This is Why Gran Turismo 7 Seems Like A Betrayal to the Series (2024)

For me, I think it is more simple and a bit less esoteric. But it all comes down to Kaz.
The game is a direct reflection of his passion for cars.
In the beginning, GT1 and 2 were a dream project. Born from a project he didn't want to do, hiding within it the code of the game he dreamed of doing. It was pure passion for the love of cars.
GT3 and 4, were the culmination of a young man's dreams. With real circuits, real racing cars, and finally realistic graphics.
All of that success eventually led to a lot of wealth, and as he is now capable of buying all the cars he once only dreamt of as a young man, he no longer sees the game as the expression of his boy hood fantasy of getting to race all these cars that were always just out of reach. Now he is into the realm of cars that only come at a premium, are total one offs, or one of limited numbers.
His still clearly has a passion for "special" cars, but he no longer possessed the passion for the thrill of driving anything on any circuit, for which GT1 was intended. He can do that for real now. Any day, any time, at any circuit. No longer does he need the "Real Driving Simulator" for those goals.
And we can see that mentality creep in in GT5 and GT6, and GT Sport. But GT7 is where the real culmination of Kaz's current life of high dollar exclusives, and rare limited edition cars really comes full swing. Instead of just sharing with us, the gamer, the joy of driving, and a personal love letter to the automobile, we now share Kaz's view of the collector car world, and exotic professional and historical racing scene, where everything is made of unobtanium, and you sample cars like fine wines in bottles you can't afford, like Goodwood Festival of Speed. You experience a "taste" of premium car collection through a Menu, rather than the excitement of driving you're absolutely clapped out tuned up nugget for the first time in the Sunday Cup.
This game is no longer Kaz's Real Driving Simulator, and is now Kaz's Adult Money Privileged Simulator: Car Collecting Boogaloo. The game is different, because Kaz's view of the automotive world is now different as a byproduct of his own success.

That analogy of GT7 as an SUV is perfect. It's the Ford Mustang Mach E of racing games

I love GT7. I mean, I'm clocking about 200 hours on it, much more than any other PS5 game so far. But today, just before you posted this video, I decided I had enough and started using macro scripts to get the grinding done so I could get a glimpse on the last, most expensive cars I never could afford in my regular playtime. I've got more than 280 cars and barely used 20, maybe even 15. The only reason to keep pushing at this point is the VR Showroom, which is an absolute joy given the level of detail the car interiors have, and running a few laps with them on a track to get a small feeling on how they behave. And I mean, from my perspective of a car passionate guy, it is somehow justified, hence the playtime. But as game design goes, this feels terrible, and definitely not a valid way to waste the little time I have between my work hours. I'd rather have fun in half an hour with custom races in cars I barely touched with creative settings, rather than another 200th run of Le Mans 700. But if I go down this path, the game will throw everything at me to teach me that this might be fun, but unrewarding, and I would better spend my time grinding the same inane three races with the same couple of cars, forever. This is the absolute state of game design with GT7, and it's such a shame. Because when you're in the car, in VR, with a good wheel and pedals, you can still feel the unmatched level of immersion, you can still see what they were aiming for. But so much has gone to waste to get to that point, it's barely worth anymore.
You talk a lot about GT3. I went back as far as GT1, since I was there when it got released first. And it's crazy, to remember how much the single player career was both simpler, yet much deeper, and felt more rewarding than what we have now, even with the by today standards insane physics it had.
GT7 is a much better driving simulator. GT1 felt like a much better video game.
Thank you for this video series, you summed up my feeling about this game more than I could say myself.

This title is EXACTLY what I have been thinking. I’m not just frustrated. I’m not just disappointed. I feel betrayed.

I often thought it's just me being older and not enjoying things i used to enjoy before. But yeah after an year i still have almost no fun in GT7

I agree with the argument of PD having lost their touch with game design, it's almost like they are putting in Moon Over the Castle, GT4 esque menu and other features of older games without understanding why they did it in the first place.
But I also think they are somewhat ashamed of their heritage, as you've mentioned in your track design video where original circuits were designed due to the technological limitations and track licensing issues. But now that GT has grown big enough to get itself affiliated with IRL racing, they are more than happy to ditch the old stuff that made the game iconic, and wholeheartedly lean into the sweaty tryhard scene of real life racing / e sport sim racing. While that's objectively not a bad thing, that's not why I liked GT in the first place
Overall I think it's a tragic case of disparity between what players want VS what Kaz wants. To say GT7 is a case of game design degradation, I think it's more of just GT becoming what Kaz wants for the series. They've unintentionally designed a game full of character in the past due to limitations back then, and now achieving what they want with the game using the status and the tech they now have. It's a tragedy really, maybe GT was never meant to be fun from the beginning, I do hope I'm wrong tho.
These thoughts have been stuck in my head for far too long, thanks for giving me an outlet haha.

GT7 is that kind of game with 200 side quests of wich 195 are fetch quests "go-in-dungeon-wack-thing-get-back-collect-reward" type of thing, and the other 5 give you a weapon wich might even not be better than the one you have already, only to have the company's CEO go in a meeting and say "Look! A GAZILLION hours of total play time! People love this game!"

"To be continued..."
At this rate there'll be more entertaining Roflwoffle content than the entirety of GT7's single player.

Your description of "GT4's single player with the menu books tacked on" is exactly what I expected based on the pre-release marketing. Boy was I fooled.

I stopped playing gt7 after they defiled grand valley speed way into what ever that mess they made for gt7. Everything you've said in this series is exactly the reason why I've stopped playing, the game has no soul left. There's no real single player and online is full of dirty cheating drivers with no etiquette where the victim gets punished while the cheater gets away. I've started getting into acc on the ps5 and that has a better single player than gt7

I just play GT7, just to play GT7. Gran Turismo 4 will always be a all time classic. Gran turismo 5 was just a extended hand. what bothers me is, that the legend cars, cost alot, and you have to get a invitation to special cars which is only won by a roulette. GT7 is just trying to insult you and make things harder for you. collecting cars was part of the core game. Also there is missing classic racetracks, and racetracks that is so altered, that you don´t recognise

I often get asked what my opinion on GT7 is and my reply is always the same. I have none. The complete lack of player agency and freedom of choice - literally THE thing that sets this franchise apart - entirely drains my interest to even buy the game. That sense of wonder and discovery, which is honestly essential for any videogame, is completely missing. Very rarely have I felt such disinterest to try out a racing game. And that's arguably even worse than playing it extensively and coming to the conclusion that I dislike it. I'd rather try out some random bargain bin racing game from the early 2000's, because no matter how sh*t they are, at the very least they can still surprise you in some way.

Gt7 was my first gran turismo and even I picked up on how weird the menu books were. after a half dozen or so i was like "so when will the tutorial end?" I still finished all of them and have put ~250 hours into the game, but I can't help thinking about how much better the game wouldve been with a real campaign.

I literally fell asleep playing GT7 today, a couple of hours ago, I was at the 800PR event at Spa-Francorchamps, with Alpine Vision GT capped, basically just cruising around Spa, and about 35 minutes into the race I fell asleep, crashed on a corner. I finished the race and still got the clean race bonus.
Since the last updates that changed the physics of the game, I am finally enjoying the game. But still, something is missing, I would like to make custom races of several hours, that are difficult, but the rewards in these are ridiculous, the Time/Money ratio of them makes them a waste of time compared to events of the game, that in half an hour you can get half a million easy.

I honestly feel adding a proper GT mode would atleast give the community *something* to do. The game is absolutely boring, as much I enjoyed it for the first half a year or so, there was nothing to do.

they haven't achieved a high since GT5 imo. i am yearning, and i mean *yearning*, for the day i can download the academy edition to a computer and reliably emulate the game. it was my childhood racer alongside a couple early WRC games and TDU2, but past the bias and strange decisions it has on its own, its genuinely what ive been waiting for out of a GT experience. hopping to the 2nd hand dealer to buy an old integra or a civic type R, and just seeing how far that box'll take me, upgrading to the cars i win and can now afford, all the way to using top spec (or DLC cars) to rough it out in endurance races i never had the patience for as a child, running time trials with sebastian vettel or randomly pouring all my time into the rally and nascar missions like i'm the digital equivalent of Kimi Raikkonen, using photo mode with cars i can actually grow an attachement to, so on and so forth.
i cant deny the game has its value. there's at least some reason i hop back on to see how fast i can complete sardegna and leman and occasionally invest my time in a post-game menu book. But the problem is that its never felt like a journey to me. im told there was a journey, but that Journey was finished within 8 or so pretty skimpy "championships" and a bunch of cafe books i grinded out in the hopes there'd be something more. alas, there's nothing. there's "what i can make myself" and a collection of missions and licenses, but all of them are out-prioritised and swallowed whole in the face of grinding, online races and time trials. and its just. so. boring.

8:00 that overtake is indeed rad

As someone who likes this game and is tired of the repetitive criticism of every new game on the market... I love these videos. The criticism is constructive, offering ways in which the bad elements could be improved upon or repurposed, and it doesn't go for surface-level "there are not enough cars/it's all microtransactions" crap I've seen in every form of social media, but actually analises what doesn't work, why, the intention behind those mistakes in the first place, the philosophy behind good and bad Gran Turismo game design... this is great! Hope you also cover and analise more racing games, good and bad, new and old.

Damn, and I thought I hated this game a lot, but this man made it his job to sh*t all over it

For a long time I gave Kaz benefit of the doubt assuming a full VR mode was coming with a hard deadline and clearly taking up huge dev resource.
Now however, there is nothing to hide the broken feeling of the game behind for all the reasons you've explained. A full structure refresh, in effect GT 7.1, is needed to get back on track and I don't see any reason not to do it immediately. Just bring back the license, cup and championship structure that is familiar from GT 1 onwards then drop in the new cars and AI improvements as they are completed.

This kind of critique is exactly what the racing game genre needs. Now we need someone to do the same for forza

I think EVERYONE was thinking the same thing when it comes to the menu books. We expected it to be something on the side, not the whole campaign which makes the whole thing hilarious. They really messed up so bad in this part.

I used to play a fair bit of My Summer Car
What I discovered is that I got bored of it because it is a life simulator. Life simulators aren’t always fun because we play games to escape from our usual days, a break from our mistakes and grievances, a bit of fun, or a less expensive afternoon than going to the pub.
Having a game that replicates real life seems like a good idea, but as more games come out with this premise you eventually have to ask yourself (as old mate has done in this video) how good is realism, when I am already living in a real world.
Realism doesn’t always make for a good game, however simulators are still fun, because you get to drive cars that you never would be able to. I probably will never own a Holden Commodore or Ford Falcon. But I can jump on GT4 and play as a bogan Australian drifting around the track.
There is a compromise that must be made. GT is meant to be an accessible game that most can play, in which Sony can use to flex their new console’s abilities.
Take a really good simulator, BeamNG.drive. I thoroughly enjoy it, yet having every single rock on the side of the road have the capability to tear out your front left wishbone can make it quite hard when you are trying to navigate the tight dirt roads of the Utah map.
Then try to explain to someone who has never taken a car into a paddock about oversteer, understeer, the whole nine yards and then get them to play it, they won’t enjoy it, it’s too hard.
Bust out a PS2 and play Need for Speed or Burnout and a guarantee that someone who doesn’t even play video games that often can still play and enjoy the game.
Albeit this is more physics, GT7’s problems relate more towards, well if you watch this man’s videos, you will know all about that!

Polyphony as a studio feels like Sony's equivalent to Game Freak, both are basically coasting off the goodwill they've made in the past while their games lose more and more of what made them so beloved to begin with.

Someone should translate your videos into Japanese and send them to Polyphony. Great job btw!

Gran Turismo 7 for me is like "The Real Online Only Simulator". Only the intro and GT4 esque menu that made the game famous.

Yeah, although I haven't played GT7 (yet) I totally agree with everything you say in this video.
Polyphony have forgotten about the 'game' part of Gran Turismo, I loved in the previous games the whole strategy aspect of which licences to unlock, what car to buy and what upgrades to apply. Now the single player has been hollowed out to simple fetch quest (cafe books) and the racing / gaming is an afterthought . . .
The real source of frustration I think that we all share is that the 'bones' of GT7 are solid, great cars, great tracks and awesome graphics. I mean even the VR looks freaking amazing, but the single player campaign . . . how hard can it be to just 'copy paste' the old European GT Super League / American Cup / Japanese Trophy campaigns from games past into GT7? The cars are there, the tracks are there, all we want are the race series / licence to have fun!

If PD were a little bit clever they would hire Roflwaffle as an advisor and tester to help make things right. Really enjoying your RUclips stuff. Keep up the good work.

Everyone must watch all the Videos in this series if they havent already. Pure masterpieces! Keep it up ❤

At this point I'm still clocking more hours into GTsport than GT7 for the game feel and progression

19:56 the worst blasbhemy on entire game for me is the fact they mention NASCAR with a photo with no chance of have play something similar on the game

I loved the Seattle tracks from the early GT games.

Let me say it like this:
I think that you can tell Kaz is doing this from memory.
And you can also tell that he isnt getting any younger if you get what I mean.

I just can’t seem to understand why they refuse to listen. For awhile I thought it was just me. But so many people complain about the same stuff, rightfully so.
The game is so so close to be so so good. But they just need to listen. Hopefully they do

There are 2 criticism I have about GT7. The offline mode is so bad I have no words for it. Second, the grinding is too much.

It's an insult to the whole franchise that people may feel the addition of XJ220 is more of a waste of in game credit, less ROI in road car races than the grind races, previous titles are better because players just purely enjoying it being there to be raced, no matter how expensive it is.

I loved being 6 years old playing gt2, and booting up simulation mode. No tutorial, here you go, and trial and erroring my way to the license tests, and figuring out what cars i could use for what events. No hand holding at all, just "do your thing" i then got gt5 and it was mostly the same with more stuff to do, like special events and bspec. And then after a decade got gt7 and cried thinking that polyphony wouldnt be like most game devs these days without the original passion

The amount of times I've turned on my PS to play GT7 because I've adored the series since GT3, but then can't make myself click on the game and end up playing Assassin's Creed instead... Everything you've mentioned in these videos literally sums that up for me.
I honestly want to love GT7 so badly, but I just can't, because I'm not into online racing or scapes or VR.

I disinstalled GT7 some days ago. I returned to play it after one year of absence hoping there was something new ... nope. It feels so empty. I never got tired of the old GTs, there was always something to do. A challenge to overcome or a new interesting car to buy. This GT is good only if you play it for the on-line tournaments. I did it for some time, but when you have so many sims at your disposal (rfactor2, Iracing, Assetto Corsa) it feels useless tryng to master a driving model that isn't as realistic as the sims that I previously mentioned. The old GTs were my most played racing games. GT7 was the least played and least favourite and now I'm abandoning it because it feels completely useless when you take the competition into account. Bye bye GT7.

I enjoy GT7, but I will admit, I do agree with a lot of your concerns and gripes with the game. The disconnected nature between the Devs and their Community is quite frankly unacceptable at this time and age when people are more connected than ever.
That being said, a couple things I would love to see is a big 2.0 update at some point that completely revamps the career mode to be similar to that of GT3 or GT4. It may just be the nostalgia speaking, especially since I also want to see the classic fictional race cars done up in modern graphics since their last appearance 10 years ago for most, some even longer.
Makes me want to get a PS2 to play GT3 again...

Honestly just incredibly grateful that there's someone as level-headed as you making content like this. You make every other racing youtuber look like a midwit.

At this rate a GT4 Remake would probably be a better game than GT8 :D
I'm still having fun with GT7 especially online but boy the SP is so much better on 4 and even 5

The sacrifices for the sake of realism and the excessive focus on multiplayer are both things that are unfortunately very prevalent in modern video games. This game is just a very clear example of it.

7:53 That overtake was infact, Rad.

Kaz appealing to everyone in the end appealed to no one

Someone at Sony should translate your videos in japanese and make Kaz watch them. As usual, this is so on point and putting words and structure as to what classic GT fans are feeling right now. GT7 got the graphics and sounds right but traded that for a inferior game on all fronts. Clearly PD doesn't seem to care about a good classic single player experience now more than a year later. It would be easy to patch that in an update instead of the 2-3 meaningless boring events we get with each update.
I think I speak for most of us, what we wanted was just a GT3-GT4 callback with modern graphics, physics and sounds. How hard could it be ?
PS: I saw the ''translate to japanese'' comment afterwards haha

My initial thought to your question "How did GT7 end up the way that it did" is simply because Sony demanded this game to be an online service game/GaaS, and it felt like Kaz had to retrofit GT into one which is why everything just feels so wrong. GT7 feeling like one giant battle pass is actually a great way to describe it. On an unrelated note, PD marketed this game and made a big deal about the Tesla Model 3 back in February 2022 and more than one year later it is still nowhere to be seen.

The problem is the roulette system , why lock a feature behind a stupid gacha mechanic
They finally give you the option to swap engines but lock it behind a stupid wall
People want fun , this isn't it .
The games gone way too grindy ,
Kaz said he doesn't want players to do the same races , he contradicted himself in that statement 😭

I just want GT4 remastered bros...

I played every GT game from 1 through 6 as they came out. I bought a PS4 Pro in anticipation of GT7. When I started doing the menu books I thought it was a tutorial. At some point I realized that it was the supposed meat of the game. I pushed my way through and cleared all of them save for some optional ones. I wanted to like the game but I can't. It's only worth playing as more of a tech demo than as a game. I ended up giving my PS4 away to a friend who uses it way more than I ever did, and I haven't had any gifter's remorse about it. Probably my personal biggest letdown in gaming.

Going back to Gran Turismo 3 or 4, 5- hell even 6, I find them just...more enjoyable thanks to the fact the singleplayer is still structured like it had been for prior entries.
its clear the Polyphony of today doesn't understand GT anymore. It almost seems like every game company out there with a franchise steadily lost focus of their series as time went on.

GT7 is such a disappointment for me. My grandpa got me GT4 along with my PS2 as a present when I was around 5 years old I was really bad at the game and didn't understand it but still had fun. So when I became a teenager me and my dad were looking for a good split screen racing game we could play we went out to the game store and bought GT6 knowing how good GT4 was and we were hooked. There was such a vast amount of content in the game. Even just comparing how we got through the campaing was so fun. Eventually we burnt out and stopped playing. Then when we got the PS4 one of the first games we bought was GT Sport and we were left dissappointed. It had less events no GT Auto and less cars but we played it and had fun with it. We just reasoned that it was spin off and surely GT7 would be everything we were expecting a next gen GT to be. Then GT7 came out and everything that we had fun with in the previous games was almost nonexistent and the way that the game was trying to get our money and the gambling is just insulting. So we just didn't even bother we didn't get the game and just went back to playing GT6. And I sure that despite all of it's faults if GT6 were to be released today with a graphical update nobody would GT7 anymore

I’ve felt like gt7 campaign is such a joke for so long. I played through it and just sat there at the credits in awe of how dumb it was. I thought to myself that maybe it’s a fluke, a “gotcha!” Sort of thing and they’ll actually add a proper campaign later (which is why they used menu books instead of the standard layout). But to my avail, nothing, I’ve waited and waited, played the game more, messed around and trained in sport mode and yet, nothing. No Red Bull junior championship, no boxer spirit, no Seca 600, no gt trophy, and no actual championships outside the joke ones we got that are just fill-ins. I want that “tour of Italy” championship with 5 races that takes 15 to 20 min each, but no, instead we get short, unpaid, and unspirited races. And even when you try and make these races for yourself you’re met with bots that have no idea how racing even works even though I have the game on its highest difficulty. And speaking of, why in the world is there a difficulty option when the bots suck no matter if you choose easy or hard. The difficulty setting is such a good idea that’s just gone to waste. Does anyone else even remember that there’s a difficulty setting?! The cars are there, the tracks are there, the features are there, the graphics and physics are there, and yet it’s a puzzle that’s just been shaken around in the box instead of carefully put together to make the beautiful picture that could be “proper gran turismo”. So much potential… WASTED. (Weekly race A is just about the only thing that’s actually fun anymore and even then it depends on the lobby and gets boring after three days)

The funny thing about the first part in regards to people wanting super realistic graphics and handling, is that the handling is still absolutely nothing like driving a real car. I get that they don't want to go full-simulation, but that should theoretically cut down on the time to make a car, given its most complex part is dumbed down so much. Imagine how long it would take them if they had to actually make any of the cars behave like their real-life counterparts.
As for the issue of collecting cars you never actually do anything with, this whole issue could be resolved by having legitimate car classes, instead of Group 2, Group 3, whatever. It is completely nonsensical to have modern GT cars racing against an early '90s GT1 car, and just calling it "Group 2". This diminishes what these cars were, and what makes the racing from that era so different. It removes any attachment from the cars, because they're exactly like any other, and also contributes a lot to how absolutely terrible the BoP is in these groups, which is why you end up with online races where everyone is using the exact same car.
I look at games like Automobilista 2, which does have its own issues, but I think of what the devs of that game could achieve with Polyphony's manpower and budget. Gran Turismo 7 is the perfect example of doing less with more.

While I think you are spot on and agree with all your criticisms I also think PD knew exactly what they were doing with GT7. They remade GT Sport and added the tuning options players asked for from previous GT games. The career mode of GT7 is little more than a single player version of the GT Sport lobby. The only difference is you play the AI instead of other humans. They even have real player names as opponents. It's designed to get players used to the game being about competing against other players and to put the traditional career story mode behind them. That way they can sell subscription services and make more money. As evidence I point out the one universal criticism of having to be online to play the game. I really hope I'm wrong.

Just shared this on r/granturismo and got immense backlash from the fanbois there. I think we are lost...

9:15
Coming from the future, where FM23 have a disastrous moment atm, safe to say that BOTH games did false marketing and deceiving both fans (Forza with the whole "build from the ground up" and GT with "The most complete Gran Turismo experience")
Kinda irony how today's developer go as far as lying to their fans, just so we would purchase their half-assed products, which then they update it on way, to make them look like care

4:26 This is actually a mega plus for myself, as someone who loves the manga Wangan Midnight, there's something very magical about the "irreversible upgrade", it's something that could not be replicate with a system that gives you more freedom, kinda similar to the reasons why some games that does not give you difficulty options.

GT7 isn't really a racing game, it's a car collecting, photo mode game but it's mainly a social media popularity contest & I hate that

I feel like PD tried to genuinely transition to GTSport as the new direction but then decided to shelf that idea and basically scrambled to start traditional numbered titles again which is why so much is copied and new stuff is half arsed

I remember during the GT5 & GT6 days. Many people complained about the layout of the game's "career" being to linear, or similar to GT1-4.
Now i hear many praising it.

You know something's not right when the intro is so massively long and Sony tries to take down the whistleblowing uploads in another alias.

I've sunk about 200 hours into GT7..
It's always felt like a grind.. It's rarely enjoyable..
And now my PS5 has recently started to turn itself off while playing it. It seems to be a well known bug with GT7. Sometimes, it's a relief..
I just wish, they had a dump of all their previous original tracks.. Citta Di Aria and Opera Paris, and Tokyo.. Are all my favourite tracks of any of the games.. Haven't seen or played them for nearly 20 years now. It's sad..

The PS2 era of GT had the best races. Can you imagine if GT7 were events were divided into Beginner, Amateur, Professional, Extreme and Endurance, more people would be happy. Making a championship event, 10 races, 10 laps, won’t even take as long as making one car. Not even a day!

I was so excited for GT7, bought a PS4 just for GT7 but I felt more like a valet worker at a fancy restaurant looking at customer cars I couldn't own. GT7 is a parody of itself now, it appeals more to collectors than people that like motorsport.

I dont even play GT7, but to me the biggest betrayal where the Microtransactions that where introduced shortly after release, after the media wrote good reviews and many copies already sold...

9:42 - note the "Championships" in the top left.
This is what we want.

Couldn't agree more. Lifelong GT player. Own every game...I'm gutted, this game could have been phenomenal.

Oh my God I had no idea what they did to grand Valley Speedway!?!?!?!?
Grand Valley Speedway was my favorite original Gran Turismo course and my favorite original course out of any racing game ever!!
I even liked the version in GT four where they made the S turns just prior to the second hairpin way more technical..
Send your clip of Grandvalley in this video just broke my heart!

Such a sad situation, for me GT1 and GT2 will always be more favourites in the series, we had a killer soundtrack, over 600 cars and loads of tracks including street circuits with jumps! The moment the crazy two wheel action and jumps was toned down it became less for me. Would love to play a remaster of GT2, what a game!

I can't eat out anymore as GT7 gave me menu book PTSD

Sad T_T
I guess hard to find loyal racing game makers nowadays
Please don't drop down to new lows, Kunos

For all the amazing visuals and attention to detail, GT7 does get boring very quickly. What’s even more annoying for me personally is my own real life car is in it and it still feels boring. I really believe we need some open world variation of Gran Turismo so we can actually drive our cars properly and enjoy them more because there’s very little to hold peoples interest despite new cars been added monthly. I do agree with everything said in this video. GT3 is also one of my favourites and I enjoyed every second of it, GT7 should logically be better than it’s PS2 counterparts but honestly it doesn’t feel it. Test Drive Solar Crown is coming out this year and I genuinely believe I might end up ditching GT7 almost entirely but we will see.

I love GT7, but the issues are so glaring that it’s kinda hard to keep playing for more than 2 hours at a time for me.

The only thing that I'm okay with are the track redesigns, I think those were a good change to make those tracks feel fresh, is not amazing but is not bad either

GT7 doesn't prioritize fun but it's still fun. My friends and I run custom lobbies every month and have a blast.

You have summed up why I have played infrequently over the last 6 months. I'm not into Sport mode because I cannot stand "racing" against a$$holes. This game is a waste of time. I have all the cars offered in the used car dealership. Basically have acquired all the other cars I care about, most of which can't be used in the game. I've been playing since GT1. I probably won't buy GT8, if there is one.

The really frustrating thing about GT7 is that all the really hard and time consuming to develop parts have been done and been done well, it's just that the structure of the game with the championships and suchlike has been stripped back to such an extent that it doesn't feel like Gran Turismo anymore, such a shame as its so close yet so far, how Polythony haven't fixed this in the year+ since it's release speaks volumes of how truly clueless and rudderless they have become

I totally agree with Kacey's review. It's as if the game was explained to us and we had to unlock cars and then finish the game without having decided on any of the decisions.

Doesn't just seem a like a betrayal, it is

"The coffee books, they railroad you through a mediocre time and then conclude way too early, does that sound familiar to you?"
You don't need to remind me of my failures man, it's hard enough as it is :(

I absolutely loved GT7.....until I finished the regular menu books. Then every problem you've talked about here became clearer and clearer and now I barely play at all. It's so baffling that your reward for completing all the menu books is a dramatic reduction in new cars you can afford since the game just stops giving them to you. The grind for cash becomes so unstructured and just gets really old really fast.

Yeah man, i'm still waiting for them to add the freaking LFA meanwhile in Forza Horizon 5 i got one as a "gift" because apparently the community uses it as a way to get quick wheels spins money or something...but it's not the same there since the sound is underwhelming in FH5 compared to if it was on GT7 but even then, when they do add it the grind required to buy it will be such a chore...

I think you hit the nail on the head with photo mode. I loved the cars I upgraded And raced throughout the older games that I actually had photos from multiple stages of progress cuz i enjoyed the journey with those cars. Especially in gt4

The talking heads of the real world GT players has to be one of the most insulting things I've ever seen in a video game. I immediately looked for and Googled ways to shut them off and sadly never found a way. I don't need a pop up telling me 'you're so close, maybe watch the replay to see how it's done!' when I fail a challenge/driver's license test. It's particularly bad when it's a hard test and it comes up every two or three attempts. Give me a break. I don't know who any of these people are, and now I hate them and hate the idea of supporting Gran Turismo tournaments because of it. Probably not the outcome they expected.

One of the only fun aspects of GT7 are the 500-650pp online races. The players have become much better at setting up lobbies in a way to make the game fun to play.
That said, unless you are experienced in tuning and know the track, you will get crushed by the majority of players left playing.
It would be wise for GT7 to implement more ways for players to narrow who can join their lobbies. Example: number of hours logged, income earned ECT.
This is coming from one of the guys who mops up and I say this because I know what it takes to win and I know many people simply do not have that much time and effort invested into the game, nor should they be asked to.
Edit: speaking of fun. Thought I would play some GT7 after watching this, took me 4 tries and 15 minutes to just get past the gt7 logo black screen.
Seems to get worse with every update.😕

3:01 not even that. People race these cars in real life too, quite a lot.

The newer updates are making the game better bit by bit, especially the inclusion of buyable engine swaps and ultimate parts, but the core game design, such as the menu book progression and the horrendous economy of the legend cars dealership to encourage microtransactions really really take away the single player experience we all wished we could have.

I feel like GT7 isn't really meant to be a game, but rather polyphony trying to establish a library of high quality car models to pull from in the future. So they made that and slapped some basic gameplay functionality on it.
For GT8, you could use the same models and all, just add a campaign and people would see it as a huge upgrade.
Maybe for GT9 you'd then think about adding something new. Team Challenges, proper multi class racing, a AI that's competetive... ?
And on GT "X" they might go derpy again and turn it into another library.
One thing where I have to defend Polyphony a bit, tough is that they're kind-of a victim of the times.
For sales and marketing, graphics are king. The average player might be fine with GT3-ish models or at least the PS3 generation models, but "gaming journalism" needs those graphics.
And then there's the crowd of pricks infesting the car and gaming community. Watch any racing stream and people be like "wow those [MY GAME] graphics look real", "I'd beat that time in [my game]" and incite discussions with their kind about which game is superior.
Even if you look at gaming as a whole, a lot of people which celebrate "being a nerd" on every "social" media platform were the ones making fun of those playing pixelated games on the early consoles or old PCs.

Seems like the problem is too much of a focus is put on car collecting instead of the actual gameplay.

I hate the cafe menus. I miss the old progression, I'm actually playing through GT 6 to get that feeling again, I know it's not everyone's favourite, but I think it's my 2nd after gt4

I believe the economy is the biggest issue with alot of races giving horrible payouts and the races that give good payouts are ridiculously long difficult or just straight up boring

I mean honestly I don´t care about having the "latest" cars in a racing game, iconic cars are usually more important. I can go back to GT3 or GT5 and play them with no issues and don´t miss being able to drive a Bugatti Chiron for example (which is barely used in GT7 anyway unless you do custom races). If cars make sense and can be useful internally in their own game and setting, that makes them fun, not being a super mega realisitic model that takes a badly paid intern 270 days to make ^^

they don't dream of driving. they dream of buying

This is well said. Exactly what i was feeling. Forza does the same thing, throws cars at you, makes the attachement to cars non-existent. I played GT3 as well recently and the singleplayer is so much more rewarding, i felt more joy when i unlocked the 86 in the sunday cup than i did winning a Lamborghini Hurucan in GT7. The Cafe book thing sucked, hated every bit of it, i hated the people talking BS as well. Its not just GT7, every car game in the past 5 years has done excessive chatter. NFS 2015 and unbound, ughhh the chatter every 2 minutes, phonecalls that mute the engine volume, so bloody irritating. We want less chatter more gameplay. Its not even immersive, just annoying.

"At least Gran Turismo 8 will fix the mistakes of GT7 and be a much better game,"
*He says, knowing that the next game is going to be GT Sport 2.*

A huge red flag with any product is the line: "we wanted to make a game that EVERYONE can enjoy..." I.e, the suits want quick cash from as many people as they can suck in at the start, future be damned.
It's clear that creating an amazing experience that builds a loyal audience over time is not a part of their business model.
Instead it's just an exercise in abusing the brand and milking it dry, then moving onto their next prey. Rinse & repeat.

Excellent video as always. Thanks for the upload 👍👍👍

I've been playing gt7 from day one and started playing gran Turismo games since gt4, here's my two cents on it:
-The game economy is atrocious even after the backlash and the updates, the most yielding race is the 1 hour spa wtc800 with 1m credits and a bonus 500k for a clean race, that's 1.5m which might seem like a lot, but when you open up the legendary dealership and get presented with 3 cars each around 20m, that's 60m.. lord help us.
-The ai is a joke, let's take the spa 800 that i mentioned before, mid race it's going to rain, you pit to put rain tires, but the ai won't, so you'll be seeing them sliding all over the place, even if you bump the difficulty nothing changes..
-The handling physics is contradictive, on one hand gt7 wants to play like a fun arcade racing game, on the other hand it wants to be a full on sim and too realistic, however what you end up with is cars that are always too unpredictable, and most of the time not very fun to drive.
-The unforgivable: putting upgrade and performance parts in the roulette system which is rigged in the first place, imagine if i tell you that you cannot unlock the best performance parts because they can only be obtained randomly through the in-game reward system, i mean why? What's the purpose of this?
I can still write a book about the issues in gt7, but to keep it short ill give you two main reasons why i think gt7 failed big time, First i think it's because the fact that it was cross-gen so it took too much time getting optimised on both gen consoles and so little time for devs to make a complete gt gaming experience, The second reason is because Gran Turismo as a franchise has an identity crysis, it doesn't know what to be and for what fan-base it should target.
My advice, pick a nice pc, play assetto corsa with mods and run gt4 through emulation on bumped up textures and resolution and your bueno 👌

Might've mentioned this in an earlier video but i only go back to GT 7 to do custom races when i feel like it with the rare occasion of doing a tiny bit of money grinding. One of the issues which has been around since GT 5, it's incomplete at release. In other words, lack of fun factor and motivating events. Before anyone says anything, Gt 5 felt more complete than Gt 6 and 7 by quite a margin. GT 6 had poor events, 24m of lemans... seriously!? GT 7 at release was horrible, it still feels like it's lacking in quality but back at release date it was just disgusting. Was even worse when they tried to lower payouts from the rally event. Countless of issues i could've addressed, but i need a book to write for that.