I think Pacific Drive more than any other game puts you in situations where a ton of things are going wrong and attacking you, and without a weapon you feel very vunerable so the only option is to just plow ahead and not panic, because if you do panic then things will quickly spiral out of control
The main game traversal is visiting areas, slowly branching out as you get deeper into the zone. But these are one way trips. So to end a run you have to grab a big glowing orb and stick it into your car, then link it to an exit gateway. This summons a big storm that encircles the whole map and you have to drive out of there before it totally envelops you. While you're driving there's a ton of anomalies and hazards that will just take your car out and normally you drive around them but when you're running from the storm you just...drive through them, there's no time to be cautious.
So at least once or twice a game this happens and a bunch of warning lights are coming on inside the car, I'm taking damage, there's a bunch of problems, car is sliding out of control, I'm out of resources, battery is low, storm is closing in, and I have to go "whatever" because if I panic then it's all over.
The last trip I did I triggered the storm a bit too far from the exit point, and the car's max speed is about 40 mph, or 30 going uphill. The exit point was uphill. By the time I had reached it the storm had totally collapsed, I was driving headfirst through a bunch of trees, the entire time thinking if I wasn't forging ahead with total confidence I'd probably die and fail the run.
My main beef 7 hours in is the glacial pace of upgrades. you unlock stuff on a tech tree, you gain points by visiting maps, but also you have to do activities, and get resources, so crafting anything takes a bunch of time. I'm at a point where most of the car's body panels are upgraded and I swapped out the tires, so it's "stock" instead of "mearly held together with duct tape"
I agree that the upgrades go REALLY slowly, and also the (not shitting) dozen different tech trees and lack of clear item explanations means you can very easily unlock stuff for your car that you can’t actually install on it yet. you can’t refund points on the tech tree either— you can’t unlearn a blueprint or whatever. I’ve unlocked so much shit on my car that ended up being either useless or redundant, while the sweet sweet unstable energy I need to build the truly cool stuff waits behind the wall to the Middle Zone. it’s maddening.
THAT SAID: despite that, this game has conquered my brain. big Death Stranding vibes off this one. can’t stop thinking about it. also got my car looking pretty fly if I do say so myself!