Gran Turismo 7-Review

"Gran Turismo", a collection of entertainment related to automobiles, is back with a world map like the origin of the series for the first time in a long time. Covering a wide range of entertainment called car life, it will appear as a work where you can learn various histories of the entire automobile industry while enjoying contents such as racing, photography, and car design.

What kind of evolution has "Gran Turismo 7" (GT7) made as a car life simulator, and what kind of evolution has it made as a driving simulator? I would like to watch this work without forgetting my original intention as much as possible and being careful not to be too enthusiastic. For the review, I'm playing the version with the PS5 version of the Day 0 patch applied.

"Gran Turismo" that has just evolved as a numbering

The big element that stands out is the "World Map", which has been around for the first time in a long time since "Gran Turismo 4" released on PS2 in 2004. The stylish menu of recent works that can access various contents was good, but if you play as a car life, the world map has a better atmosphere. The content spreads from the "cafe" that functions as a tutorial.

At the cafe, you can order quests in the form of a "menu book". The main event is to clear the race event and get a reward car, but there are also contents other than the race such as "take a picture with scapes" and "modify the car at the tuning shop", so the menu book By clearing the contents, you can naturally learn the mechanism and flow of the game. This work has a lot of content, and it is easy to worry about what to play from, so it would be nice for beginners to show the way to play. In the process of completing the quests of the cafe, I can learn the history of automobiles from the people who visit the cafe, but unfortunately I could not look back on such information later and felt a little wasteful.

By clearing the quest of the cafe, you can naturally collect new cars in the process, and various contents such as license mode and circuit will be released little by little. There are more than 420 types of vehicles recorded, and if you complete missions, you can naturally collect about 100 vehicles immediately. It seems that there are few if you think so, but in addition to the increasing variation of popular sports cars, there are also many legendary cars that need to be collected steadily, so it is quite satisfying as a collection element.

The first command of the mission is to use it for used car dealers, which is a customary practice. A screen like a used car catalog appears there, and you buy an affordable car. You can buy a variety of new cars by visiting Brand Central, but you'll have to put up with it for a while until you save money.

In order to save money, if you drive in the same vehicle repeatedly as much as possible, the body will gradually lose its luster, so you need to wash the car regularly. If you run further, the performance will deteriorate, so you need to change the oil and overhaul the engine. The appearance of the UI has been reborn, but the content that is full of love for the car is sometimes honestly "It's annoying!" ..

While this kind of careful guidance has led to ease of play for beginners, it was a little annoying to the author who wanted to skip the steps in the middle and challenge the difficult races at the top as soon as possible. Also, I like the way of playing "I want to save interesting events for later fun", so I was a little disappointed that I couldn't skip the event from that point of view.

The main content in single-player is, of course, race events. In this work, it is possible to select 3 levels of difficulty at the start of the game or as an option, and you can adjust the difficulty of the race event that competes with AI at the world circuit.

The first thing that surprised me was the speed of loading. In racing games, loading race events often takes a surprising amount of time, but it's okay to wait. As my body got used to this, the loading of this work ended in about 3 seconds, and I was impressed and a little question mark came to my mind, "Ah? Can I play with this?"

The circuit contains 34 locations / 90 layouts. Basically, most of them are recorded in "Gran Turismo Sport" (hereinafter, GT SPORT), and most of the circuits I'm used to personally. Under such circumstances, I am glad that the popular courses of the old series such as "Trial Mountain" and "Deep Forest" have been revived, and I can enjoy various circuits. However, it is a pity that the ratio of dirt courses is small this time, and I hope that a full-scale hill climb stage will appear in future updates.

Familiar race events will be held at each circuit, such as the Sunday Cup, Clubman Cup, and FR Challenge. This is like choosing a local race event such as the F1 Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit or the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the Sarthe Circuit. However, since I do not know the contents of the race event that can be experienced unless I select the circuit in the menu, it is a little troublesome design to look for when I want to play a specific race event later.

There is a vibration magician in Polyphony Digital, pushing up another driving simulator

The "Gran Turismo" series is pursuing realism as a driving simulator, and this work is probably one of the points that attracts the most attention. This time, in addition to the evaluation with the PS5 controller Dual Sense, the author got Fanatec's "GT DD Pro" according to this work. This steering controller is a crap that doesn't show its true value unless the internal settings are adjusted according to the title. At the time of the review, there was no setting for "Gran Turismo 7", so this time I used the setting for GT SPORT from the Fanatec official forum.

First of all, regarding the evaluation by Dual Sense, the amount of information due to vibration is overwhelmingly increased compared to GT SPORT. Instead of the minute vibrations that DualSense tends to fall into, it conveys information to the player with expressions that can be understood as an impact that DualSense is not good at. For example, during understeer, unique vibrations occur suddenly. In addition, in the case of Dual Sense, vibration is generated during ABS (anti-lock braking system) operation, and it is possible to judge the strength of the load on the brake and the front load by the strength of the vibration, so it can be used for car control from there. It is possible. To be honest, I was a little impressed because it was my first time to use Dual Sense, which is so expressive with vibration.

ABS information is a bit difficult to get with a steering controller, which is a small advantage when playing with DualSense. You can also feel the minute vibration when the tire slips. When riding a racing machine, the weight of the accelerator and brakes also changes, making it easier to do more delicate accelerator work than before.

Next, regarding the evaluation with GT DD Pro, there is no big change in the basic feeling depending on the situation, such as the load on the steering wheel at the time of cornering and the feeling that feedback is missing. The feeling of reversing and pulling out the load when the rear flows is natural and it is easy to hit the counter. The feeling base did not change significantly when comparing GT SPORT and GT7, but it is an obvious change that the information from the vehicle has increased significantly like Dual Sense. In particular, the vibration of the tires during understeer has become clearer, making it very easy to see how close the vehicle is to the limit when cornering.

Also, the behavior of the car itself has changed a little. The tire simulation is easy to understand, and it has become much easier to wheel spin at the start of a corner (acceleration). Even with TCS (a device that suppresses tire slippage) turned off, GT SPORT was able to ride to some extent even with rough driving, but GT7 requires fairly careful accelerator work.

However, there is no need to control the temperature of the tires or the temperature of the brakes, and it is still a fairly easy-to-use simulator. While the handling of tires has become more delicate, the amount of feedback (vibration and resistance) from the car has increased, and as a result, it seems easier to drive to drive faster.

The beauty of images related to sharpened automobiles and the environmental expression with rich details

In the PS5 generation of racing games, the visual beauty that is described as "exceeding" live-action has become commonplace. At the GT7 level, the designer's sense of what kind of painting to make and what kind of tricks will attract the player becomes more important.

What impresses me in terms of graphics is the contrast between light and darkness, which changes from moment to moment over time. Among them, in the vicinity of sunrise and sunset, the contrast becomes calm and the image becomes mild, and the CG-like appearance disappears and it appears as a more realistic image.

The environmental expression of the entire race scene is also rich, and if the vehicle spins, it will wind up flashy tire smoke, and if strong contact occurs, small parts will be scattered. The car damage of this work is as simple as scratches on the painted surface, and it does not affect the running, but even if there is a production where small parts are scattered, it gives a great sense of presence. The same is true for tire smoke, and the white smoke is flashy, so you can feel the intensity of the race.

Regarding the expression of the weather, although it is not physically moving realistically, the movement of raindrops falling on the windshield is well done. The spray of water that the tires roll up is also real, and if the rain gets stronger, the spray of water that the tires roll up makes it difficult to see the car in front, and the screen cannot see the clipping points at the corners. When it came to replays, the intense splashes became even stronger, and in some cases the surrounding cars were almost invisible.

The weather change itself is wonderful, but the information at the start of the race does not show the condition information such as the wet condition of the road surface or it is raining, so it is not possible to decide which tire to choose when the weather is bad. Was bothered by. The screen before the start of the race shows the state of the circuit, and if it is raining heavily, I think that you should basically choose heavy rain, but if it is light rain, it will be completely up to you. Since it was introduced with great effort, it would be nice if you could show us the weather radar even before the start of the race, so I'd like to expect future updates.

As mentioned above, the graphics centered on the car are all wonderful, but when you look at the entire circuit unexpectedly, that is not the case, and in a scene where the circuit is projected from the sky, you may think "Is it a diorama?" The spots are often noticeable. There are few places to worry about when you drive a car on the course, so it makes the car shine best, but when it comes to other parts, it is still an area where you have to compromise.

The environmental expression of GT7 is also entertaining in terms of sound. Focusing on 3D audio, listening to the sound on the official PULSE 3D wireless will allow you to see the direction of the noise coming from the cars around you, and the sound of heavy rain hitting the roof will certainly be heard overhead. It feels like it's coming. I can't judge the sound of the front tires, but if the rear slips, I can hear the sound of the rear tires squeaking. Since you can grasp the positional relationship with rivals by sound to some extent, it not only increases the sense of presence, but also becomes a weapon in battles. Also, although the direction of the sound is slightly lost, you can experience 3D audio even with ordinary headphones or headsets.

Strict setting for racing game beginners

The difficulty level of the race event is a little difficult like a simulator. Even if the difficulty level is easy, it may be difficult for beginners to recover if they make one or two big mistakes such as spins and course outs. However, if the brakes and steering are set to "assist", a powerful assist function will work so that you can go around the course without difficulty by operating the steering wheel even if the accelerator is always fully open. As expected, with full assist, you can only win as easy as easy, but you can still feel like you are driving enough.

If you don't want to rely on assists, you can adjust the difficulty of the game to some extent by modifying the car. We will adjust the difficulty level from here according to the performance of the vehicle to be prepared. This is also a tradition. In this work, the performance of the car is evaluated by the point called PP (performance point), and the recommended PP is set for the race event, so you should remodel it based on this and your own skill.

However, the difficulty is that just because the PP is high does not mean that you can run fast on the circuit. For example, if you make the ultimate straight-line chief car of the same PP and the ultimate cornering machine, the cornering machine is overwhelmingly easier to go around the circuit. This is an extreme example, but be careful when remodeling your car, as PP can't completely infer these unbalanced parts of the car.

And in GT7, I had a bomb on this setting. When parts were replaced on a commercial vehicle to a certain level of performance, oversteer (a phenomenon in which the vehicle turns inward / easily in a steady circular turn) becomes considerably stronger, making it difficult to drive properly. The rear does not spin because of the power, but the rear suddenly loses grip only by handling, and it becomes a machine that is obviously bad in nature and difficult to handle beyond the degree.

One of the first problem children I met was the Mustang GT'15, and the problem child who spins just by turning the steering wheel a little at the stage of exchanging parts has been completed. Although the base car is a muscle car that is popular all over the world, it is an unbalanced balance between power and suspension settings. For the time being, I set it so that it tended to be understeer (a phenomenon in which the vehicle turns outward / easy to turn in a steady circular turn) and calmed down a little.

In the series so far, I don't think it would be so difficult to handle just by replacing the parts of the car. Perhaps it is the result of improved accuracy of the simulation, but at least when the parts of the suspension are replaced, I think that even a high performance car may be able to handle at least.

Regarding the setting, "Beyond The Apex", which also includes a setting guide online, is scheduled to be released on the release date, so I hope that this content will be a reference for the setting. I'm not so confident in the settings, so I'm really looking forward to reading Beyond The Apex.

Online mode that inherits GT SPORT almost as it is

The online mode includes "daily race" where the event contents are updated once a week, "official race" held by the official, and "lobby match" where players can freely enjoy running by creating a lobby. These have been adopted since the days of GT SPORT, and the basic rules such as shortcut penalties were inherited with the same contents as GT SPORT.

Furthermore, as a place for a new community, the online space "Meeting Place", which is always open to the public on some circuits, has appeared. It's like a lobby that's always open online, a place of relaxation where anyone from all over the world can come and go. You can communicate in the chat section or go out to the course and practice driving together. It is always open as a place where you can enjoy free driving while enjoying communication with other players. In the pre-play for review, we were able to see nine lobbies that could accommodate 16 people, and we were able to see popular circuits such as the Nürburgring.

The most crowded with players will be the "daily race" where you can easily enjoy the race like a quick match. You can play against rivals who are close to the time by using the time attack record in advance as an index.

In this work, the setting will be newly introduced online. A maximum PP is specified for each race, and you can adjust the car to your liking so that it fits within the PP range and use it for daily races. Players who are confident in their settings will be able to make a difference to their rivals. It is a high threshold element that you need to think about how to set the setting for the first time after running with the performance of the car in your own way, so personally many races of vehicles with fixed performance are held. want.

It was a little disappointing that the GT SPORT specifications were inherited for the online time attack penalty. In GT SPORT, if you commit a violation during an online race, you will be penalized with a time penalty for automatically decelerating in the designated deceleration section. If you commit a violation at the end of the violation section, you will be penalized after making one lap. If it was the final lap, a penalty will be added to the time after the goal. That's good.

The problem is that the penalty for time attack is that in addition to erasing the time of the lap, there is also a deceleration penalty. Depending on where the penalty occurred, it may end in that lap, or it may occur in the next lap, resulting in a double or triple penalty. It's no wonder that the penalty spans the next lap if there is a fraud that affects the next lap, but the existence of a deceleration penalty for racing in the first place makes the penalty even more complicated.

It's okay to restart at the moment when the penalty occurs, but since the time data that has been lapped up to that point will disappear, you will be forced to make the ultimate two choices, whether to run a barren lap or give up the reference data. , The tension during time attack has become abnormally high.

"Scapes" and "Livery Editor" that can be seen forever

The background of "Scapescape", where you can enjoy taking pictures of cars at famous places around the world, is pictures taken in a special environment. What is different from ordinary photographs is that the light and shadow of the place where the photograph was taken are recorded as digital information, and when the car is placed, the sunlight and the shadow of trees are naturally reflected. Although it is a photograph, it is characterized by having information on three-dimensional structures. Therefore, the light of the headlights of the car and the shadow of the car body are reflected on the walls and pillars according to the shape of the structure, and depending on the location, it is so well made that it is an illusion that it is a 3D space.

The number of spots where you can shoot is increasing, and along with that, you can choose a place at random, which improves usability. With GT SPORT, I only shot beautifully polished cars, but with GT7, I can now shoot with the car dirty or scratched. If you make good use of it, you can also take image photos such as the scenery after the race.

A "scapes movie" is set up in the garage, and a demo video of driving a car in the background of the scapes is shown. The car shines very beautifully, and I personally want to see the scapes image forever rather than shooting. If possible, it would have been better if the cars owned by each scene appeared randomly.

"Livery Editor" has more places to put stickers, and the maximum number of stickers that can be put on cars is increasing. Originally, the maximum number of cars in GT SPORT was not too small, and for the author who was satisfied with giving a racing car-like design to the car that he often uses, the Livery Editor extended from GT SPORT is available. It seems difficult to make use of it.

"Gran Turismo" is a straightforward return to the mode that was popular in the past.

Looking at GT7 as a whole, you can see a lot of designs and contents that are conscious of beginners, such as "Music Rally" where you can guide the flow of the game at the cafe and enjoy the music while enjoying the music.

"License" that allows you to learn driving skills, "Mission" that you can challenge special events such as defeating all pylon placed on the course, running as long distance as possible with limited fuel, etc. If you try to clear it with, there are plenty of high-difficulty contents that will make core fans groan.

All kinds of circuits can be opened in about 20 to 30 hours, and by that time, all kinds of mission challenges should be released naturally. However, content close to the license, such as licenses and circuit experiences, is also prepared for each circuit, so it seems that it will take a considerable amount of time to complete everything.

However, these contents are "Gran Turismo" for better or worse, and the composition of the whole game is not much different from the previous series, including the works of the era when there was no world map. The enhancements have been made, but the scapes and livery editors haven't changed much from GT SPORT. It is until then that each content has already been completed, but while I am pleased that the nostalgic "Gran Turismo" has returned as it is, if you look at the revived content, it is all the standard elements common to the series. There is nostalgia, but there is little freshness. I wanted content that was in the past series to train AI drivers as a director, and one element unique to this work, such as creating and playing a unique course.