it is not a problem exclusive to PT-BR (and generally speaking not only for this game either), so I hope they can step up on this department.
Progressing each team and having some side banter with the NPCs was more enjoyable than I thought, it certainly felt more interesting than any attempt they had with the "stories" at catching my attention at least.
Extra note: Microsoft could really do better about the localization for Brazilian Portuguese at least. It was for the whole support of the game somewhat embarrassing, but this expansion had so many troubles, including no audio for the pace notes, that I ended up changing my language to English. From what I've seen it is not a problem exclusive to PT-BR (and generally speaking not only for this game either), so I hope they can step up on this department.