Occasional Tales

The treasure hunt wasn’t too difficult because it was easy to quickly identify the approximate location of the chest (north-west end of Shikasai-no-Oka). The weekly was in an old favourite of mine, the Renault 5 Turbo, which I drove a lot in FH4 (well, the FE version), but less often in FH5. It’s still a car I enjoy driving. I took a photo, I got a stupid reward. I think it was a Swiss policeman’s summer underpants; or something that is an iconic part of any racing game. Dockside Drive was Street Scene racing in S1-class retro supercars. Apart from the first race which was wet, the Maserati MC12 seemed to be a mostly good choice, although I need more practice doing these courses. I can’t help but note that Tokyo Docks Charge is not the most suitable race for high-powered cars with it’s 2nd-gear-3rd-gear corners. Once again, the reward was a car that’s irrelevant to the category of cars that we used in the series. For the Good Old Days I used the Peugeot 205 T16, which was already C5...

I actually knew where to find the treasure this week, and not because I’ve seen several posts on Facebook as well. North-eastern corner of the lake near Hakusan Mountain Lodge. I should’ve used the Honda Beat to do the daily as well as the weekly challenge. I already had a Polaris of some sort for the photo op. at the spaceport. For Touring the Sights I switched between cars for each race, starting with the AM DBS Superleggera before swapping to the 2025 Bentley Continental, and finishing with the MB AMG GT-S. The last of these was the most drivable. I still don’t see how some ghastly off-road bathtub was a suitable reward. With Daily Exercise we were back in the world of novel car categories, in this case, high-performance dailies. As far as I can tell, this seems to be super saloons and SUVs that start in A class. I chose the 2012 BMW M5, which in spite of the driving conditions and Okishinaimura with its annoying touge zone), turned out to be a good choice. And finally from the c...

 The weekly in the 2017 Ford Focus was undemanding. The clue for the treasure hunt was immensely vague, but I was rescued by some kind player, who sent me a message telling me where the chest was located (I’d guessed the right area of the map). It’s as vague as vague can be, being south-west of Mount Haruna on the south side of a small lake. Jodogahama. Where the hell is Jodogahama? It’s near the spaceport, but not marked on the map. That’s where you take a photo of some Mazda. The collectibles round the 7-Eleven were easy enough to find, but you may have to wait for some of them to respawn if someone else is smashing them. I don’t know why this is a thing in FH6. I used the Peugeot 205 Rallye for Coming in Hot for which the prize was some American barge (which makes no sense to me. #OldPersonProblems). The car was all right once it was on the dirt sections. For Weekend Break , I went with the 2000 “Mustang”. For some reason I’d built and tuned it, but don’t seem to have raced it....

The treasure hunt clue was a little more obvious this time. The location is Meoto Iwa Rock. I couldn’t remember the name, but knew what to look for. In other news, the first expansion will allegedly be out on the 21st of January. I already owned the BMW Turbo 2002. All went well. I took a photo. I got some clothing. I got so excited that I bought the Lexus LFA. The curse that is B-class modern rally returned in Bee Happy , which rewarded us with the Coronet Super Bee, which I don’t have in this game (but do in others). We had to do Kawazu Nanadaru yet again. I got caught out by the sharp right-hander at the bottom of the hill in Cherry Field Trail . It’s not a race I’ve done that often, but I suspect I’ve botched that corner just about every time. Ghost Hunter was A-class rally monsters (not exactly original) doing cross-country. What?! I picked the Opel Manta for the job, but the car wasn’t suited to the task. There was quite a bit of yawing in Takashiro , which had me wondering whe...

 I guessed that the treasure was to be found in the north corner of the spaceport. I was right. First time in ages. I needed to do Aston Martin Nights to get the DB5. I used the DB7. Festival Chase was awful in cockpit view with all the spray coming off the road, Matsumi Climb switched to daylight, but the additional traffic didn’t actually affect the race ’cos it was way easier to see. Shimanoyama Charge was a repeat of the preceding race, but at night. And then I was able to do the weekly except I upgraded the car before leaving my house, which meant I had to do a drivetrain swap to spend CR20,000 on the car, leave the house, and return to undo all of it. A couple of Street Scene races. Gods! An HSP interrupted this, but this week I jumped on it, and then one-shotted the SZ task. And as I was in the DB5, this was also a good opportunity to deal with the photo to acquire yet another stupid phrase that no sane adult would ever utter. Rally on Dirt was B-class total rally, but ...

Yes, I manfully searched for the blasted treasure chest. Yes, I almost certainly passed it, but it was night time, which seems to be the game’s default state. Yes, I noted that the road in the background was dirt, not tarmac. I had to google the location so as not to spend an hour or so without a single sighting. It was on the south side of the Taiyaki Scramble , roughly due north of the start of Kawazu Nanadaru over the other side of the hill. I took a photo. I got another dumb reward. Again, I had to do a seasonal, Country Pickups , to get the Jaguar C-X75 for the weekly challenge. I started the races in the WP F-150, but didn’t like the handling and thought to switch to the CJ5 Renegade, which I then discovered isn’t in the game. I looked at the FJ40, but lighted on the Wrangler Rubicon, which I had to engine-swap to get it to the top of B class. It still managed to feel sluggish. For Edogawa , I slightly road-tuned it, which seemed to give it a significant advantage over the driva...

I couldn’t even begin to guess where the chest for the treasure hunt was. I spent an hour fast travelling round the Ito Region for possible locations before I googled it and found that it was beside the railway line south of the junction that’s south of Ito Airfield. I’d been through the area several times without luck and for some reason, other players weren’t appearing on the map no matter how close they were so that I couldn’t identify the correct place by looking for a cluster of grey dots. Colossally annoying. I did Cross-Country Heroes because I’ve never got the 2020 Defender and had no intention of buying it if I was going to get it as a reward. Two of the races had to be the least cross country races in the game with that asinine thing at the docks and then the ridiculous one in the city. I assume that after the disappointing and irritating CC race in Guanajuato as a sad replacement for the one in Edinburgh, PGG decided to stick one in Tokyo, which is an urban area, not a rura...

I went Geoguesser on the treasure hunt, assuming that it’d probably be down one of the green lanes in Tokyo. I was right, and even picked the right lane just near the Raku Raku icon. I’d not driven the Honda e previously, and it didn’t surprise me that there was no racing event in the weekly since EVs are typically weak in races. I also used the weekly to deal with the photo challenge, which was another round of me: “There’s the mascot.” Game: No, wrong place . Me: “What about here?” Game: Fine . Me: “What’s the difference?” Game: Don’t ask questions. The Forza gods have spoken . Are unlimited buggies starting to be the off-road equivalent of B-class modern rally? I was back in the Ariel Nomad for Unlimited Buddies , although I admit it’s my only properly built A-class car in this category. Oh, and what absolute larks! All night time races. I had to close the curtain or the glare created too much contrast to see properly. This also reminded me why I’m even less fond of cross-country ra...

I looked at the map, looked for an SZ, and pretty much fast travelled to just the right spot to find the treasure. It’s under a section of the SZ on this week’s Festival playlist. The weekly started slightly badly. I got the Autozam, but started upgrading it before I’d driven it. I then went to the Autoshow to buy a new one even though it was a reward for one of the seasonals (but I’d forgotten it probably was). In fact, it was only about CR36,000 and hardly what I’d call a reward. I did Bandai Azuma for the touge race because that’s the A-class one. At least the photo was merely taking a picture of a cult car somewhere on the Edamame Circuit and not a picture of some infantile mascot which you can only get if you place the car in just the right position. Micro Circuits was back to one of those vague car categories for which you can’t search and the options offered by the game will only cover the eligible cars in A class. I chose the MG Metro 6R4, which I turned into a road racer as...

I’d seen the location of the treasure on Facebook. Fast travel to the Shimanoyama Circuit icon, and the treasure is in the garages to the left. The weekly challenge was in the weak and weedy Toyota JPN Taxi. I’m sure it’s iconic. I drove it without wasting any money or effort on it. For the picture at the station, park on one of the roads outside. The location for the photo of the Wuling Sunshine is the field south of the start of Sunflower Charge . The Nissan Be-1 seemed to be a good choice for Small but Mighty , although probably absolutely anything eligible was. It was a bit of a pain to take the lead round Shimanoyama . Edamame is a silly karting track, continuing the tradition of terrible stadium circuits started in FH5. And what was the reward? A Honda S800. I’m sure that it, too, is iconic. For Dango Dashes , the choice was modern or retro supercars, which they could’ve stated directly rather than some vague, meaningless category. I picked the 2-23 Audi R8 Coupé. Still can’t t...

As usual, I started with the treasure hunt. I knew roughly where I could find it and then had to narrow down the exactly location to the end of the track above the waterfall with the view of the temple(/pagoda). The weekly was doing things in the Fiat Abarth 131, which was a favourite of mine in FH5. The challenge to get three ultimate wreckage skills was the usual random sort of thing. There’s probably a good place to go and do this, but I don’t happen to know where it is. I took a picture of a Lamborghini and got, er, something. Rickets? Probably. I picked the G Wagen for Out of the Loop , but feel this was probably a mistake. It was understeery round the annoying Kawazu Nanadaru spiral. I went too fast into the turn at the bottom of the hill in Cherry Field Trail . Crash! Bollocks! The good thing about this seasonal was that three missing cars came out to play, and I got snaps of them. For It’s Snow Problem At All I went with another old favourite from FH4, the Range Rover Sport S...

The treasure was obviously at the spaceport, where I roamed round and round, unable to pin down exact location because some Jeremy (Hunt – rhyming slang) was (deliberately) parked on top of the chest. This seems to be a new thing in the game to annoy players. I don’t appreciate having my time wasted like this. I had to do the Trial to get the Ferrari Dino because I didn’t want to buy it and end up with two, driving neither very much. My first attempt at the Trial did not go well. I tried an old favourite, the Renault Turbo 5, which just wasn’t up to the job, and quit before the end of the first race after the drivatars muscled back past me. I switched to the Celica for the second attempt. I was fifth on the human grid on Airfield and managed to claw my way to 5th to contribute to a team win. I was in second place at the start of Hokubu and finished in 2nd, somehow keeping up with the player who had comfortably won the first round. I’ll note that the car category was misleading. It sa...

I knew about where the treasure chest would be at the tip of the north-east peninsula. The weekly in the Ariel Nomad had me PB the golf course TB twice. For the CC race I did Yahikoyama and ran into a bug. On the big jump the nose of the car bounced upwards and it spun round on its rear wheels just as it pleased. I used a DS for the photo op., just missing a randomly stationary traffic car as I approached the jump. Mud, sweat and gears said “total buggies and off-road”. I thought “total” meant “anything goes”, but the game then said “unlimited” I ended up back in the Ariel Nomad. Poor labelling once again. If only PGG might employ a literate intern. The reward for Are ya winning, S1? was the Ariel Nomad, which ought to have been the reward for Mud, sweat and gears , and the Ford GT or something similar should have been the reward for this. I immediately suspected that Horizon Play (“three awesome air skills in a rally monster”) was forcing players to go CC racing because in those th...

The treasure is to be found in the far north-east of the map next to a chalet on a straight-ish bit of road. I wonder how many players ever go into the north of the map in free roam and how many only ever go there for a specific purpose. I mostly only ever pass through that region when I’m doing the Goliath. The weekly was in the Lancer Evo VI. Three laps of Sekibe got me into the top 10%. The SZ was annoying because you had to three-star it, not just get three stars across multiple attempts. I added another stupid phrase to my limited in-game vocabulary from taking a photo of a rally monster from the 2000s. B-class modern rally has reared its ugly head again in Stray from the Path , but this time in cross country races. Seriously? Who in their right mind would use a rally car in a CC race? But wait, dear reader, there’s more because I’d only just been doing Snow Forest and Oka yesterday. See below. Naruo CC struck me as being unreasonably wide. The Honda NSX-R GT was an absolute m...

Once again, the location of the treasure was obvious. Middle of the north-west part of the golf course. I got my free SWS – yes, only one a week in FH6 –, which I’m mentioning because BlackPanthaa got exactly the same SWS in the video in which he was grinding away to unlock the FE BMW M2, viz. Colin McRae’s Ford Focus, the BMW 850 CSi, and some petty cash. The car for the weekly challenge was the Nissan Silvia K’S. I still have no idea what the K’S is supposed to stand for. Kiss? (Because vowels are devoiced in Japanese between voiceless consonants.) I felt the drag meets were #ForcedEngagement, but I supposed it spared us the bollocks of Bowie Knife99 and his wretched friends being impossible to beat regardless of the level of difficulty. The photo has to be done at the base of Tokyo Tower. I PB’ed the TB in spite of an absolutely dreadful run across the golf course. For the DS, a slightly built Honda Trophy Truck ended up being the way to go, and I one-shotted the SZ. And what did I...

Oh, gods, here we go again. I started with the treasure hunt and quickly realised that the place to go was Kinkaku-ji Temple. Of course, I started with this in case it’s still buggy. The weekly in the GR86 was all right, but if I click on an SZ as my destination, why doesn’t it acknowledge that I’ve arrived at my destination when I pass through the map marker? The touge race appears to be what happens when an SZ makes a baby with Street Scene races – a foul and hideous monster emerges, hissing and spitting. The photo at the Festival site got me a horn to go with all the other stupid, cretinous, retarded horns that the collection journal spews at you. I did Hot Like Summer in the Renault Clio Williams. Seemed to be a good choice. As I now know, the seasonals are no longer locked to a particular level of difficulty. The main nuisance is switching from one to another after you start a race because you have to quit the race. The old system which let you tune the car at the start of races ...

The week of the rubbish SWSs. This week’s treasure hunt was a dirt race in a retro rally car, with the treasure just outside Horizon Wilds. I now have over 180,000 FPs. No point in buying another Sesto Elemento as I have three. I think the two others are both gifts. At least one is. The weekly was in the Nissan Pulsar, which is a car I like except when it’s in some annoying Street Scene race. At least I have two, which meant that one was ready for dirt racing, and I’d obviously used it on the previous occasion because I didn’t need to spend money on an engine swap for the final task. Eventlab returned with Rally Trail . I have to applaud the creator’s dedication to everything apart from the course itself, which was worse than deranged spaghetti. It took a couple of attempts to do the DS because I bounced and flipped on landing. It was the week of the irritating SZs, too. Couple of attempts to get the one near Mulegé (the International Scout proved to be idea). It was also my choice for...

Treasure hunt. Hot hatch? No, a super hot hatch. All right, fine. 300FPs to add to my 178,000. Penury averted once again. I did the photo second because the car I drove in the treasure hunt, the R26.R, was the car for this week’s photo. I got socks. Steady, ladies. The weekly was in the Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX. I’ve never consciously mastered Lucky Escape skills, which I only ever get by chance, which is how I completed this irritating task. A short pointless drag race. 100,000 skill points. And thus I’ve probably driven this rather dull car for the last time in FH5. I started with the DS for the PR stunts. It was the usual issue of landing somewhere you don’t go thumping into trees, but I eventually PB’ed it and got a one-third good SWS. I managed to one-shot and PB the ST for a rubbish SWS. I one-shotted the HW PR stunt in a messy, untidy way. One-third very good SWS. I knew the RA PR stunt would take several attempts to do. I went far enough on the first attempt, but landed on the ra...

Drive a Nissan 370Z in SZs for 370 seconds (?), at 370kmh (?), for a total of 370kmh (?) I well buffed by 370Z and blasted through Trébol at 390kmh. Nothing happened. I had to watch Stevio’s video to find out what I’d been missing [ Apart from brain cells? –ed.] Oh, the 2010 370Z. I’d spent about 25 minutes doing this in the 2019 model. I suppose I ought to have guessed that All 370Zs are equal, but some 370Zs are more equal than others. The treasure was on the bridge over the spillway I suspect that the last time I drove the Toyota MR2 SC was the last time we did this series. That led to the HA. Done. Eventlab (1). Zhèn Inaka . I do wish the game would indicate what category of event this is supposed to be. I assumed off road, but it wasn’t. Good props, but the rest was rubbish. It should’ve been a solo turn round the circuit. The SWS was also rubbish. Eventlab (2). Project Bayside . Rally? Off road? Who knows. I assumed the former, but it turned out to be road racing. More night ti...

We start with the traditional treasure hunt. I drove my Starion past some cars, which seemed to more or less be the solution to the riddle. Then it was a matter of finding where exactly at the hotel the treasure was. I fast travelled and found myself embedded in the hotel jump ramp. Seems the best way to get to the treasure is to drive down the slope to the left of the ramp to the area immediately below it. Why do they call them weeklies? If it took me a week to do these tasks in the 2002 Nissan Skyline, I’d be very slow indeed. Eventlab (1). Tokyo Project: Circuit . Night, rain, terrible layout (faux crossover; more barriers needed; too much 2nd gear-3rd gear racing). Probably a valiant attempt to replicate parts of Tokyo. The SWS gave me a 917 LH, which is the second one in my garage. Eventlab (2). Mizu Pass . I thought this was going to be a CC event, not some paved nature walk. I thought the Tundra TRD Pro would be the car for the job. Actually, it mostly was the car for the job ap...