For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the PlayStation 4 version of My First Gran Turismo from Polyphony Digital.
This is a free to play download from the PSN so it's not quite a DEMO, but i thought it was applicable as it's a way in for new players to the series. with this in mind, one thing i was looking for with My First Gran Turismo was whether it was accessible or not to new players. after this first hour with it, i can say that My First Gran Turismo was very approachable and i would recommend it to anyone who's Gran Turismo curious.
The game has a very relaxed approach. it repeatedly makes it clear to the player that they should progress when they want. the game has some great tutorials, too. as well as text on screen and pictures showing specific points, My First Gran Turismo has a demo that uses gameplay to show how it should be done. this can be watched repeatedly so players can pay attention to many different details.
You'll see in this video that retries are very quick in this game as i use it quite a few times. the initial load isn't an issue but i imagine that it's quite a bit longer than the PS5 version. My First Gran Turismo looks great and mostly runs smooth. i did notice a few times some slow down. this was mostly happening in replays. i also noticed some pop-in during replays, too. but when i was actually racing i think i only noticed one drop.
My First Gran Turismo isn't a huge game. by completing a license, you unlock a gameplay mode. there are 4 modes to unlock and in each mode are maybe 3 races. there's also an achievement section that'll show the cars unlocked. i got 10 of the 18 in this video. there weren't any trophies for My First Gran Turismo, but there are leaderboards for many modes so chasing the times of your friends could be fun.
i would recommend My First Gran Turismo for anyone curious about the game. i think it's good for players who like racers in general. i do think the tutorial is good enough for those who aren't experienced with racing games. the relaxed approach is also very welcoming. it's unknown if there'll be updates in the future, but at 11GB it's just small enough for me to keep it on my PS4 to see if there are updates to it, and additions, in the future.
