Only using my controller so far, my first impression from the intro stuff through to the first career mode race at Grand Oak in the Mustang could be summed up with "understeer." The Cadillac at Hakone in particular had terrible understeer, felt like it couldn't even take the gentle kink in the back straight flat.
After getting swaybars for the Mustang and using normal Forza nonsense logic to tune them though, it did make a big difference and livened the car up quite a bit, and things were further improved when I could widen the front tires up and fiddle with the diff.
Drove the Astra BTCC car, Trans Am Cutlass, and BRZ and things felt more natural with them, partially because I am getting a little more used to the handling too of course. On the surface the game feels very different than FM7, mainly because of the weightier feeling, but when you drive a few cars with upgrades or the race cars, it starts to feel more like Forza again. The front end still lacks "bite" even on the race cars, so my guess is that the old Forza thing where you run backwards, totally unrealistic setups will persist.
Haven't dipped into multiplayer yet, will save that for tomorrow, but there are a few big disappointments on the single player side. There doesn't appear to be a way to multiply tire wear/fuel burn, and no way to force certain race tire compounds, which are pretty critical for getting the strategy really playing (although maybe they will exist in multiplayer? but I doubt it). There is also seemingly no way to stretch race lengths out to make them feel a bit more like races and bring strategy in through race length, and free play seems largely unchanged from FM7 including no way to choose the grid precisely.
...But the disappointment in all of those things is kinda rendered insignificant because the AI is awful, and those things wouldn't save the single player experience. Running at max difficulty, it's the same nonsense from FH5 where one car is significantly faster than the rest, and once you pass cars they do basically nothing smart to try to get the spot back. Every race but one I've done so far I finish 2nd, the leader 1-ish seconds per lap faster than me and finishing 5 seconds up the road, and myself 1-ish seconds faster than all the other cars and finishing 5-ish seconds ahead of them, with no battling or anything interesting happening at all after like turn 2.
Or I guess I shouldn't say nothing interesting happens, I just had a very "interesting" race for the monthly showcase thing at Eagle Rock Club. An 8 lap race, where AI cars were going laps down because they were pitting for some reason, then coming out of the pits and immediately screwing up the chicane on the back straight and rejoining the track perpendicular to the racing line. One had a fantastically bad rejoin straight into me taking me out so I got my first non-2nd place finish of 3rd, because the other AI were so far back they couldn't capitalize... on lap 3.
Fortunately multiplayer will likely be better than FM7 so the game will still be "fine" overall, but yikes the single player is going to be an absolute slog to get through to unlock some things if it stays like this.
Not to be totally negative though, it looks fine (I'm only 1080p TV and don't care about graphics much), it's only frozen once, interactions with kerbs feel much detailed/complex (especially noticeable at a place like Kyalami with sorta unique kerb shapes), and the 2 race cars I tried felt like they could provide some alright racing in multiplayer, and it seems you make money at a reasonable rate that you can get things you want without having to grind too much (for the money at least).
As much as the car XP thing is going to be annoying for multiplayer, and probably become tiresome quickly in single player, it doesn't feel too bad for the first couple series things. Assuming you aren't doing the bare minimum in the practice mode, you unlock enough options to noticeably change your car pretty quickly, so I think it's actually kinda "tuned" okay for the career mode.
The practice mode is alright. The sector things can be useful, and the other cars make things a little more lively than regular test drive, but I didn't see a way to set up a practice mode any time you want? Maybe just missed it though. It would still be nice if we had a live split or sector breakdowns though, those are basic tools for learning.
Edit: Yay, just won my first single player race. While starting the final lap running in 2nd place, (surprise!) 5-ish seconds behind 1st place and 5-ish seconds ahead of 3rd place, the leader just... slowed down for some reason. Super engaging and thrilling battle with a last lap pass! /s
