Platform(s): PC (version reviewed), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4
Genre: Party game, Pixel Art, Spin-Off

If you’re in tune with Japanese gacha games and anything publisher Cygames has churned out for the past 7 years or so, chances are you’ve experienced or seen the phenomena known as Uma Musume. Literally translated as Horse Girl, the series takes place in a world where horse women hybrid exists and race each other in actual horse racing stadiums for glory. And they’re named after real-life race horse icons like Special Week, Gold City, and Air Groove. The mothership mobile game made so much bank (over US$2 billion since last year!) for its novel-yet-unbridely-unique concept (raise horse girls, race, enjoy stories of horse girls, gacha events, repeat) that they’ve encroached onto other games like Granblue Fantasy Versus (as cheerleaders). So a spin-off on consoles isn’t out of the ordinary, as English-speaking audiences now can get a taste of horse girl fever with Uma Musume Pretty Derby: Party Dash.

Unfortunately, this sole English entry is tailor-made for fans and nobody else.

Dashed Hopes

Party Dash is, as the title states, a party game collection featuring four minigames: 2D dodgeball Dodgeball Demolition, 2D simplified basketball with obstacle course called Blazing Baskets, a 2D food-feeding two-person-per-team event called Gourmet Gauntlet, and a points-based 2D racing event called Hurtling Hurdles. As you can tell, all these are presented in 2D pixel graphic fashion, and it’s pretty to look at. It’s even got every character’s sound bites, VOs, and everything, fully-voiced for fans who paid attention to the Uma Musume phenomenon. The games themselves? They’re fun to play through and have their moments of chaos when with a full party of four players. Among all four of them, I’m partial to Hurtling Hurdles and Blazing Baskets because I get in the groove of both minigames better than the rest. It’s no fault of the design: the controls are pretty good and easy to get into.

I just wish that (a) the controls are explained better, (b) the online functionality worked a little smoother and (c) there were more than just four minigames. I get that in the context of the game’s isolated story that four teams of Uma Musume are fighting each other in four different events held by their academy, but why not add more sports games? Or at the very least, have the four games be a little deeper and designed beyond just having luck and attrition be the determining factor in winning? Party Dash hearkens back to the 90s when the NES, SNES, and Sega Megadrive had their own four-game sports fiesta, but that was a completely different time then when things were simpler. At its current asking price, it may be too much for non-fans who are extremely curious and may be fooled by the misleading Steam reviews on the game’s store page.

Having said that, the roguelike 2D run-and-gun minigame GolShi’s Grand Adventure 2 is pretty addictive yet simplistic enough to get engrossed in, if only for a few hours. Basically you control Uma Musume Gold Ship as she races endlessly with gun(s) in hand, blasting aliens and robots in a quest to save her horse girl friends. The aesthetics are purposely made in 8-bit form and is meant to be a throwback 2D retro title (in a throwback sports minigame collection, mind you!), with powerups and permanent upgrades that boosts Gold Ship’s stats to high horse heavens. I’m a sucker for Vampire Survivor-like titles, so this minigame did hold my interest even for a few hours beyond the Steam refund title phase.

That’s a plus in the game’s favour, because everything else that attempts to boost replayability just feels slapdashed like Gold Ship’s mental fortitude. The game’s story mode is what you would expect: play one team, check out their tale of self-improvement and whatnot, go through all the minigames, and get your happy horse ending. It’s standard, and will not enlighten you if you aren’t on the Uma Musume train since 2018. A shame, because a title like this should have more effort put into its narrative and story structure to become a tool to convert non-Horse Girl believers to consume the proverbial blessed hay.

More Hoarse Than Horse

While this Umamusume spin-off game is fun, it’s rather short and pretty simple. It clearly needs more than 4 games to carry the entire package; RM128 isn’t exactly cheap for a party game with just a few offerings and a bonus roguelite Vampire Survivor-but-on-track-and-field game. Fans will eat this up like carrots on stick, but this isn’t the right gateway to the true Uma Musume experience. It’s a serviceable party game with cute pixel graphics at best, and an expensive fan-tailored barebones gaming experience at worse.

Final Score: 50/100

Review copy provided by publisher.