The Four Racing Commandments
After spending several hours of Gran Turismo 7, there are various nuggets of information I wish I learned at the beginning of my journey. Some I may have had an idea of in the past, while others were useful information I wasn't aware of. There is a bountiful amount of information that GT7 doesn't outright tell the player, so I decided to hunker down and give four pieces of information I wish I knew sooner. As these are subjective, don't take my words to heart but rather use them as a blueprint. Your experiences may differ from my own, but knowing these were what enhanced my experience by a country mile.
Increase Your Controller Sensitivity And Limit Assists
This is exclusively for the Gran Turismo 7 players that use a gamepad like me, but oftentimes I find myself struggling to steer my vehicle. It feels as if there's a tug that causes my car to turn slower than usual. Chances are if you're going through this yourself, it's not you but your controller settings. If you go into your Controller Settings, you'll see an option to adjust your sensitivity. By default it's 0 and putting it up to 7 makes the car snappy and responsive. If setting it to the max makes the handling too twitch, it's best to lower it until you get to that sweet spot.
Also, get in the habit of using as few assists as possible, including the "auto-drive" and "braking assist." Other assists like ABS and TCS are on a case-by-case basis, especially if you're using a controller over a racing wheel. This is because while having a helping hand is great to get used to the game, it will hinder your performance. This is especially true for gunning down License Tests as the assists will slow the overall speed of your car.
Always Return To The World Map After Doing Anything
This is a "Captain Obvious" moment, but because you can't manually save your game in Gran Turismo 7, it's uncertain when the game decides to auto-save. I may be ignorant and not see an obvious autosave icon that's right in front of my face. It could also be that Polyphony Digital hadn't implemented an obvious tell that the game is autosaving. Regardless, the one certain way to make sure your game is autosaved is by returning to the World Map after doing anything.
I learned this the hard way when I earned all gold trophies for the National A license tests. As I tried to return, my game soft locked only for me to lose all of my progress. Guess who had to start all over again and lose their progress? I didn't bother to go for all golds again, which leads me to.
Don't Stress About Getting All Golds
Getting all gold trophies for each License Test is Polyphony Digital's way of dangling a slab of meat on a hook for players. The rewards for earning gold are lucrative, earning the player rare and valuable cars. Even from a credit-earning perspective, earning gold nets you the amount you'd earn from silver and bronze as well, giving you double the number of credits. As the player hammers out the challenges of the license lessons, it becomes increasingly annoying to maintain perfection.
The best solution is to stop and assess why the player should strive for Gold, to begin with. Aside from getting a second car and earning more credits, earning all bronze is sufficient enough to earn the license. The player can and should come back to earn golds as they feel ready to take on the challenge. However, earning the license is the top priority as it's like owning the keys to the city. Come back later once you've felt like you're in a better headspace.
The Less Expensive Option Is Usually The Best
As the player earns Collector levels, the tuning shop will open more towards the player until they unlock the final tier. Logistically, the higher the tier, the better the item part. However, it is also the most expensive, sometimes upward of twice the amount of credits. Since credits are sparse outside of microtransactions. it is cost-efficient to find a cheaper alternative. Thankfully, the most expensive parts are the ones that allow the player to customize every aspect of their ride.
An example of this is the racing suspension vs one that's fully customizable. The racing suspension can't be adjusted, but it is enough to give a ride more stability than a sports suspension. Only buy the customizable variant of a part if you intend to further tweak your ride in the Car Settings. If your only intention is to add a little bit more power to your ride, then you'd be wasting money otherwise. This saves money plus your car will be powerful to contend with the challenging races.
If I come across any more helpful advice for newcomers, I'll gladly write up a follow-up post. For now, take your time and enjoy the ride of your life.
Gran Turismo 7 is out now on PS4 and PS5