Honestly...it's 3am here where i live.
I was just going to try this out at midnight cause i work tomorrow. I just turned my PS5 off 5 minutes ago.
I played for 3 hours and i didn't even realize time had gone by so fast. I honestly can't remember the last time a game did this to me.
As soon as the first menu came up i could tell this was a Gran Turismo game. The attention to detail is everywhere...even in something as simple as a menu.
Then the opening video started and i was hooked. The way the game starts opening up right away. The way you level up as you collect cars and not as you drive is honestly amazing. Gran Turismo was always about cars and collecting them is a huge part of it. I was looking at my car collection and that menu feels like a Pokemon game with the ones you don't have all greyed out. I just know i'll try and get them all in here as well.
Anyway, i already did some licences, races, one championship, earned like 8 trophies...and as i was about to turn this off i realized why i was so hooked: It's everything Gran Turismo has ever been since i was a kid until Sport...but updated to 2022...and this time you didn't need to wait for a year of updates to have the game to play in an amazing way. On day one this game feels like it's been out for a long time. It's much more polished than any GT since GT4. And above all of this it made me nostalgic and think about how this is the longest running IP PlayStation has and the one with the longest history. Basically as a 33 year old this IP grew with me...and i started to think about all the previous entries i experienced so far. From the moment my dad gave me GT2 for PSOne when i was a kid, to how amazed i was with GT3, to how much i played GT4 split screen with my cousin during summer vacations back when i was a teenager...to the pain i felt when i bought GT5 after 2 years since release and needed 3 hours to install all updates when i was in college with a bad internet connection...to the most recent Sport.
This is the perfect Gran Turismo for people that have been with PlayStation since day one, but it also doesn't neglect new generations that started with Sport or even people that never even bought that one. It made me think that yeah, no matter how much PlayStation changes, we still have Gran Turismo with us and honestly better than ever.
Sorry for this text wall no one will ever read. Finally going to sleep (for 5 hours, god damn it)