- 292
- United States
I bought GT7 on sale less than two weeks ago after finally getting a PS5 last month. To be honest, I only bought GT7 for two reasons; Sophy finally being available in custom races, and the steep discount. I haven't followed the game too closely since it came out, but a lot of what I did hear at launch was that the career mode was bad for numerous reasons, and I had essentially written it off.
So I contemplated the purchase for a couple days, knowing that I might be wasting $30 on something that I may not enjoy. And for the first few hours, that's sort of how I felt. The more I played however, the more I enjoyed the experience, and today, I completed the World GT Series Championship and rolled the credits. The thing I thought I would have the biggest problem with, the AI, wasn't even really an issue. It was the linearity of the experience, the emphasis on car collection rather than driving, the slow drip of circuits, and locking entire features like selling cars or Weekly Challenges behind the End Game Wall.
Here what I would change.
Circuits:
All circuits should be available from the start. The big reason for this is so you can actually complete an event series when you unlock it. In the older games, it felt natural to buy a car for specific event series, complete the series, and then move on to something else. You can't really do that in GT7 because you can only complete the events in a particular series for the circuits you have unlocked. While playing through the main menu books, I rarely did any extracurricular races that weren't required to progress (apart from custom races), because I figured if I was going to play through a specific event series, I would rather wait until all of the races in the series were unlocked. Now that I've completed the main menu books, I feel much more inclined to actually do that.
Completing an event series in one go also allows you to get comfortable with the car you're driving; to almost build a connection with it as you learn its characteristics over a series of races, and then afterwards you can reflect on the little journey you went on together, and you have a deeper appreciation for it than you may have anticipated when you initially bought it. That's a difficult feeling to achieve with the current structure of the menu books, you're typically driving a different car every three races. It's a bit of a whiplash.
GT Café:
There's a bit of irony here, because I've been thinking about how this could be better structured for the last couple days, and as it turns out, the conclusion I reached is almost exactly how it works in the end game.
Menu books should be about completing races, not collecting cars. The game should give you the option of 2-3 menu books at a time, each focused on a specific event series. You would only need to complete one of those series to progress to the next set of menu books, but the other event series that you don't choose are still unlocked along the way.
For example: the first menu book is to complete the Sunday Cup, or at the very least, 3-5 races within the Sunday Cup. After that, you choose from 2-3 menu books; like FR 450 or FF 450 or 4WD 450. You can complete all three of them, but you only need to complete one to unlock the next group of menu books. Each 'group' could revolve around a particular theme; like 60s Cup, 70s Cup, 80s Cup... the important thing is that you get to choose which events to do based on which car you want to drive.
Along with this you are no longer rewarded with a car for every menu book race you complete. Prize cars are good, but that's a bit overkill. Now that I can finally sell cars, I would probably get rid of most of them to put the money towards something I actually want. The game puts such a huge emphasis on car collection, but not the identity that goes into your personal car collection. I'm probably never going to drive most of the cars the game has given me. I would have preferred it if the game just gave me money instead, and when I enter a specific event series, it's up to me to buy a car for it rather than the game conveniently handing me one right before I need it, basically nudging me on the shoulder and saying "here, use this". The car collecting rewards are fine, but think they should all exist within the Extra Books menu, not be tied to the core progression.
Race Events:
I think some of the event series are a bit too granular in their restrictions. Japanese FR Challenge 450... Japanese FF Challenge 450... American FR Challenge 550... European FR Challenge 550...
Why not just have an FR Challenge 550 without the regional restriction? Why not just have Japanese Challenge 450 without the drivetrain restriction? I think this would be more fun because you have a wider variety of vehicles to choose from and also to race against. Yes, this would reduce the the number of event series, but they could easily replace those, because there are numerous missed opportunities. Where are the event series for classic cars from specific decades? You could easily have events for 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s vehicles. Sunday Cup Classic doesn't even have restrictions other than it has to be a road car. Some of those event series just feel a bit redundant, and I wish they were replaced with something more interesting.
Each event should tell you the average PP of the AI opponents (if this would even be a useful way to gauge competitiveness) but more importantly, you should get a bonus percentage payout based on how many points your car is under the PP restriction (or recommendation). This would be a good incentive to give yourself an extra challenge.
Championships:
The first four championships in the game consist of two races on the same track (one of them being reversed) and only two laps each. That's just nonsense. I'm probably never going to replay those. Every championship should be at least three races, but most of them should be more, and not just reversing the same circuit. The two race championships were arguably harder than the longer ones because you have less opportunities (and less laps per race) to score points.
Also, qualifying should exist and be optional. I'm fine starting from the back for single races, but it's just not fair when you're trying to score points over multiple races, while the leading AI car usually starts toward the front of the grid every time.
Bonus:
The ability to sell cars and the Weekly Challenges should be unlocked from the start. The way everything unlocks so slowly just made me want to rush through it to the point I'm at now where everything is finally available. I probably would have taken it a bit slower otherwise.
Conclusion:
I know this sounds like a lot of complaining, but I genuinely enjoyed playing through the menu books more than I thought I would. And I know I'm going to have a lot more fun now that just about everything is finally unlocked, but that also makes it feel a bit anti-climactic. Maybe it would feel better if there were proper end game championships. It just shouldn't take this long for the game to truly open up and set you loose. And it's just frustrating, because all of the pieces are in place for it to work the way I would like it to, and it seems with the Bonus Books they sort of realized that other people felt that way as well. I don't even think the career mode needs to be a fully open-ended sandbox with no guidance like the older games, I just wish it was structured in a way that encouraged the player to make any decisions for themselves at all.
In the end, GT7 was absolutely worth getting on sale, and I've played it much more obsessively than I thought I would. I can't wait to continue working through all of the events I skipped, the license tests, the missions challenges, and the weekly challenges. Oh and custom Sophy races, I'll likely never get tired of those.
So I contemplated the purchase for a couple days, knowing that I might be wasting $30 on something that I may not enjoy. And for the first few hours, that's sort of how I felt. The more I played however, the more I enjoyed the experience, and today, I completed the World GT Series Championship and rolled the credits. The thing I thought I would have the biggest problem with, the AI, wasn't even really an issue. It was the linearity of the experience, the emphasis on car collection rather than driving, the slow drip of circuits, and locking entire features like selling cars or Weekly Challenges behind the End Game Wall.
Here what I would change.
Circuits:
All circuits should be available from the start. The big reason for this is so you can actually complete an event series when you unlock it. In the older games, it felt natural to buy a car for specific event series, complete the series, and then move on to something else. You can't really do that in GT7 because you can only complete the events in a particular series for the circuits you have unlocked. While playing through the main menu books, I rarely did any extracurricular races that weren't required to progress (apart from custom races), because I figured if I was going to play through a specific event series, I would rather wait until all of the races in the series were unlocked. Now that I've completed the main menu books, I feel much more inclined to actually do that.
Completing an event series in one go also allows you to get comfortable with the car you're driving; to almost build a connection with it as you learn its characteristics over a series of races, and then afterwards you can reflect on the little journey you went on together, and you have a deeper appreciation for it than you may have anticipated when you initially bought it. That's a difficult feeling to achieve with the current structure of the menu books, you're typically driving a different car every three races. It's a bit of a whiplash.
GT Café:
There's a bit of irony here, because I've been thinking about how this could be better structured for the last couple days, and as it turns out, the conclusion I reached is almost exactly how it works in the end game.
Menu books should be about completing races, not collecting cars. The game should give you the option of 2-3 menu books at a time, each focused on a specific event series. You would only need to complete one of those series to progress to the next set of menu books, but the other event series that you don't choose are still unlocked along the way.
For example: the first menu book is to complete the Sunday Cup, or at the very least, 3-5 races within the Sunday Cup. After that, you choose from 2-3 menu books; like FR 450 or FF 450 or 4WD 450. You can complete all three of them, but you only need to complete one to unlock the next group of menu books. Each 'group' could revolve around a particular theme; like 60s Cup, 70s Cup, 80s Cup... the important thing is that you get to choose which events to do based on which car you want to drive.
Along with this you are no longer rewarded with a car for every menu book race you complete. Prize cars are good, but that's a bit overkill. Now that I can finally sell cars, I would probably get rid of most of them to put the money towards something I actually want. The game puts such a huge emphasis on car collection, but not the identity that goes into your personal car collection. I'm probably never going to drive most of the cars the game has given me. I would have preferred it if the game just gave me money instead, and when I enter a specific event series, it's up to me to buy a car for it rather than the game conveniently handing me one right before I need it, basically nudging me on the shoulder and saying "here, use this". The car collecting rewards are fine, but think they should all exist within the Extra Books menu, not be tied to the core progression.
Race Events:
I think some of the event series are a bit too granular in their restrictions. Japanese FR Challenge 450... Japanese FF Challenge 450... American FR Challenge 550... European FR Challenge 550...
Why not just have an FR Challenge 550 without the regional restriction? Why not just have Japanese Challenge 450 without the drivetrain restriction? I think this would be more fun because you have a wider variety of vehicles to choose from and also to race against. Yes, this would reduce the the number of event series, but they could easily replace those, because there are numerous missed opportunities. Where are the event series for classic cars from specific decades? You could easily have events for 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s vehicles. Sunday Cup Classic doesn't even have restrictions other than it has to be a road car. Some of those event series just feel a bit redundant, and I wish they were replaced with something more interesting.
Each event should tell you the average PP of the AI opponents (if this would even be a useful way to gauge competitiveness) but more importantly, you should get a bonus percentage payout based on how many points your car is under the PP restriction (or recommendation). This would be a good incentive to give yourself an extra challenge.
Championships:
The first four championships in the game consist of two races on the same track (one of them being reversed) and only two laps each. That's just nonsense. I'm probably never going to replay those. Every championship should be at least three races, but most of them should be more, and not just reversing the same circuit. The two race championships were arguably harder than the longer ones because you have less opportunities (and less laps per race) to score points.
Also, qualifying should exist and be optional. I'm fine starting from the back for single races, but it's just not fair when you're trying to score points over multiple races, while the leading AI car usually starts toward the front of the grid every time.
Bonus:
The ability to sell cars and the Weekly Challenges should be unlocked from the start. The way everything unlocks so slowly just made me want to rush through it to the point I'm at now where everything is finally available. I probably would have taken it a bit slower otherwise.
Conclusion:
I know this sounds like a lot of complaining, but I genuinely enjoyed playing through the menu books more than I thought I would. And I know I'm going to have a lot more fun now that just about everything is finally unlocked, but that also makes it feel a bit anti-climactic. Maybe it would feel better if there were proper end game championships. It just shouldn't take this long for the game to truly open up and set you loose. And it's just frustrating, because all of the pieces are in place for it to work the way I would like it to, and it seems with the Bonus Books they sort of realized that other people felt that way as well. I don't even think the career mode needs to be a fully open-ended sandbox with no guidance like the older games, I just wish it was structured in a way that encouraged the player to make any decisions for themselves at all.
In the end, GT7 was absolutely worth getting on sale, and I've played it much more obsessively than I thought I would. I can't wait to continue working through all of the events I skipped, the license tests, the missions challenges, and the weekly challenges. Oh and custom Sophy races, I'll likely never get tired of those.
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