What’s Good?: Seasonal Events in Forza Horizon 4 for Series 11 Spring (July 25–31, 2019)
Ah, Forza Horizon 4! The game that asks the question: Has anyone ever said “Oh, good, we get to use rear-wheel-drive on the switchback course again”? (I’d better be careful, or I’ll start to sound like the forum posts.)
Seasonal Rewards
The 50%-completion reward for any given recent week is usually not too difficult to run into elsewhere, and the Forza Edition Caterham follows suit. The 80%-completion TVR Tuscan is a little less common and I always like having another TVR around. (And don’t forget that if you’re twirling towards 80% for the entire series, you’re getting a cute “I BEAT THE STIG” tee. Which is funny to me, because as far as I can tell, the Top Gear Horizon Story and the available “Stig” outfit basically canonizes that the player-character is The Stig.)
Weekly Shop
We’ve seen that 2018 Apollo Intensa Emozione once before, possibly as a previous seasonal reward. But the price tag here is … intimidating. Unless you’ve been sitting on lot of FP already, you might not have quite enough to buy it outright. Just doing a little math, you’re looking at around 30(!) #Forzathon Live events this week, if you’re starting from zero FP, even with the Weekly. That’s kind of frightening.
The Championships
MR Spotlight
Fans of the FR Spotlight a few weeks ago will remember the joy of trying to not spin out a RWD car, going up a hill, with several switchbacks, in the rain. I have good news for those people: this is worse! Two races are in the rain, and the third is three laps with enough tiny hills to make you think twice about even touching the throttle. Your reward for beating Highly Skilled AI is the 1969 Ferrari Dino, a Rare Classics car already freely available from the Autoshow that no one I’m aware of has ever purchased or driven.
If you don’t have a lot of RWD experience, winning this may require very precise throttle control, a vehicle that is not overpowered, and maybe some careful tuning. Mid-engine cars can be tougher to drive if they’re too unbalanced, so if you’re not driving stock, you can experiment with a mod selection that favors weight reduction over power, and getting the weight distribution as close to 50% as you can. Prioritizing handling over speed won’t get you to 1st place straight off the line, but it’ll let you negotiate the corners better without losing as much speed.
Culture Icons
A nice little C-class race should cleanse the palate. I fixed up my trusty Datsun 510 for this series and headed down to Broadway with a fresh coat of paint. However, after the first race on the Village Scramble, I realized that my “handling-over-speed” approach wasn’t going to hold up for the rest of the races; I’d forgotten that C-class races are slow enough that my reaction time will more than make up for a blatant disregard for handling. Don’t repeat my mistakes, friends.
Sacré Blur
The nice thing about a S2 Street Scene race is that an adequately-tuned Hypercar can rip them off like a band-aid. The problem is that it’s still Street Scene. If you’re 85% through the course, not yet in 1st, and your racing line goes around a sharp bend leading directly into an oncoming truck, there’s not much to do but sigh and restart the race. But, the reward for winning against Highly Skilled is the Renault Turbo 5 Forza Edition, a fun and popular skill-farming vehicle (and one of my personal recommendations), so that’s nice.
The Trial: Mud Bath
This week’s co-op championship is a B-class Cross Country series with a new Jeep Wrangler being offered to teams who can come out ahead of the game’s top AI. I thought it might be a good opportunity to try out one of the vehicles you can snag from the Top Gear Horizon Story: this weird Mercedes-Benz they codenamed “Project E-AT”.
My first attempt was … not great. Twice within 24 hours, I’d forgotten my own commandment: thou shalt not equip non-stock tires on low-power vehicles. I’m sure the next time will go better…
A Summary of Spring
If you like rain, you’ll like this season. I’m not sure how much these events will intrigue other players, but as a driver who likes to tune all his own vehicles I’m finding these last few seasons to be a good challenge. Maybe a little too good, but as much as I might sound like I’m complaining a lot, the balance of difficulty to rewards seems to be on the level. Now, if only the Ferrari 599XX Evolution would make another appearance so that someone I know could get another shot at it…
