How is it? I always assumed Tokyo or Japan in general would be such an excellent setting for the game series. I gotta wait for it to come to PS5 like a good boy 
More of the same, basically. NPCs and your own character are downright ugly, which led to a lot of memes so far. The dialogues in the cutscenes are cringe as always. The Music is atrocious - if you set a game in japan, bring in some japanese music, considering their diverse musical scene but no, we get the same rap mumble garbage (like Lil Nas X) and synth slop as usual. Only one station (Gacha City Radio) has japanese music and it's the worst of their pop music. No visual kai, metal or anything...I pretty much instantly turned off all sounds except the car engine.
The AI in races is all over the place. Wheelspins are nerfed aand that was promoted as a good thing somehow. The progression is still not there, you instantly get supercars. I think Gran Turismo always did that better with buying a cheap, used car and work your way up from the bottom.
And it still has a lot of the same old graphical flaws like the pixelated red smoke on checkpoints
On the positive: the game is optimized and runs on old hardware. My PC can ran it maxed out without any problems (AMD GPU, despite that, Raytracing works perfectly)
The world is definitely a huge, massive improvement over Mexico. Way more interesting and diverse with its biomes and cities.
The car list is big, some interesting new cars, but also a lot of annoying omissions (i miss the A-Team Van)
Overall i'm glad i got it relatively cheap from a key store, it's definitely not worth the full price.
You're talking nonsense (probably out of hatred for Microsoft or the game, I don't know) but there are radio stations that play metal like Horizon XS (which plays Babymetal).
There's also Subpop and Horizon Wave, some of whose music is anime or just Japanese style.
Music is a matter of personal taste. I don't like metal or what's offered on Gacha, Block Party or Subpop Radio but the rest is very good.
As for optimization, it's true, it's very very well optimized. People with only 8GB can even play it without any problems.
Regarding the pixelated smoke, that's been around for several games... it was already like that in FH4.
Yes, the characters are ugly, but that's not the main point of the game. Besides, I prefer the FH4 menu and transitions, which were much better and classier.
The FH6 menu is ugly, it looks like an advertisement.
I haven't had many great draws, but progressing to get bracelets is pretty quick.
The game is good, but the problem remains the AI, which is still incredibly overpowered even more so in FH6. It still has no grip, literally speeds up for no reason when it gets close to the finish line, and hardly ever slows down in turns or in mud and puddles. The AI still has excellent mobility and handling, even in the lowest classes. They can overtake you in a C or B class car, it's ridiculous...
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Damn... this will probably make me prolong or outright not pre-order. Sounds like a wait for a sale kinda game. Esp at 70. To host a Japanese racing game and not tap into the elements of the culture that make the Japan street racing scene iconic is blasphemous.
I was skeptical when Luke Riely for IGN gave it a 10 again. I just instantly knew objectivity left the room which seems to be typical of IGN because I have trouble imagining what exactly can be done new with the formula to transport the franchise enough to have hack to back 10s or if they have any intent to at all change the recipe. I feared it being just more of the same and you seem to have cemented that.
Does it at least focus heavily into Japanese car culture plot wise? Like tuners, drifting, JDMs? Does it allow for more customization like underglow, cherry bombs, roof scoops, tuner spoilers, more body kits and such on JDM cars? I cant imagine a Street racing game.set in Japan without the glory of the street scenes there that defined a good chunk of the 90s car culture. Does it even have drift events or just drift zones?
But I assume based on what you said its still the extremely limited sets of body mods that look factory, street suspension with community liveries over top. 5 spoilers to choose from but 2000 Fortnite emotes lol.
Damn... that's a bummer. I always thought Japan would transport them or inspire them to go wild with lore. At least you got it cheap and are having fun.
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Sorry for the late reply. I don't plan on checking in here very often because this forum isn't very active in general.
There's a story centered around a drift club but unfortunately, there's no JDM. The customizations are still quite limited, yes.
The drift club serves as a drift competition, there are also dedicated zones for drift and Horizon Arcade Events where several players come together to take on challenges. These can focus on drifting, speed, chaos etc.
