Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch

Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch
N/A
Metacritic
62
Steam
60.916
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Release date
3 November 2022
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
62 (651 votes)
Recent
73 (23 votes)

Set off on a captivating horseback adventure and discover the mysteries of Emerald Valley!

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Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch system requirements

Minimum:

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows 7+ / 8.1 / 10 64 bit
  • Processor: Intel i3 Processor
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: ATI 7770, Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB
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CuriousArtemis
CuriousArtemis

This is a fun game for horse lovers who also love RPGs. It's sort of like RDO or Skyrim but minus all the fighting and fantasy stuff... okay, so basically just the horse bits. But better! I'm struggling with the racing at present, and there are no guides currently to help you (my horse keeps getting stressed and I can't finish the race). This is a problem since beating the leader is required to progress the storyline. Otherwise, I'm sure a lot of these kinks will be ironed out. Highly recommend.

asheneyes
asheneyes

Especially considering the devs are trying to get better reviews from the community right now for the valid reason of not having their game passed by, and they're lovely people, it's really painful for me to have to give this a negative review. I know the game desperately needs better press right now to succeed, but I cannot in good conscience tell someone else to get this game when it isn't worth it.
I'm going to ignore the bugginess -- I started as a switch player, where the game was Unbelievably broken, and bought the game again on PC, where the bugs are manageable and will be fixed shortly -- because that's a superficial issue. Instead, it's better to address the REAL problems in this game.
From a winding, twisted maze of a map with more one-way paths than open spaces, to an unhelpful HUD with no minimap, to a map screen that improperly displays your location, to a building screen that doesn't explain what materials are or how to find them, this game often feels as though it's actively trying to hinder your fun in it and create a confusing, stressful experience.
The main quest and subquests combined make up around five hours of gameplay. No, I do not mean five hours of speedrun gameplay. I mean five hours to go through them at a normal speed as long as you don't hit glitches or get too lost. You have barely any time to meet the very few NPCs on the map past a very superficial level, and the quests are all so basic and void of any actual feeling. Characters only serve to move you from one place to another and have absolutely zero personality. There is no real story in the game, and even the main story is just a jumble of fetch style quests with no real connection or emotional pull.
The game is so, so empty. First, there are no other tamed horses except for in a couple of quests, and no NPCs moving around the map at all. Your stable? Entirely empty, not even displaying your own horses. There are entire towns that have almost zero people in them, and it legitimately feels like you're on a post apocalyptic island overtaken by a few groups of too easy to tame wild horses. Your horses all feel just about the same, so you feel like the only thinking, feeling creature in the game, and holy moly it's offputting.
This game, bugs aside, feels like one big, purposefully confusing, liminal space.
Look, other games have come back from this exact problem in full force. Fallout 76 flopped for, essentially, all the same reasons this game is, and yet slowly but surely worked its way back up through a ton of updates to NPCs, the world, and game mechanics, and now is a pretty fun and well-liked game. Obviously this is easier for a big company than for a smaller dev team, but it's still doable, especially with this game, which seems like the perfect base template to build on and has a crapload of potential.
Hoping the devs don't abandon this game and flesh it out like it desperately needs. Until then, I can't in good morals recommend this game to anyone, even knowing that's a bad sign for this game. It has to prove it can change before I make that recommendation, because right now I'd be selling people on empty promises.

SamSam
SamSam

Someone mentioned that if you enjoyed taming horses a little too much in Breath of the Wild, this game is for you - they're so right! As a fellow horse girl, I LOVE seeing a horse game that has exploration and taming as well as having the standard stuff like racing, breeding, and care taking without the time gated garbage. The map is very large (although quite linear in parts), varied in environments, and the graphics are beautiful. The horses look very cute and have great movement animations! I've been having a blast looking for horses with good stats and running around collecting mats. For those who are still considering - give it a try! I would suggest playing with a controller if you have one - the controls do take some getting used to, but it's not terrible.

While I have been enjoying the game, there have been some problems I've come across. But! The game has only been out for a couple of days. I will say that none of them have been game breaking - I haven't had a single crash and I was able to go through all of the main story quests without issue. The main bug I have issue with are active traits. Sometimes they're active, but sometimes they're not? For example, I found a horse that loves to jump and it was working perfectly for a good while - I could jump over anything and the horse wouldn't get stressed. But after I petted the horse (tested and confirmed) and started jumping again it started getting stressed, even though the horse is supposed to love jumping. That's probably my biggest peeve so far. I wish there was an official Discord for players to mention bugs!
Food (peppermints specifically) to feed and breed your horses are extremely hard to come by. I unfortunately haven't been able to try breeding yet because it seems like all the horses I want to breed require a ton of peppermints! Having a vendor that sells foods would be great.
I feel like the horses get stressed way too fast, especially in a race. Maybe if there was a way to pet your horse while riding it, then it wouldn't be so bad.
Some people have mentioned in other reviews that the map is empty - I have to agree in certain areas. There's a rival ranch that's huge, has a ton of pastures and stables, but has no horses roaming about. This is also the case for our own ranch. We can build a bunch of stables and pastures, but our collection of horses that are not currently being ridden are nowhere to be seen. I found that to be kind of sad.

Since Steam is very limited in horse games in general and the development team is small (and they're making a modern horse game!), I felt compelled to leave a positive review even with the issues I've encountered. And like I said before, none of the issues are game breaking! It just needs a bit of polish is all. I'm looking forward to playing more and hopefully we get some fixes (and content updates?) in the future!

*edited to include lack of non-active horses in players ranch

Almond
Almond

At the moment I would not say the game is worth it, too many bugs to enjoy the game.
- Horses getting stressed at every jump, no negative effect like lazy jumper and did the jump correctly.
- Never being able to train wild horses into shape, stuck with low stamina until you find a better horse
- Camera sensitivity
- jumps being too close together, you have to boost to get over short jump but immediately go into long jump that you need speed for
Over all the bugs that the game has atm make it miserable to play, but once these get ironed out it would be a game I would recommend.
Also multiplayer would be fun, even if it was just a limited x amount of people can visit your island, or something similar.

JainaFRS
JainaFRS

Howdy!

Although I've very much enjoyed the vibe and everything of Horse Tales, I did notice quite a few bugs and hope that they're fixed soon!

- Sometimes your horse will glitch and will be unable to sprint, can be resolved by restarting the game however

- Horses seem to get stressed out extremely fast simply by jumping! I'm not too sure if that's something I'm just not understanding, but I have one single horse that doesn't seem affected whatsoever, my guess is that it's because
she has the clingy trait

- If you reset to estate nearby a chat bubble, it will forever be on your screen until restarting

- A horse that is out of shape never seems to get in shape, no matter how much riding or jumping, the quest is even marked as finished, yet the horse will still remain out of shape

- Irish Cobs seem to have an issue with their mane and tails! They consistently glitch out and don't seem to be weighted properly

- Quests seem to often glitch, can't pin down a particular one other then after getting 1st place on a specific race, Gabriel comes to talk to you, but only his horse is visible, luckily you can get through the quest by resting at home, but I definitely think it's worth noting!

There just seems to be a consistent amount of bugs still in the game, I understand it's new so I'm very hopeful that it will be fixed, but someone definitely needs to play through or take a second look at the game as it's quite buggy, still very fun though! Just a tad frustrating at times and really needs to be cleaned up!

YoungCrone
YoungCrone

Like many other reviewers I would love to be able to give this game a positive review as I really hope the developers can make the necessary improvements to turn it into a decent game but unfortunately I just can't. Right now this game just isn't worth the price.

Being brutally honest it feels like an Early Access release. It's not just the sheer scale of (often game breaking) bugs but so many things in the game feel like they're early iterations rather than completed features.

Had this been EA rather than a full release then I would have been far more forgiving and probably not refunded the game but I simply can't justify spending nearly £25 on a game in full release with this many issues.

mustangrider666
mustangrider666

I cant find the hot walker, and huge riding hall. (Am i missing something? because i did EVERY mission available)

please add a unicorn that you can find a breed. add more building variations. add different horse breeds. make it to where i can get cross breeds if i breed 2 different horses. please add more missions and more legendary horses to find tame and breed. i like this game but it needs more added to it...

it feels like the game is UNFINISHED...... there are cosmetics in the game trailer you cant, get like the black cowboy leg wraps. there also needs to be more cosmetic items. add a foal mode and id LOVE to see all my horses in that pasture.

i feel like the hot walker was going to be a way to keep our horses fit in the stable while we don't ride them. my horses become unfit if i leave them in there too long.

Boots_Coasters
Boots_Coasters

personally i enjoy the game! its defiantly got its new game bugs and i do have some problems with lag but i can look past it! there are defiantly holes in the story line and things can be a bit challenging to get but its still fun! if you need to kill time or just want a new game to play its good, i love the open world and art style aswell!

Jade&Thea2020
Jade&Thea2020

Im really enjoying this game so far. Its fun, yes it has its bugs and isnt too realistic but its a new game and has its own art style which is really nice and relaxed.

Only issue i find is that my wild horses dont respawn if they get scared away, and i also bought the game the day of release and im yet to find a Irish Cob? The whole reason i liked the game was for this breed as their my favourite and it really drew me in. Are they more rare in game? Have they been added now? Id really like to find one.

Ravyn
Ravyn

Buggy with very vague directions within the quests.
Very much running from A to B, fame doesn't do anything really and the infinite ammount of craft supplies? It's too easy to renovate the estate.

Horses are cute, the game is BEAUTIFUL but yeah, to simple and at the same time hard bc of the lack of imformation here and there.

Hopefully it will improve, I want to love this game. I want to be able to play it and feel some sort of accomplishment while upgrading and collecting supplies. Played it for 10+ hours and it has been fun but It's starting to get a bit boring.

I regret paying as much as I did for this game, at least for it's current state.

BillAus
BillAus

Hi! I found out today about the release of the game and..I really liked it. The visual component of the game is very cool, horses, animations are also super! But there are two of my complaints about the game at this point in time:
1. I would like to see in future updates such a camera function as: distance and zoom. I tried to turn the mouse wheel as I used to do in other games, but unfortunately I can't do it here and the picture remains at a distant distance, as it was at the beginning of the game. If you can add such a feature, it would be a great update and I would be glad!
2. I like to look at landscapes, back streets, forests and many other details in games as it is interesting and exciting. And I decided to check the pier, namely the local beach.In screenshots 1 and 2, I think it's clear which side of the beach I was on.And so, I decided to go into the water and check if a horse can swim, and at one point I soared up and now my gameplay has stalled, I can't get out of this state (respectively, I can't pass quests and, in principle, play).Therefore, please fix this bug in the next updates.
And so, I wish great prosperity to the game, it gave me a lot of emotions today, although I only played for 1.2 hours, but I think this is already an indicator! :з

Adding information 08.11.22 (Now I found that the screenshot was not attached, so I will say that the bug occurred on the right bank from the start of the game)

Killer Corgi
Killer Corgi

Firstly I want to say I absolutely adore this game, the art style and open world exploring is amazing.

After I don't know how many hours (definitely more than 2) i've come up with a list of things I like and things I think can be improved/things i'd like to see added!

Pros!

-The Horses: Honestly impressed with how different each horse feels. The animations are wonderful, and I love how each horse seems unique in it's own way with each horse having their own traits.

-The World: The world is amazing, I can't tell you how many times i've gotten sidetracked from a quest just exploring and trying to fill out my map. I absolutely adore the feeling of freedom the world gives you as almost every path takes you somewhere new!

-Building: I love the freedom we've been given to make our estate how ever we want it to be, and also the inclusion of different variations of buildings! It adds character to your estate and allows each player to have their own uniqueness to their land.

Cons/improvements!

-The Horses: The animations and traits are lovely however, there is currently a bug where the horse will get stressed every time they jump making competitions nearly impossible to finish. (The only fix to that i've found is going back to the main menu or completely restarting the game.) I also believe they become dirty WAY too quickly! Like what is it with my horse's dirtiness increasing every time I abandon a race to restart? Or them becoming dirty every time I jump somewhere and have to be reset? This is a huge pain as I have to travel back to my estate to clean my horse I'd say almost every 15 minutes or so, if that!

-Wild horses: I love this mechanic of the game, but the lack of coat variety bugs me tremendously. The amount of bays/bay paints very much out weigh that of any other coats. I have seen very few white/black/grey horses and their paint variations. But, I haven't seen any variety similar to the buckskin on the title screen. Better variety would greatly improve the wild horses in the game and entice me to want to tame more.

-The Player: Alright lets be honest, you knew this was coming. The player as a whole is very lackluster. The customization is very very lacking on all parts, especially darker skin tones and textured hair! Also why is the eyelashes and eyebrows stuck in a red/ginger color? Though I will say my biggest complaint has to be the animations, or lack there of. When riding your player is basically just a fixed object on top of the horse, there's no movement and it gets pretty draining to look at. I shouldn't have to sprint and/or duck for my player to move with the horse.

-Building: While I do like the freedom, I wish there was more guidance. Especially with other areas in the game you can build at, there are no story clues/hints/nor guidance in general with those areas so they remain untouched in my game. I find without guidance or simple quests areas that require building remain bare, and empty as I have no clue what to do with them.

-Traveling: As much as I LOVE exploring the world, there should be some sort of fast travel mechanic. The world is vast and very large. Getting from your estate to the other side of the map can take ages. I suggest adding some sort of post or landmark that will allow you to fast travel to areas you've already discovered. Whether it be to npc houses, or just the start of an area, honestly any bit of fast travel would help tons! I also thing some kind of gps would be helpful, having to constantly check where the indicator is on the map, and make sure im going the right way is tedious. Whether it be an arrow guiding the player or a simple line out of the path on the map would also help tons.

-The World: I know I said I love it, which I do but it is incredibly empty as others have said. The lack of npcs to interact with and gain quests from is deeply saddening. I want to see people riding their horses, see horses in pastures, actually see npcs sitting at campfires that I come across! Just something other than a great big empty world. I also wish there was some kind of day/night cycle, it would improve ambiance by a lot. Plus riding at night could offer special horses, or other things that could be added.

-The Camera: I know everyone has been saying the camera and im not alone. I hate constantly fighting the camera just to be able to see jump distances properly or even the path im riding on properly. Constantly resetting the camera is tedious and I think this is a big thing that could be improved on. I play with controller, and found if I hold the reset button the camera follows the player more desirably, which is something I think the camera should be updated to. Following in that same way, without having to hold the button.

-The Map: this isn't a huge one, but just add a mini map! It would make getting to quests 10X easier!

-The BUGS: Lastly, lets talk about the bugs. This is a huge one and I think everyone can agree. New games are expected to have some bugs at the date of release, which is fine. However the amount of bugs this has is crazy. Unlike some people though I haven't experienced the bugs that disallow me to further myself in the game. Bugs in short I noticed are:
-Horses gain stress from jumping, seemingly out of nowhere.
-If you are in a shed with your horse and you mount/dismount you'll end on top of the building
-You get stuck in the air, unable to get down unless you reset to estate (happened to me in the high garden right after i did the maze)
-Items that shouldn't respawn, do
-Buildings built on the estate disappear after resting
I'm sure there are some that I missed, but these are the main ones i've found in my game.

I'm not gonna give the story it's own detailed bullet, but I will simply say it is very short. And when I finished the main quest I wasn't even sure I actually finished it. As It came to an abrupt stop. Also plot holes? I mean c'mon.

With that out of the way, I will say my cons outweighing the pros, doesn't mean I dislike the game, I still do absolutely love this game and will continue playing it! I'll probably even start a new save once all the bugs are fixed. Though with this review I will have to say I DO recommend the game, just not at this time in it's current state. The amount of bugs and improvements needed do not justify the $30 price tag.

marlipietjie
marlipietjie

Why is this game so empty, lacklustre and borderline unfinished?

I am so so disappointed in this game, I had very high hopes because of all the hype. I mean it's one of the first new horse centred games on the market and it was such a huge let down. It feels more like a children's game to begin with maybe that's why it also feels very simplistic.

PROS:
The graphics style is new and I don't mind it at all. It's pleasing to the eye.
The animations are not bad.
Many coat colours.
Somewhat customisation of horse tack and grooming styles.

CONS:
So many bugs and glitches, it's going to take a while and quite a few patches to fix this mess.
The camera is utter garbage
The races are so juvenile and it's literally the only form of competition in the entire game! It's just run from point A to point B with some jumps mixed in, all by yourself! The people on the leader boards are never there! . I'm not even going to call it cross country or hurdle racing it's that pathetic.
The entire map is empty! There are only a handful of NPC's to interact with.
There really are no horses in my barns or paddocks, why do I need to build them then? The only visible horse is the one underneath me at the time!
The quests are so boring and tedious, not to mention over so quickly that it's almost jarring.
The price is just waaaay to much. Even with the launch day discount.
ONLY 3 BREEDS?! And one of the three was in a DLC... Are we really going to have to pay for more breeds eventually after they release them one by one as DLC?
Why do my horses have eyebrows ?! Please, please remove those ugly eyebrows in the next update or something.
The grooming and petting mini-games are incredibly annoying, I don't mind grooming in horse games at all in fact I find them a necessary part of any horse game but please follow RDR2's example with brushing. The washing mini-game was fine I don't mind that one at all but for the fact that you have to do it MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY. Why??!! Why does my horse get so dirty so fast. It almost feels like a bug that needs fixing.

I can't think of more stuff right now but almost everything feels so hollow and tedious.
There is zero replayability and no room for role-play. I was at least hoping to be able to fall back on role-play if the main story was boring but there is nothing to do to make it feel like a solid game.
Please wait for at least a few more months for better content (if they release any) and then wait even longer for a sale because the state that this game is in currently is poor at best and the price they are asking for it is day light robbery.
The only reason I'm not refunding is I am crossing my fingers and hoping the devs make it a much better game through updates. There is so much potential here.

HungryHoratio
HungryHoratio

I was 50/50 on whether to get the game or not considering other reviews (both on Steam and on YouTube). Whilst I will agree that there are a few bugs (I am yet to experience anything major), the game is overall pretty fun and so far I am not regretting my purchase.

PS1 Hagrid
PS1 Hagrid

Pros
- It's a relaxing and chill game
- Riding mechanics are really fun!
- Beautiful and cute graphics
- Lot of different horse coats/colors
- Cute customization for both horse and rider
- The story is nice and simple, but too short

Cons
- No minimap!! and terrible navigation system
- Full of bugs, but nothing gamebreaking
- No horses in paddocks/stables :/
- Too easy to get fame, no point in racing to be honest
- Gets high tier horses way too soon
- Fast travel between homesteads could've been nice
- Would've been nice with more side quests

Over all I had a lot of fun playing this game. I've been missing playing a proper horse game, and this definitely come close to just that. I really hope they do some bug fix patches, as well as bringing a lot more quests and variation into this game!

LunarLilac
LunarLilac

I enjoyed the game so far, but it feels more like an early access game. The story ends rather abruptly just as you're starting to get into it before you even get to know the characters enough and once you've gotten 1st place in every race, built everything there is to possibly build, and have pretty much run all over the map collecting everything possible looking in every nook and cranny there isn't really anything else to do besides try to breed your horses. However there isn't really any incentive to it because you don't seem to get anything for selling the horses you get out of breeding and it takes a lot of resources to breed sometimes.

Once you get past the typical bugs/lag/camera of the game that everyone else has mentioned I think it has potential.

The world is beautiful, at least the small portion of the map you can explore at this time anyway. I was a bit disappointed to find that there was not more to the map after thinking I must've missed a tiny crevice somewhere considering the size of it covered in cloud that we can't access at this time. Also no mini map or even fast travel between your ranches is tough, I would've at least liked fast travel and it would help if the map lined up so you could tell where you are. It feels empty, lacking life elements. There are some wild horses periodically and you might see an NPC here or there sometimes with their horse, but otherwise there's not much else. It would have been nice to be able to see the horses in their stable stalls in the stables, or to take them out to the pastures for viewing while inactive, maybe even train them on the courses we get on our ranch so they can get better stats over time, what about hoof care? How about seeing horses of the other ranches as well even for an idea of what you could obtain in the game as far as colors and types? It would have been nice to see NPC's also interacting with the world more.

The ranch has a little bit of options for customization, but there doesn't really seem any point to them because you can't do much with your horses with them their only real purpose is to give you enough resource to house any horses you want. Another thing is the player house, you'd think upgrading to the big mansion would give you more rooms to explore or something but it doesn't add much more at all despite its large size. How about a kitchen where you can bake treats for your horse with some of the things you can grow on your ranch or obtain in the world? What about hiring some assistants/vets/staff to work on your ranches across the valley and making housing for them?

Another thing is the breeding system, while I don't mind waiting a night for the foal I would have loved to see it in a foal stage even for a little while and having to take care of it until it reached adulthood. I also hope that later down the line they add more types you can obtain and more coat colors and not just lock them all to purchased DLC. It also would've been cool to see online player horse trading for horses you breed or at least a reason to sell them besides just not wanting them so you get something back for all the breeding materials.

I would've liked a reason to see the vet for my horses periodically other than just to find out genetic info about my horses because I have no reason to go to her at this time.

The racing is fun, but after a couple of times there becomes no point to it and it becomes repetitive unless you want to maintain first place constantly for no reason because fame doesn't matter either. It would've been cool to do online racing against others or even other types of competitions like barrel racing.

I'm honestly glad I got this game on discount because I have mixed feelings about the price I paid for it just due to the lack of things to do especially once questing is finished. There is no point to interacting with the NPCs anymore once you complete all the quests. Breeding your horses seems to be the only thing the game has for endgame at this time. I'm looking forward to watching this game grow and hoping to come back to it in some time when it hopefully has more features than just breeding your horses which you have to grind materials to do.

kfletch29
kfletch29

This game should have been released as an early access title as it feels far from finished. Bugs, crappy story line, boring characters, terrible camera control to name a few. There are some great aspects to the game which are over shadowed by the disjointed story and lack of quests. Hoping they update and add more to this in the future because it has great potential.

Eqiine
Eqiine

It's a fun horse game and definitely one of the best horse-focused games I've played.

There's a couple gripes I have.

1. The quests can be really confusing. Most of the time I have no clue where to go or what exactly I'm meant to be doing. Especially since there aren't any guides online since it's so new.

2. The eyebrows... the horses and their eyebrows...

3. Fast travel *please*. I understand you're meant to ride around, bonding with your horse, but please it takes so long to ride around from one side to the other. Please at least fast travel to the towns.

Overall though, it is fun (despite often being confusing, I'm still not sure how to get a house?) and I will continue to play it and do recommend it to other horse lovers.

Falien
Falien

-= Audience =-
☐ Pro Players
☐ Casual Players
☑️ Everyone
☑️ Grandma
☑️ Adults
☑️ Teens
☑️ Kids

-= Graphics =-
☐ Immersive
☐ Beautiful
☑️ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ Potato
☐ MS-DOS

-= Audio =-
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very Good
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☑️ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ Bleeding Ears

-= Gameplay =-
☑️ Addictive
☐ Very Good
☐ Good
☐ It's a game
☐ Okay
☑️ The same sh*t over and over !
☐ Meh
☐ Da faq

-= Bugs =-
☐ What's that
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Is this for speed runs
☑️ There kinda annoying
☐ Lots of bugs
☑️ They destroy the game
☐ This is mother of bugs

-= Price =-
☐ It's FREE !
☐ Take my money
☐ Worth it
☑️ Wait for a sale !
☐ If you have to money to spare
☐ Please don't
☐ Just burn your money it's more fun

-= Extra =-
☐ Repeat worthy
☐ Repetitive
☐ Insta buy DLC
☐ Uses Battlepasses

- = Overall 6.5/10 =-

Even though it comes out as a 6.5 I adore this game.
It's really addictive, even when you have to do the same sh*t over and over again.
The game has a relaxing atmosphere with some annoying races you have to win.
Some bug are game breaking, others are just plain annoying... but even with the bug, I keep coming back to the game.

|~|Mayhem|~|
|~|Mayhem|~|

I have played ten hours of this game...and I am sorry to say my review isn't very promising.

The game is not user friendly. The camera moves around all willy nilly and does not keep the horizon in focus. Thus if you get headaches easily, vertigo, nausea, or motion sickness, this will be a problem. On top of that unless you are used to contorting your fingers into unnatural positions in order to race it is IMPOSSIBLE to do any of the main missions since you need to tap shift rythmatically while steering with a and d and holding down w, while using the mouse to move the camera so you can see where you need to go, and press the right button in order to tokyo drift around corners. Alternatively you can steer with your mouse and use the left mouse button in order to steer, however this again will move the camera around and can cause motion sickness.

The game is LITTERED with bugs, most of them are minor but a current major one that makes racing even more impossible is the fact that your horse, no matter if it is not afraid of jumps or if it is, will be stressed out over jumping and eventually refuse to sprint or run, causing you to lose the race. Your only hope is to tame a new horse and do the race, because for some reason that goes ahead and makes it work properly for a little bit, before it reverts to the bug. Another major one is the fact that you CAN NOT check other horses' genetics. No matter what I have tried it simply will not work and I remain unable to talk to the vet to get my other horses genetics.

Horse mechanic wise though it is rather decent. Horses have their own likes, dislikes, personalities, abilities, and stats. You have to actually TRAIN your horse if it is afraid of something by exposing them to the thing they are afraid of and then petting them, or making them run around in order to get in shape or so they will not be lazy anymore. Breeding is a bit wonky, but it is possible. The mare's stomach will bulge and uhh...it kinda clips into the saddle that you are wearing a bit . When you pet your horse it is a minigame in itself where you need to figure out the pattern your horse likes to be pet in, so make sure you take notes on which horse likes to be touched where. Taming wild horses works pretty much like BOTW, sneak up, look at their stats, then jump on em and press the right buttons so you can tame them.

Care wise was a bit of a struggle...you can not bathe your horse until you do a specific side quest so you gotta run through water...and brushing took me a whole hour to figure out because of how wonky it is, since you are not supposed to hold down click and move your mouse all over the place, but move the mouse first in some instances THEN click and move, before letting it up. On top of having to take care of your horse every five seconds, it just begins to feel more and more annoying.

Story wise it's kinda....typical horse story so far? You move out to a ranch that fell into disrepair thanks to your neglectful aunt and now you are trying to rebuild it from scratch while trying to beat rich preppy jerk girl in races. According to other reviews state that the story is not very long, however as long as you do side quests, take your time, and explore the world and gather resources (HORDE THEM ALL) it should take you maybe at least...my estimate 6-8 hours of story.

In conclusion:

I would not pay 50+ dollars for this game (sadly what my friend in Canada had to pay to get it). I think I spent to much paying 26 bucks for it on steam. However despite the bugs, if they are fixed (which I am not sure will ever be considering Aseir's track record....*coughs* Ostwind:Ari's arrival *coughs*) the game holds SOME promise.

Pros:

- great mechanics with horses

- Better than SSO mechanic and art wise

- You have male and female options

- Fun environments to explore.

Cons:

- Not user friendly. Can cause motion sickness, headaches, and other things due to how the camera moves

- Controls are hard to figure out especially on pc, so unless you are used to bending your fingers into unatural positions be warned

- VERY buggy, with the devs patching bugs that don't exactly seem to be worth patching first.

- Character design is limited, with very limited POC options with only one male and female POC hair style

- Awkward transitions between game areas

- Most mechanics you need to figure out on your own

- Shading on the character faces is AWFUL and makes you look like you are just skin and bone.

- CAN NOT PLAY UNLESS YOU HAVE NVDIA GTX 660 AT MINIMUM OR GAME WILL NOT WORK

Edit:

As the game has had a hotfix, I am going to revise my review slightly.

The horse being constantly stressed while jumping has been fixed (Praise the gods), however I still can not recommend this game.

My complaints remain much the same in the fact that the game is not very user friendly, hard to control, and can cause motion sickness thanks to the utterly horrid camera movement. The game has very little to do despite being an 'open world'. There are exactly ten main story quest lines, and seventeen side quests. Upon finishing those you have absolutely nothing else to do within the game.

The lack of fast travel makes the game EXTREMELY tedious as certain items you need in order to build certain buildings will spawn only in specific areas that are half way across the map. I understand wanting to add exploration, but they should of at least added in a fast travel to one of the three other homesteads a possibility to make things a bit easier on item collection.

Now having played the rest of the game, the story is dull and follows the same format...Player arrives at aunts broken down farm, has to rebuild it while racing the preppy jerk girl, who reforms into your friend in order to earn a name for yourself...throw a party, and tame the legendary wild horse on the island. The characters are SO two dimensional I have no interest in them what so ever. Below is basically all of them summed up:

Gabriel- Loves pirates...his whole personality

Esmee- Gabriel's sister, likes sandcastles, is the only place to get peppermints, the end.

Matteo- Woodsman guy....that's it

Rodrigo- Man is constantly losing Lili and is bad at his job

Mayor the Mayor (Le Maire is french for mayor...)- Just Esmee and Gabriel's dad...that's it no other personality

Lili- Snooty rich racer girl who becomes your 'friend' after a single quest after she insulted you.

Pascal- Lili's older brother who events.

Timmy- Small child who does nothing but say his name.

Light house guy- So forgettable I can't remember his name...just hangs out in the light house and has crappy horses you can breed with.

Painter girl- She is just found randomly painting things.

Dubois- They don't even show up in the game and just send you random letters about horse studding.

In conclusion, not much has changed other than them patching one major bug. The story is short, and characters are boring. The game and world is also boring. Don't bother buying it, it is a waste of money. It is not worth the 29-50 (Yes they really are charging 50 for it in cananda....) they want. This game is worth only about ten bucks.

cassandraspidel96
cassandraspidel96

It is a fun game for the price but it does have its issues. one thing that i do enjoy is how beautiful and unique the horse coats can be as well as the cinematic style camera i love looking at my horses. On the other hand my dislikes are the short bland story and empty feeling "open world" the world is large but empty of npc and actual locations its more like a bunch of linear trails connecting small open areas. The traveling can get repetitive fast and i am also getting lost quite often. I believe there was alot of heart that went into this game for sure and i will continue to support it but there should be more i feel like and also more breeds of horses. the replayability does not seem too high yet i hope the developers keep adding content i would love to see more.

spring
spring

This is a difficult game for me to review because on one hand, it's almost exactly what I wanted in 2017: a more horse-focused BotW where I could own more than 5 horses with a greater variety of coats and the ability to breed. Horse Tales is basically that, and I can certainly see and hear the very clear inspirations from BotW, as well as other games like RDR2. It's hard not to be captivated by the art style and the different horse traits, as well as the sheer number of patterns and coats found in the herds of wild horses across the map.

However, that "more horse-focused BotW" feel is eclipsed by a terrible camera, tedious (and often poorly functioning) gameplay and controls, and a truly empty world with a design that truly doesn't suit its own premise. So many reviews have already focused on the controls and lackluster gameplay, so I basically knew to keep my expectations tempered despite all the hype surrounding this game for literal months. What I was not prepared for was the amount of environs and paths that are so tight and winding and simply not fun to play in a horse game. One example is a ridiculous and tedious hedge maze (which is NOT optional, you MUST navigate through it to complete the MSQ) which forces multiple tight turns at a snail's pace with a camera that's fighting you every step of the way. Another example is one of the final towns which is on a hilltop and I cannot wrap my head around the design for it or how anyone thought it would be fun to navigate on horseback. The pacing of the game comes to a crawl when having to go through these areas, and luckily the maze is only required once, but you'll be having to visit the hilltop town A LOT if you want to upgrade your estate, which is also necessary for the MSQ to some degree. This is made all the worse by the lack of fast travel, and there is genuinely zero reason for not having fast travel in a map this size. These design decisions are baffling to me, especially when I can plainly see the bits and pieces inspired by other games but without any of the necessities that make those elements work to facilitate a fun gameplay experience.

I've finished the MSQ and intended to focus on breeding, as I've found that the genetics in this game truly do have some depth which could be fun to experiment with. However, breeding requires food items, and food items require many plots on your estate devoted to growing crops, and unfortunately you must manually collect those crops item by item, by dismounting and walking over them. On top of this, to really maximize your crop capacity (which you will want to do because breeding horses with the highest stats costs a great deal of food items) you will want to grow crops on multiple homesteads all across the map, which means you will need to then manually collect every single item from every plot on every single homestead in a huge map with no fast travel.

I really hope that eventually there is a way to automate crop collection, or at least make it so that we can do more of a drive-by (ride-by?) one-click collection at each plot rather than having to dismount at every single plot and click to collect from every single apple tree or carrot row or whatever. The only plot you can stay on horseback to collect from is the sunflowers, and I know this wasn't intended since your character literally says "I need to dismount," but this is actually a bug I'm thankful for. Still, breeding is unsustainable as a postgame activity due to the lack of automation/ease of collection as well as the inability to produce 2 of the food items needed for breeding the best horses: sugar cubes and peppermints. You cannot make these. You cannot buy them. You must do fetch quest-esque busywork to obtain these. Why can't we buy them with fame?

Better yet, why can't we do anything with the fame we collect? We use it to unlock plots at the start of the game and then we just collect it for no reason whatsoever. We can't spend it, and honestly, this seems like the perfect thing to use to buy automation for your estate and those rare food items so that we actually CAN breed in the postgame as intended, since there is nothing else to do after the MSQ is complete. And that's fine! I would actually love to just focus on breeding if it weren't so damn boring and tedious to get the items needed.

Obviously I've put a lot of time into this game because I do see the potential here, and I'm hoping the devs are dedicated to Horse Tales because I do think it has the bones to be something really special. But for now, it's a bit egregious that this was released as anything beyond Early Access, and I cannot recommend it in this current state at this listed price. I genuinely feel bad and aggrieved for anyone who bought it on Switch, which I ALMOST did because this just has those great cozy Switch game vibes, but honestly the price on Steam is also too high for the amount of development this game still needs.

I'll be keeping an eye on it. I'd love to see it become what the developers and players wanted it to be when it was first announced. If you're interested in the game, I suggest you keep checking back on the devlogs and discussions, but would encourage you to hold off on buying for the time being.

narmoparmo
narmoparmo

You play through the main quest line across a HUGE map with no modes of fast travel. The main game took me 12 hours due to the sheer amount of running around it requires - only for a main quest that is about 10 minutes of story/cut scene. It was extremely disappointing. The game feels lifeless, there are very few characters and very few horses. There's literally an entire elite riding estate with. no. horses. Not even in the pastures. I had high hopes for this game, but I'm just really disappointed. It's absolutely not worth the $30, so if you get it, get it on sale. Rough launch, lots of game breaking bugs, and you feel lost constantly in the game.

Malipus
Malipus

Honestly i had a blast. i loved it. Tho yes it could been better, But it filled my void of just messing around in a horse game. thank you for a surprising blast for a low price. id love a sequal or big DLC that takes into consideration the feedback of these other critical horse gamers. i am not that. Im a simple soul. I probably will be playing this a little more even before putting it on the shelf. looking forward to updates

Rosaria
Rosaria

It's fun and cute, easy to get lost exploring. Would recommend waiting until 1.2 because that should fix a lot of the bugs people talk about. Haven't personally run into many of the bugs, so it's been a blast.

Elivedge
Elivedge

The game is a thousand times better with a controller. That's the only it's playable, in my opinion. With a controller, it's a good game with the potential to be a great game. Given that the devs are active and haven't just dropped and run, I think there's a good possibility it'll reach that potential. For now, it's buggy, but the game is still fun and has many hours of playability. Worth the price, if you have a controller. If you don't, maybe hold off until they do some updates to the keyboard controls. They're BAD.

Abyssal Copepod
Abyssal Copepod

There are bugs but the devs are ACTIVELY fixing them.

Camera is weird but works fine on Steamdeck, really its not a bother on deck / with a controller

Steamdeck functionality is FANTASTIC (ive got like every setting on Ultra, my fans kick on but theres NO LAG)

The Auto save is nice; it does save on every rest like stardew valley ect

Controls are fine for me; horse doesn't take sharp turns but its a horse not a car, it controls like a horse

The frequent need for cleaning the horse is GONE ive been playing for hours and only groomed the horse once and that was merely out of curiosity

They do get stressed a little easy still but its not that annoying

I'd love to see more additions to the game as dlc or free content updates,
More coat colors; wild horse variety and the like

I would pay for DLC for other horse breeds, itd be fun

Don't let the mixed reviews sway your opinion, if you like horse games and like the way this looks; chances are you'll like it: ive not gotten deep in the story yet but riding is fun in and of its self. I personally can't wait to play with the genetics and breeding system. Ive wanted a good breeding game FOR SO LONG

Get the game, its fun.

CloudyFeline
CloudyFeline

While I enjoy the game, it is very empty and bug ridden. The main quest line is painfully short, and besides racing and breeding there is not a whole lot to do. There really aren't mysteries to discover like it advertised, there is maybe 1 or 2 to investigate but they are all very easy and quick to do. I wouldn't call this open world, you are very limited in what you can explore and when, and the game railroads you into certain areas only and the pathways are very restrictive to exploring the map and makes traveling very tedious.
I'm hoping they plan to add more content (hopefully not paid dlc, stop releasing games that you have to pay extra to see the ending for), the game feels early access and unfinished. More quests need to be added, you can finish the main quest line in a few hours. theres only two breeds of horses and I haven't seen a very wide variation of colors between my saves it keeps spitting out basically identical horses, and it looks like breeding is currently bugged and very expensive. You have to spend hours grinding to breed just a few high level horses, and it make its not worth using the mechanic. This game needs a lot of work, buy at your own risk.

rat
rat

Pros:
-The horses! The animations are cute, the coat colors are beautiful, there are so many different patterns and markings, the traits are fun and make each horse feels unique, etc. They really have personalities!
-The world! The map is huge and the scenery is varied so it feels rewarding to explore and discover new areas. There are beaches, forests, fields, and bogs, not to mention various towns.
-The characters! There's a nice variety of characters with their own unique personalities and interests.
-Genetics! This game has realistic horse color genetics, which makes breeding really fun to play around with. The wild herds in different areas also seem to have different genetics.
-The estate! It's fun and rewarding to customize the estate exactly how you want it. Also, you can own so many horses!
-The races! Racing is super fun and challenging without being TOO difficult. It can take several tries to complete a race, let alone get a high score. It's fun to discover the shortcuts.

Cons:
-Bugs. The team is working on fixing them, but bugs definitely exist and can make game play difficult/less enjoyable.
-The world feels kind of empty. There aren't any NPCs that aren't connected to the plot, so there are these big, beautiful towns that are completely empty, which feels eerie.
-Main quest plot is quite short. I completed it in 10 hours, with probably 3-4 of those hours spent exploring/getting lost/gathering resources. I feel like a lot more could have been done with the characters and the world. It surprised me how quickly the story ended, honestly.
-Sometimes the instructions/directions are just not intuitive. I'm in a discord server with other players and I've had to rely on them for help multiple times when I could not figure out where to go/what item I needed. Would I have gotten it eventually? Yes, but it's frustrating to spend an hour going in circles because the game didn't provide clear instructions.

Overall, I recommend this game, especially if you like horses and crafting. This game is really beautiful and enjoyable to play and made me nostalgic for all the horse games of my childhood. Even though I finished the storyline, I think I'll still play more to try out all the races, breed better horses, etc. I hope there's more to come in future DLCs!

QueenBoss0192
QueenBoss0192

Honestly I'm a few hours in and it's been a lot of fun! I found using a controller made playing the gave significantly easier to play, and at the moment I have not experienced any bugs. I'm excited to see where the game takes me! 10/10 for a horse game.

FearTheReaper45
FearTheReaper45

!!!WARNING!!!

This game might be a possible asset flip. Community members and I have found the exact models used by the company in various model packs on a couple of storefronts. Almost all the assets were bought, given slight color and texture map changes then put into the game. Almost no effort went into this. It's possible that EVERYTHING is an asset they did not make, only models they bought and put into the game. This leads me to believe that a lot of bugs may not be fixed because they simply will not be able to.

Okay, so I've given this game a fair trial by playing it for almost 20 hours now and I can confidently say that has it stands right now this game is not worth the asking price as of November 8th 2022. It's not even really worth half the asking price. I have gotten games through early-access at half the price this cost me and they were better put together and more fun to play.

Lots of bugs, lots of lack-luster questing, lots of balance issues. The bones in place are good, but until very full and flavorful guides are in place I would avoid paying full price for this game. Genuinely it feels like I've paid to beta test this game despite it costing 30 dollars on PC (40 on Switch).

Lots of things that exist in other games as quality of life, playability, and over all quality passes simply do not exist in this game. Lots of things that are a base line requirement for a good game are also missing.

The aesthetic is fine, but horse coats look washed out or eye searingly bright. Not to mention a lot of things in general look as though they lack proper texturing.

It is a 2022 modern graphics upgrade to a 2002 janky horse game. If you can handle the jank, the crust, the lack of polish, general lack of in game directions, and endless grind for resources to breed your horses this might be a good fit for you. But for a fairly casual gamer who has played the likes of Warframe, Monster Hunter (Tri, 4U, World), and clicker games the level this grind is at right now is borderline unplayable unless you cheat or exploit the game's weak code.

Over all rating from me is a 3.5/10. It's good for certain things, like somewhat realistic horse riding and the way they move. The game has parts that I enjoy. But I would not go out and sing its praises from the forums of horse-based online pet games.

If you want a better game with more flavorful horse interactions, though: Buy RDR2 on sale and play it. Your inner horse girl (and time saved not playing this game in its current state) will thank you.

25 hour Edit: The game fails even harder at breeding horses than I realized. It's borderline impossible to plan genetics.

SpecsScientia
SpecsScientia

So, all in all, this game is incredibly fun and addictive. It's very simple and the aesthetic and art style is all beautiful. Quests are fun and the races are interesting, and taming horses is fun. Honestly I recommend it to any and all horse lovers. However, there's a TON of bugs that need to be fixed. I really hope the devs give us the patches the game desperately needs and more enticing DLCs because I think this could be a great game with a little more love.

The Wifi Wife
The Wifi Wife

Want an Attention Hoe of a horse? This is for you!

1) All horses get abnormally stressed and terrified after about 5 minutes of riding/jumping. You have to constantly dismount and pet instead of calming them down by patting the neck while riding. This happens way too often for a 2 minute race.

2) The fact that you a newbie are immediately expected to beat the best rich girl in town with ruins of a ranch is ridiculous. I can';t even beat her because my horse gets so stressed.

3) THE GAME IS UNFORGIVING. The jumps are terrible, you miss a jump it'll put you all the way back to the previous jump you made before and its highly inconvenient to make that time up again during a race. I've pressed restart race over 100 times now just infuriated by it.

4) THE JUMPS STINK! You miss a tiny jump or you go off road its worse than star stable. I can't even believe I complained about that game. The jump respawn fades out of a circle and back in making your horse filthy and in need of constant care. I didn't ask for no Mario cart respawn time.

5) There is no currency, this game is collecting materials only so you can't buy feed for your horses.

6) Can't unlock breeding until you get the quest, which I still can't unlock. Plus I heard its crazy expensive.

7) THE GLITCHES!!! Don't get me started, it glitches out so bad I am surprised they are releasing this on switch. This is an incomplete game that never should have come out. I've had to quit the game several times. Once I was in permanent walking mode and another time my horse flew across the map when I whistled. Then I got stuck in a tree like a bird.

8) The quests are plain boring and there's basically no story. I've never yawned so much during a horse game, it seems like there was little effort put in.

9) The world is empty. You got a few NPCs, some cats, a dog, and bunnies and a few bird sightings. That's it and all there is for a big world like this. There's no predators to actually make your horse terrified instead of it getting it's scared pants on for no reason. There's no actual NPC horses that they ride on except the magical spirit horse you race against.

10) There is also no voice acting, it feels like is Disney Dreamlight Valley got released as a pre-beta game and pissed everyone off.

11) There are no day night transitions that I am aware of, then again I only played for 4 hours meaning i cannot get my money back.

12) The horses require more care than the amount I wipe my ass in a day. The neediness drives me crazy.

13) There are no clear tutorials for the game or how to train your horse.

14) There is no waypoint or glowing trail that leads you to the quest. You just have to explore and waste time until you find what you are looking for.

15) THIS GAME IS NOT FOR KIDS!!!!!! I cannot stress it enough, its been a very long time since a horse game has stressed me out so much about not completing anything. The fact that Alicia Online is more kid friendly than this and that is an anime horse game surprises me so much.

Overall, do not buy this game until you see massive updates. When I see improvements I may just edit this review. The horse taming sucks and the coats are so shiny you think a horse is white and its a paint. Coat variation sucks and needs to be updated.

Rayino
Rayino

TL;DR: good game, with lots of potential.

Oke, I wanna start off by saying that equestrians are such a difficult group to please when it comes to games, so I applaud the team for taking on the challenge. and so far, I gotta say, they did quite a good job.
I've played the game for the better part of 20 hours so far, finished the story too and here are a few things i collected:
PROS:
-very accessible, meaning i wouldn't mind my smaller siblings playing it, the story might be too tricky for them in some areas, but the general gameplay is easy to grasp and enjoyable
-25€ is more than a fair price, considering what garbage horse games go for more and look way worse
-talking about looks (of the horses at least), I love the cell-shading style and the slightly cartoon-ish horses, reminds me of a mix of BotW and Spirit, and everyone likes those
- lots of customizable stuff, once you find it
-the idea of building your own ranch is quite nice, but idk what to do with all the space
-being able to customize your own arenas is a neat idea

now to the stuff that bugs me a bit
CONS:
-the irish-cob model has a couple of issues (mane and tack not fitting the model properly)
-it's a big world, so riding to the corners to collect building material is quite tedious (maybe more shortcuts or being able to port between houses/rances would be nice)
-exchanging favors for candy is tedious in large quantities (maybe an option to exchange multiple ones would be nice)
-the genetics are wack, really difficult to predict outcomes and the genetic preview is bugged

Ideas for the future?
-a lot of players complain about the camera, and while being weird at first, i didn't have much issues because i play with a controller and just hold the left bumper to keep the camera locked, maybe include an option to make the camera toggle between free mode and locked behind player
-the race against Lily is quite a brick wall, that being said, i didn't mind the challenge and you are not forced to rush through the main story line (for it being quite short), but i get how it would frustrate people.
-maybe a box in front of the farms that you can interact from horseback with, so you don't have to collect everything one by on but you can passively farm some resources
-maybe a pick and choose traits if the horses who are being breed are well cared for/high level, otherwise breeding as it currently is, is a lot of a gamble and very expensive resource wise
-being able to exchange fame for special coats/outfits/tacks/building designs would be nice.

Kaxana`
Kaxana`

Alright so let me start off by saying I was so incredibly hyped for this game. It was amazing for the first 3 hours and I slowly lost patience for all the game breaking bugs and short story line. I do not recommend this if you expect a full game that you could play for 100+ hours in this current state as I cant even complete a single race due to my horses ALL being stressed randomly and wont let me sprint. So core elements to the game just don't work. Absolutely beautiful, great animation but just unplayable after you finish the story which is lackluster in itself.

VioletteForever
VioletteForever

so; to me this game is great, ive got 15 hours of playing and since i like o roam around and everything, i take ttime to go through the story.
this game seems un finished and i hope the developpers will bring more content,
th bugs are annoying but you know, what game doesnt have bugs...
i hope the stress issue will get fixed soon so i can enjoy a race fully for once.
i recommend it because honestly its really nice o play this game, its really quiet and i enjoy running around and taming horses

just dont rush it, go explore a do the side quests =)

cr0w
cr0w

After playing through the game for quite some time, theres a lot of things i like, and a lot of things i dislike. it took me over 12 hours to finally get a grip on the controls. Unlocking the map through questing seemed to progress quite quickly and left me struggling to find the way to the location i needed to find. After this turning point, the game was very relaxing. however, beforehand races were stressing me out and i was really struggling to finish the questline to beat lily. The cutscenes are beautiful and really make you feel like youre involved in the game but there are very few of them. I believe i have finished all posible quests and its left me with no want to continue the game. ive attempted breeding horses but they take an absurd amount of resources. i want to upgrade and collect resources to expand my ranch and make it look pretty but there is no goal or guidance to achieve it. On top of this, all the rare resources are miles across the map with only a single path with zero shortcuts to get there and no way to fast travel- its a chore, not a game. at the moment im stuck with very little decoration even while exploring the full map. However, i have enjoyed the game up until this point so i would recommend it, i just hope the developers change/update some things.

-rep probably gay
-rep probably gay

Loving the game already! I was thrown off by the "mixed" reviews, but after asking a friend and getting his recommendation, I went ahead and bought it, and I'm so glad I did.
Exploration and gameplay are really fun, visually it's gorgeous, and minimal bugs were encountered (nothing game breaking whatsoever).

Trinity
Trinity

Despite the bugs, I really have enjoyed this game. I do want to point out the pros and cons though.

Cons:
-Its littered with bugs. Though I understand the fact its come out so recently, so that could definitely play a part in it, and most of the time a simple relog is enough to fix it.
-It feels very...unfinished? I've seen a few discussion posts regarding this topic and it seems that it was released earlier than projected.
-Despite the map's large size and dozens of areas, there is NO fast travel, which makes travelling around very tedious at times
-There isn't much explanation on how to do things, you're just sort of thrown in there and left to figure everything out yourself.
-The villages, towns, etc feel very dead due to the lack of NPCs.
-There isn't much of a soundtrack
-Horses get stressed FAR too easily, when jumping, when racing, or out of the blue when you're just running around. Having to constantly jump off to comfort them (even sometimes having to forfeit races bc of it) is super annoying.
-Even though I myself am not bothered by the camera since I've played a few games in the past with similar camera controls, I can definitely see how it could cause motion sickness and just be really annoying to work with.
-For me at least, its really laggy.

Pros:
-The map itself is beautiful! There's a pretty good selection of different environments.
-The NPCs that this game DOES have all have their own personalities and stand out from one another
-The main story is short and sweet (though I do wish there was more)
-The horses look good, with a decent selection of various coats and colors.
-I really like how each horse is different, with each having its own personality, its own likes, dislikes, and traits.
-The exploration is quite fun with a lot to see.
-Overall, its really cute and has a lot of charm.

Despite the cons I listed, I would still recommend the game to anyone looking for a pretty mellow and chill horse game. Even with the plethora of bugs, it seems the devs are responsive to the community which is a good sign. I truly believe this game has a ton of potential, and I implore the devs to listen to the complaints of the community. I definitely feel like with some TLC, this game has the potential to become something great.

OddMoy
OddMoy

This game has a lot of potential, and if you simply are starved of horse games like me, I'd recommend it. HOWEVER, I would not recommend it in general. As it is right now, it feels more like a fairly solid beta than a full game.

Pros:
- It is gorgeous and has many beautiful biomes
- Horses look ok, animation is good! Only two horse breeds right now though, but I'm guessing it might change.
- A lot of things to build to customize your estate, and even additional building places
- Huge map
- Racing is fun but frustrating. Might be really fun with better controls
- I love being able to breed horses
- Horse traits

Cons:
- Quite a lot of bugs, although most of them can be solved by simply restarting the game. One very annoying is that sometimes the things you've constructed disappear (for good). I didn't have a lot of crashes in the early game, but now I have them constantly. I've had like 4 of them in 1.5 hour.
- Camera & controls are wonky and difficult to deal with. I've gotten used to it, but in the beginning I honestly got headaches.
- Quite empty world. Very few NPCs - except for the people you interact with the island is basically completely empty. Villages just feel spooky.
- No story. There is a main quest but it is very short and nothing really happens. Most of it feel like a part of the introduction and so I was quite shocked when I realised I had finished it.
- No fast travel on a very large, diffcult to navigate, map (except for the ability to "reset to the estate"). Please, add fast travel! Why would I want to build another estate when I can't fast travel to it?
- Some materials can only be found in certain areas, many areas can only be accessed after doing specific things, and sometimes you get a quest requiring those materials before you get access to a new area. It is quite frustrating and confusing.
-Peppermint and sugar cubes are essential for breeding but can not be grown and are boring to get.

And the biggest one:
There is no gameplay loop, or carrot, or progression keeping you interested in the game. Sure, you can breed and sell horses. But what is the point if there is no currency in game and therefore nothing to gain by doing so? Also, most horse games have some sort of progression when it comes to races that motivates you to get better horses, gear and train, but all races are more or less just available to you, and the only thing you gain is "fame" which has absolutely no use after a while in the game. There is no upkeep, I don't have to tend to my crops, or feed my horses (except for the one I am currently riding) or really do anything. The only thing making me play now is that I want to keep building my estate, and even that feels kind of hopeless since so many of my improvements have simply disappeared, meaning I have to gather the materials to build them again.

What I want to be able to fully recommend this game:
In-game economy. I want to be able to earn money and spend it on quality of life stuff, gear, food etc.
Progression in racing
Story
Fast travel

Despite all this, it is the best horse game released in like 5-9 years. Which is sad, but at least gives me hope for the future.

E.M.S.
E.M.S.

It seems like a cute game, but as others said, there's some glaring shortcomings. There's not a lot of information on what exactly you're supposed to do. I do like the riding mechanics, minus the squirrely steering. The camera is a disaster. It either doesn't follow the character and all and quickly falls behind as you're moving through the open world or it's spinning constantly. Seems like from other reviews this game needed a bit more work before releasing.

criminale finale
criminale finale

Wish I could add a screenshot of what's going on here, but this is the only thing making the game completely unplayable. It's annoying and really shows that this game is far from purchasable play, as it is currently.

It's incredibly unfortunate, because this is a beautiful game with heaps of potential. I'm already somewhat attached to my main horse, and am hellbent on exploring the map til there's no stone unturned. However, this issue is related to the primary form of exploration- horse riding- and randomly selected bugged-out areas on the map that both crash your game and set back your progress without any warning.

At first, I thought it was limited to one area (inside the Canyon province, near the one-way tunnel connecting the middle paths), though found that the more I played, the more frequent this bug would occur- and in different places, and unless walked around on foot (your horse is also defaulted and cannot be retrieved, so you can't whistle for it or go and get it after crossing the bugged area on foot), completely impedes your progress. You'll be riding through a passage or through an open field, then suddenly your horse would disappear, and the character model will be floating mid-air and unable to move in any direction whatsoever. The only way to reach the main menu is to tab out of the game, then tab back where it auto-pauses. Resetting to the estate causes your game to crash.

I've been sceptical on posting anything until I was able to understand the game completely, and also have a good grip on the overall narrative for reviewing too, but unfortunately I do not believe I'll be able to finish the game given its current state. It is a severe shame, because it is a lovely game with an intriguing plot- and from what I've read about in others' reviews, we are in for a story that is still going to evolve through patches and updates. I really hope some form of fast travel is implemented at least; with this bug, and the distance between each province, there's no way of getting around each bugged area.

TLDR: This game is unpolished, and has some major bugs that render the game unplayable.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Lovely game, def recommend it. Style is so cute and the forests are beautiful! Its a lovely game and i really recommend it, but you can finish any race without your horse becoming stressed. Its to difficult for a game rated 3+ (in age). Theres some jumps you can jump without sprinting, and your horse always gets stressed before them? Also i cant find any wild horses where they used to be. Also sometimes i just cant sprint with my horse, even when its not stressed, fully clean and on flat grounds. Theres def alot of bugs but i think theres to much good in the game not to get it lol

kitcatt13
kitcatt13

When I first saw this game, I saw the "Mixed" reviews and it almost deterred me.

However, I got it anyway, because a friend recommended it. After that, I played for a little while and I wasn't super impressed: there was a lack of tutorials, (for more abstract things like, breeding horses, getting blueprints, etc) and the Sneaky Ways race almost made me quit, before I realized that you were supposed to get a new horse for it, and finally, since this game (at the time of writing this) is relatively new and hasn't received much recognition from channels on YouTube that do tutorials.
Once I started getting into it more, this game was really good! It's easy to tame horses, they spawn regularly, however I must say that a good addition to this game would be waypoints/teleporters. Seriously, it takes wayy to much time to run from one place to another. Also, multiplayer would be nice. I know it is hard to implement into games, but maybe it'll happen when this game becomes more popular.
I finally have to add that this game's graphics and animations are beautiful. They put strain on my (decent) computer, but don't mind that.
I hope this helps!! If you're an ex. Star Stable Online player who is unsatisfied with that game's progression, you should definitely try this if you can.

DreamingJay
DreamingJay

I wish I could get a refund for this game, but Steam refuses because I played it for more then 2 hours. It takes so long to get from Point A to Point B, which how I ended up playing it for 4 hours. I wanted to give the game a fair chance, and now I'm stuck with this awful game for that reason.

This game is just plain awful.

The only good thing I can say about the game is that the horse animations with moving are decent. However, the jumping animation is awful.

I don't have anything positive to say about this game. The camera is the worst I've ever seen in any game ever and it makes it difficult to play for long periods of time. The grooming takes forever and doesn't last long. Even if I fully groomed the horse, by the time I'm halfway through a race, the grooming is already failing and I won't get full points for the race due to the groom becoming bad. The jumping is extremely difficult and has a steep learning curve. The characters are all forgettable. I was most looking forward to breeding in this game and it is almost impossible to collect the items necessary for it. There's no fast travel, despite the world being huge and it can take up to several minutes to ride to your ranch to anywhere in the game.

I wish I had waited for reviews to come out before I played this game, otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. Learning that breeding doesn't even matter and that you can't change your character's outfit, who is literally not able to wear a helmet, is riding in leggings and what appears to be Tom's, all which are HUGE safety issues and you would NEVER ride a horse in real life wearing the default outfit. I find this game hard to believe it came from someone who said they cared about actually making a great horse game.

The game is also extremely glitchy. The camera has be reset all the time, I've had bridges and stables I've built just disappear, resulting in having to close and reload the entire game to make them reappear. I've demolished the pile of trash on the stable lot a dozen times and it just comes back every time. Even after the game was patched, I still had the SAME problem of the screen turning black after putting a horse in the breeding shed. Wild horses spawns are random and even after sleeping several times, they did not come back until I once again closed and reloaded the entire game.

This game is the worst horse game I've ever played. They clearly only cared about a huge world and making the horse animations pretty and it shows. I don't think there is a patch or anything they can do to make this game better or that would make me actually want to play it. I want a refund, as I feel as if I was lied to by the advertising of this game.

EDIT: I completely forgot to add: You can't use half of the DLC until the end of the game due to not being able to change your character's clothes or appearance once you start the game.

NotSoSneakyWindy
NotSoSneakyWindy

While I DO sort of like this game, cute style, fun little world but with way to much issues, I'm glad I picked it up when it wasn't full price but even the 10% off doesn't make it worth it.

-with almost 20 hours in and now running into the issue where horses get stressed by jumping? it makes it not worth trying to beat the npcs, because before i'm even half way across the track the horse refuses to speed up.

- Horses also randomly do not want to sprint, even those who are "loves to sprint", no they aren't stressed or anything they just suddenly do not want to run.

-the "ducking" is annoying, well the button placement is! it's not easy to use it when you are going fast.
-when you fail a jump, you often get put way back, which is very annoying and results in you having to restart it, when in reality you COULD catch up, I have had moments where I am well into the race and suddenly I do a mistake and I'm suddenly very close to the start.

-I'm guessing it's more aimed at kids/ teens, but when even an adult struggle to understand it, how would a child? I have both had to ask people and HELP others with figuring out issues we had, what the game wanted us to do and more.

-From what I have understood, the game is finished and will only add more breeds? I may be wrong here but if i'm not..just don't add more horses for money grab, just try to figure out if you guys want to try and improve this game or take what you learn here onto the next game you guys create!

All in all the games seem more like it should be beta tested for a while and have more added to it, could have been great but alas, this game is not worth it.

angeleaps
angeleaps

As much as I would like to leave a positive review on this, I think this game has a lot of room for improvement before I can recommend it.

I have been following this game's development for a while and wasn't aware it was going to be released this soon, so I was quite surprised, but not in a positive way sadly. I feel like this game should have stayed in development fora few more months, or should have been in early access if possible. I was very excited for this, but all that seems to be well fleshed out so far is the breeding system, which is the only reason I'm still playing this every now and then, and even this is still flawed.

Here are some of the issues I have with this game:

- The environment: there are very little NPCs, so the environment is extremely monotonous. There are two or three NPCs sprinkled here and there and that's it, otherwise the world feels dead. There are scarcely any horses around, the only other NPCs who are seen riding horses are Lili and Gabriel but it's still rare. It's very depressing.
- The breeding system: as much as I like all the genetics, different patterns etc available in the game, the requirements for breeding are a bit excessive. Farming 50 peppermints is a very annoying task with how scarce the resource is.
- The jumping: it feels sort of wonky at times, you're unsure of where you will land, sometimes you think you jumped at the right moment and that you will pass with flying colours but nope, dead wrong. And you often respawn very far away from said jump, which is very penalising during a race.
- The traits: some traits are hard to beat, I had this horse that was uneasy with heights and also afraid of heights so I was supposed to pet him 4 and 5 times near a high place where he was stressed. I tried many times, and it somehow only counted 2 times. I simply gave up on horses afraid of heights. Same with those afraid of the dark.
- Stress: I don't know what makes a horse stress, but it seems really random. I don't know if it's based on traits or anything, but they stress really easily. Even a squeaky clean, relaxed and well fed horse will stress in a matter of seconds right in the middle of a race for no apparent reason?
- Brushing: sometimes the brushing animation is a bit weird, when it is asked to brush in a circular motion it doesn't do anything and it can become quickly tiring.
- Unkempt: I don't know what factors into the unkempt stat, nothing seems to indicate that and it just sort of happens at some point. There is no physical indication of what it does or anything, it's just sort of there?
- Dirty: a horse becomes VERY easily dirty, and I'm honestly too lazy to go back to my ranch every time to wash my horse for them to be dirty two seconds later.
- The breed registry: it simply doesn't seem to work? The same info shows up on all my horses.
- Bugs: a LOT of them. I encountered bugs where I could fix the sand castles for infinity (which I won't complain about because I could get 30 favours for free), bugs where buildings disappeared, black screens when trying to change horses or to breed, and I'm most certainly forgetting others.

STORY SPOILERS AHEAD:

- The story: or lack thereof? I expected something way better than a story you can finish in under 4 hours and is literally something out of Star Stable. You run around doing errands, do two or three races, have a random party for some reason and you're done. And none of it made sense. Your aunt leaves you on a desolate ranch which you rebuild, then you throw a party after she gives you a call, no one shows up, and the character is upset about being stood up for exactly two seconds and then all is forgiven. It was extremely disappointing for me.

I know there are other things about this game that can be improved, but these are all the the ones I can remember for now. I hope this game gets patched very soon, because if I had known all this beforehand I don't think I would have paid almost 30 euros for this.

Butterina
Butterina

There are lots of other reviews on this game which are extensive so I'll keep it short.
Pros:
- Horsie Game
- Looks gorgeous
- the races are actually challenging

Cons:
- the camera is a nightmare
- the breeding system is broken and overly expensive
- no variety of breeds/colours
- the game could be the same without horses, there is no story relevant reason for this to be a horse game
- the story is short
- the controls are iffy
- everything seems pointless, like collecting fame which you'll need once in the game

As of it's current state, it is not a good game. If you want to play it, play it on pc but for the love of god, don't buy it on the switch. It runs like hot garbage. The controls suck, the camera is horrendous and the story makes no sense. You ride from A to B about 1000 times. The gameplay is mostly the same boring stuff all over again.

I am hoping this game will get updates and fixes in the future, so I am hopefully able to change my review at some point. But until then, don't bother.

HarperTheKiv
HarperTheKiv

the controls are a bit clunky and hard to get used to at first, but once u do its honestly not so bad. i really enjoy the style and visuals in the game and im really impressed with the amount of pattern variety on the horses and that there are different shades of coats, its just a shame theres so many bugs n issues and short-comings like with quests n story etc, but overal i have had a really fun time playing it, its a chill and enjoyable, it just needs some fixes n extra content

robin
robin

So okay here's the short version: Price is currently a lil high, but the game is actually super enjoyable (if you've played Calico you'll feel right at home.) The first few hours of figuring things out are torture though. The reviews where people only played like, 3-4 hours and then peaced out, I totally get it. Highly worth it though. Just my two cents.

Oh, also, the camera is fine for me, reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus a tiny bit? But then I realized that if I center the camera behind my character and let it work itself out uhhhhhh it is bad. It is very bad.


OKAY SO.

I have so much to say about this game aaaah. There's obviously been a lot of genuine love poured into this thing. The people who made this are definitely horse lovers, but I get the feeling there's a lack of experience as game devs/designers? There's just little video gamey things that are missing that make me go "lol I wouldn't have thought about that either but yikes."

For instance! Let's say I have a quest from an NPC, and I finish it elsewhere. I don't really wanna go all the way back to turn it in right this second, and while running around I stumble across the same NPC in another area. So I think, oh sweet I'll just turn in this quest now.

The game breaks me over its knee and calls me a clown. No but really you have to go back to the NPC who originally gave you the quest to turn it in. Doesn't matter if there's another instance of them 20ft away, it has to be that specific one. Which, again, I wouldn't have thought about, but listen... when you're instructed to run across the map and talk to this photographer even though you're staring her dead in the eyes in front of her neat lil treehouse, it feels kinda lousy.

Just little things like that.

I know this has been me whining for the most part, but really, I have a huge soft spot for this game. I've been playing it an hour or so at a time every morning to cheer me up and distract me from the fact that my apartment is too small to house a real horse. :')

Anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk.

LittleMsSam
LittleMsSam

Played it around 18hrs and completed all Quests. It is a beautiful game, and i really enjoyed playing it. I played it on Steam Deck, and except a view lags & one time where i got stuck in a rock because of a lag, it was playable very well. Yes, it has some bugs, and yes, it could use more content & more life (npcs), but i still give it a thumbs up and i hope we will see some content updates in the future.

Dr. Ozzy
Dr. Ozzy

This game is great. Yes, there are some bugs, but the devs are clearly working to fix those. It's a pretty, functional, open world horse game, so I'll take it. The trails are gorgeous, I like how the horses move, and overall I have a lot of fun playing.

The Sheep Lady
The Sheep Lady

This is a very cute game with a ton of potential. Love that they are already listening to player feedback re: bugs. The biggest bug I've noticed was the stressing while jumping - that seems to have been fixed with version 1.1.2.

My biggest suggestion is PLEASE add fast travel. I get it, we're supposed to ride around places discovering things and getting resources, bonding with our horses, etc. But taking 10+ minutes to ride to a location far away from the estate gets old pretty quickly. At the very least, fast travel to different homesteads (once discovered of course) would make things a lot easier!

Anne
Anne

I recommend this game - as long as you are willing to be patient with it.

The state the game is in as I am writing this review is one that shouldn't have yet been published, or rather not yet for the full price. There are many, many bugs as well as missing quality of life features, however they are more of an inconvenience rather than making the game unplayable (in most cases).

What I mean with the need for patience is that whenever I launch the game, I have to close and restart and close and restart etc. the game again and again until it doesn't time out anymore, usually taking about 20 minutes until I can start playing. Once I am in the game it is very smooth though, and my laptop is really 'weak' (i had to refund multiple games in thr past because my laptop simply couldn't handle them), so once you waited the needed amount of time it will all be fine.

Right now there are many bugs being fixed but of course this takes time, so you need to be patient with that too.

There is one quest in particular that is very very difficult, and I think it's actually not all that bad because I feel like I need to actually try my best and find some way to approach the horse race in question. However, once again you need to be patient because many players, according to the forums, need HOURS upon HOURS until finishing the quest.

The game controls are nice, but they do need quite some time getting used to. Once I got used to them I find them really fun!

To me personally waiting and working through those issues is absolutely worth it and i am glad I bought the game. But I can easily understand that not everyone has the time of day to wait and wait and wait, or simply wants to do other things rather than investing time and brain power into this game. It might come down to how happy horse games make you as a person wether or not it will be worth it to you.

I really love playing this game; the map is GIGANTIC and i haven't even discovered and explored all of it yet. When traveling to some location I have a quest at or whatever, the way there itself is just super enjoyable and I love it.

The world is quite empty, but to me it doesn't FEEL empty if that makes sense. The best way I can explain it is by comparing it to visiting a castle that is open to the public; it is made to be inhavited but no one lives here right now, but you aren't isolated as here and there other tourists pass you by. The soft sweet graphic style also calms me down and plays a big part in making the world feel approachable and non-isolated.

The horses are BEAUTIFUL, and I love walking past the spots where wild herds usually can be found and checking out what horses gt generated by the game this time and wether one of them sparks my interest. After a few hours and quests you unlock beautiful customization options and I adore just riding around on a horse that's so beautiful.

I think the creators found a great balance between exploring the world and taking care of yout horses. You regularily need to pet and feed and clean your horse and each horse likes other petting variants and different food, making them feel like difrent entities rather than just reskin for a generic vehicle you can use to get fro point A to point B. The horses have around two to three traits each and if you have a horse thats afraid of something (the dark, heights...) you are suggested to help it get through those fears and get rid of the negative trait. But also I am able to blend out the caretaking side of the game for a while and just ride to some area to collect resources or talk to NPCs; I am not constantly made to worry about detailed consequences every single action I take might have on each single stat of the horse I am riding or whatever. It's sweet.

Also, the forums on here are super active and there are great guides that I usually have open in the background while playing so I can easily see where I can find which resources etc..
I am excited to see what the devs will do in future updates.

Anonymous
Anonymous

It's fun and engaging. However, figuring out things and what to do next are a little choppy. Also, for some bazaar reason I cannot feed my horse. I have tons of stuff but when I go to the page I can't click on the button to make it happen. I can select a treat but I have no cursor and I can only exit back out. Please, help.

mayalooloo
mayalooloo

I bought the game a couple of days ago when the Irish Cob DLC was promised with the purchase. However, I don't have it. I cannot find it anywhere that it was installed with the game or needed to still be installed. Why?

Questhaven
Questhaven

Was waiting for fixes before I reviewed. Tried to play today after the second fix since release but I had to stop. Between the camera floating everywhere and the jiggy bug after you use a station or pet a horse, i have a bad headache after only on for a few minutes, I don't get motion sick but this game is just really hard to play because of the floating camera and the whole world shifts when you turn like you are in 1st person while you are actually in 3rd. Much of the time the camera is floating near ground level behind the horse even when reseting and makes it hard to see to jump and avoid running into things.

Really sad because it looks like fun, and I love the first horse I bred. I don't see me being able to beat Lili with the camera issue, so I can't progress in the game. I thought fixing the camera would be one of the first issues dealt with, but it does not seem to even be on the list so caution to those with motion issues especially. Hoping they give an option for a fixed camera in the future, otherwise I wont be able to play.

Capybari
Capybari

Love the horse animations and the world has a nice art style, but at the same time the world feels lifleless. The citys are like ghost towns. The story and characters are dull too. The camera is somehow odd, it should be centered behind the character and not above.

♥Connor♥
♥Connor♥

Although this game can be quite buggy and has a few glitches (as expected from a new game), overall I have enjoyed every minute of playing it. The art style is beautiful, the horse animations are honestly really nicely done, I love the possibilities breeding holds, the map style, the quests are decent so far, I love being able to tame wild horses, that they all have different personalities and stats. I haven't yet finished this game but as an equestrian, I can say it's super cute & fun! I can't wait to see what this game holds in the future. Very exciting!

BumbleBee
BumbleBee

I absolutely adore this game - I've purchased it on the Switch and bought it again to play on steam.

This game is a wonderful mixture of Breath of the Wild's riding, exploration, and wild horse taming, combined with a beautiful story, detailed map, and colorful cast of characters similar to My Time at Portia.

It's easy to sink hours upon hours into just riding around and breeding horses with some of the best genetic accuracy I've seen in a horse game, outside of browser MMO's.

My absolute only gripe would be how short the storyline is - to say that it was engaging would be an understatement, I enjoyed it so much I just wish I could have even more of it.

Sassination
Sassination

After a second playthrough, I've decided to amend my review for this title. I would recommend this title for young players or players who are looking for a short horse-centric video game with a fairly on-rails style of game play giving very little challenge and correspondingly light payoff. Players who enjoy gesture-based minigames and customizing building plots for the sake of roleplay or expression may have a great time with this game. Players looking for gender-neutral player customization, animations, and conversations will find a happy place in this game.

More neutrally, players who want to ride a virtual horse around a beautiful game world will enjoy themselves after about the midway point of the game, which is about seven hours in, when you gain access to horses fast enough to keep the map from being tedious to navigate. The first few hours of the game could feel tedious and if you bore easily of waiting for games to 'get good', then this is one to avoid.

Players who enjoy Temple Run in 3D style racing might enjoy the racing in this game as well, which can be somewhat frustrating on the starter horses, but becomes laughably easy by the time the mid to end game horses are reached. However, even if you enjoy the racing, there aren't many tracks and you won't spend a great deal of time racing unless you make your own game out of taming horses, making them famous at the tracks, and then selling them for little to no benefit.

Players who want to play with the unique and incredibly cool concept of horses with personalities, with fears that need to be conquered and negative traits that need to be worked out, you should wait to see if the game is ever patched into a state where those features work. They never did for me across two playthroughs, but you will eventually gain access to horses that don't need that work, so if you aren't looking for that aspect of the gameplay, you might like the game just fine.

I would not recommend this game for players seeking even a cozy-level of gaming difficulty. For comparison, I have dozens of hours in farming/builder game Slime Rancher and more than I want to admit in farming sim Stardew Valley, but I will be uninstalling this game after roughly twenty hours of gameplay and two playthroughs because it's simply that light on any kind of difficulty and payoff. The only difficulty in the game is navigating a winding map and trying to gather the resources for breeding horses, which is more of an end-game activity for people who want to stretch the game out. The winding map is the only thing that would keep this game from being accessible to a coordinated toddler.

I would not recommend this game for players who want to experiment with breeding horses, particularly if you want to breed for racing such as it exists in the game. But if you want to play the game solely to breed for color variants, then you might have a good time, as the breeding resource costs are much lower for horses with lower racing stats. That said, you will still feel a major resource pinch that forces you to leave the aspect of the game you enjoy (breeding) to do something else entirely (exploration and map navigation) in order to gather what you need to breed.

I wouldn't recommend this game for players who want a good story surrounding horses. The trope is tired, the characters are bizarre, and there aren't enough stakes for any kind of emotional payoff. The story, such as it exists, could be satisfying for very young players.

I wouldn't recommend this game for players looking for building-style games requiring any kind of strategy or usefulness to the buildings beyond how they look or the addition of small gesture-based minigames. The buildings in this game only make it possible for you to own more horses and make things look a specific way.

Lastly, I wouldn't recommend this game to players who expect a game to have all its advertised features working at launch or who want games to be play tested before release. That was not the case for this game, which is a pet peeve so I'm leaving the Do Not Recommend on there permanently. I won't be back to find out if it's fixed.

I got some awards for my original review of the game, which was much more scathing, but I had to backpedal because I don't think the game is necessarily directionless. It's just way too young for me. Five year old me would have loved this game. Adult me was bored senseless.

Jupiter
Jupiter

I really really want this to be a recommendation but I cant morally recommend this game to my fellow equestrians. :(

My biggest reason: the price.

For what the game is, the price is just not it. This is a very, very small game. The biggest part of it is the open world. It is STUNNING and VAST and full...of nothing. There is nothing to do in this world besides collect the same resources over and over and travel for AGES. There is no fast travel. I've spent 30 real life minutes traveling this map just to smelt some ore and fix some sandcastles.

*MILD SPOILERS*

The story is basically nonexistent which is why I can't justify recommending this without it being on sale. The characters have almost zero depth or personality and the story is so abrupt it doesn't make sense. A character one minute is your rival, you help her find her horse, she ditches your party and then you're hugging and it's over. You could switch the names of a lot of the characters and they wouldn't be any different from one another. There is just nothing to the main quest line and story.

I don't mind the incredibly easy horse breaking, but when it gets to the point in the story where you're going after this legendary mare, its..over in 3 seconds. Its not any more challenging than taming any other horse which is not challenging at all. Even in a cozy game, most minigames are more than 3 clicks of a 'w' key.

And of course, the bugs and glitches. I'm kind of indifferent because I know patches are probably going to roll out but some of these bugs are game breaking. Please keep this in mind if you do decide to purchase this game. I would personally wait for patches to roll out as some of the bugs make the game simply unplayable.

Now this game has fun moments. I love the diversity of the horses and the world is super pretty. However this game truly feels like all of the resources were put into the big open pretty map but not putting anything in it. There is just not a lot of substance to a game that's the same price as full near blockbuster type narrative games. I hope patches and updates in the future change my mind and I really hope it's not a situation where the only upgrades we see are paid for dlcs full of reskinned tack.

DactylRexasaur
DactylRexasaur

I plan on writing a more in depth review later. So at this time, I have played roughly 8 hours of gameplay and I am NOT through the entire storyline just yet.

First off, I don't understand where all these negative comments are coming from. Perhaps it's because there have been a few patches before the time I purchased this game and it was buggy before I got the chance to play it. Where the game is now, here is my review. Keep in mind there are other things I will say about it in the future, but these are the immediate things I would like to say to the dev team.

I love this game. I have been playing horse games for decades starting with an old "Barbie Horse Trail" game way back in the early 2000s, maybe even late 90s? If it has a horse in it, I've probably played the game. Many people have been waiting for a single player game like this and it shows in your dedication that you really want to make the game everyone is craving.

Yes, there are bugs. But guess what? They're working to push patches and fixes out. That's more than what other cash grabbing devs do when they release a "horse game". And they're already doing it consistently, unlike others devs that burn out at launch. Keep reporting bugs to this team and they will fix the game, simple as that. Bugs are to be expected! For the people who are unreasonably upset about the bugs, perhaps you should look at the team of people working on this game and realize they're not the size of a 'Triple A' gaming studio. Have some patience for their sake.

The game, as far as I'm concerned, is playable. The bugs thus far have not hindered my ability to play the game properly AND efficiently. I'm getting first place in races, I am completing quest lines without any soft locks and I am able to do everything in the game that the game has promised we can do so far.

I like the story. Yeah, that's right I said it. I think it is cute, simplistic and overall fits the style of this game. Could it be more in depth? Yes. Could there be longer storylines added in the future? Definitely, and I will gladly play any new DLC that comes out in the future. Also, Esmee is adorable. I feel so bad for that little girl, I wish there was a quest where you could help her get her own pony to keep her company or something, that would be just so cute.

Some things I disagree with in the game and would like to see some changes:

- The camera: I know everyone is saying it and I am no exception. The camera feels as though it is not centered on your character and this heavily effects gameplay making it more difficult to see around corners and compete in races. I feel as though the character is too far from the camera when moving very quickly as well, I would really like to be able to "scroll inwards" and be closer to my player and horse. Not to mention the camera was making me feel very sick for the first 5 hours or so. It went away enough to make the game playable for long periods of time, but it is still definitely there.

- Selle Francais: I personally was never a fan of this horse breed (Star Stable put a bad taste in my mouth for this specific breed). Seeing that there is only this breed available in the base game is very upsetting and it's the one thing, besides the camera, that I keep actively hating about this game. Yes hating. There is no diversity with the horse breeds, even if it was the same horse model but wrote a different breed name, I would feel satisfied. I did see someone on YouTube that found a Warmblood of some sort somewhere, but I am unclear on how to obtain that horse breed. Perhaps i haven't played enough into the questing to unlock other breeds of horses yet? Either way, I don't like that your horse breeds are blocked behind a pay wall. Yes, I realize your Irish Cob is a different model from the Selle Francais but it would've been nice to at least have three horse breeds MINIMUM in the base game to choose from.

*This review may change very soon depending on how the dev team reacts to everyone's reviews and implements fixes/changes to the game, but this is my first review for this game. I also noticed the dev team is responding to other comments/reviews with a generic messages explaining their fixes and stating they are "reading" our reviews. Not sure why they would respond so blandly, but it doesn't looks very considerate on the dev teams side. Makes me think you aren't reading what others are posting and this is concerning.*

Vik
Vik

I hate to say it, but in the current state, I can't recommend the game to anyone (especially users on switch).
There are just too many bugs and the game feels more like a "beta" than a fully released game.

hip
hip

I've been waiting for a good horse game to play and I'm enjoying this game for that purpose, but I couldn't recommend it to a friend. Just to list out what I thought about the game.
Pros:
- The world is very bright and beautiful, really love the graphics.
- Enjoyable and relaxing to explore around on your horse - at least I felt that way. I read some reviews that the controls for your horse were jank and I can see why.
- No loading screens between zones, makes traveling very seamless
- Racing is really fun. I thought I wouldn't care much for it but it ended up being my favorite thing to learn how to control the horse and do well in these.
Cons:
- The world is so empty and abandoned. NPCs and wild horses are sparse. There's lots of parking lots in random places that imply a lot of people are here, but there are nowhere to be found. Towns/villages have nobody in them.
- There is only one horse breed in the base game right now
- Some controls are needlessly convoluted. For example, to save notes for your horse, you have to press 2 buttons on PC. Every menu action requires you to hold the button instead of tapping it. There's no way to customize controls in the settings.
- Limited customization for your character - you cannot change your outfit until you get an upgrade to your house. You also can't change any facial features besides eye color. We should be able to change at least the colors of the outfit before we start, but the default hoodie is nonbinary flag colors, so I'll give it a pass for the rep.

And then there's the bugs... some of them make the game just frustrating or unplayable. I've had to restart the game several times when my horse would not sprint again after I relaxed it from being stressed. I've also had an issue where the game wouldn't register me going through a goal in a race and it would never finish. I'm sure these bugs will be worked on over time but even if the game were functioning as it should, it feels too bare and unfinished in its current state.

colourswift
colourswift

This game was clunky and hard to play at first. Riding my horse was extremely difficult (VERY different to SSO), I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing, and I kept getting lost. I almost stopped playing. BUT once I got used to the game mechanics, learnt how to mark a quest on the map (press F while selecting the quest in the quest journal), and tamed a higher-stat horse (they run a LOT faster), this game became SO MUCH FUN! I am loving it! When I'm not playing, all I can think about is what I'm going to do when I start playing again.... My favourite moment so far was discovering a new picturesque valley -- green rolling hills, softly swaying grass, graceful swans flying overhead, a herd of wild horses grazing peacefully next to a lake... AND THEN I get to pick my favourite wild horse from the herd, tame it, learn its favourite pats, it's favourite foods, it's quirks, characteristics, and genetics, train it, breed a foal from it... SO MUCH FUN. I can't wait to breed my perfect horse (stats, character, AND colour) and get all my homesteads fully kitted out (you will have multiple dotted throughout the map. Such a great game for a horse crazy person that loves exploring open world. Thank you Microids! What I am most impressed about this game is that the virtual horse FEELS more like a real horse (I ride horses IRL) than any other game I've played. Highly recommend for any horse lover.

Kigan
Kigan

This game is... Ok. There is room for A LOT of potential on this game, and I truly hope to see it progress further as time goes on. It's a moderately easy game, something I'm playing to just pass the time without any real challenge. Resources are super easy to come by. The quests don't take long to get through, in fact the longest part about them is traveling between places to get to the next spot it's asking for.

Breeding is easy, you "could" go to the breeding sheds placed around the map. However, you could also build one (or more) at your home (estate) and breed your own horses.

So far it doesn't really seem like selling horses gets you much, if anything. There doesn't seem to be any sort of money exchange or anything actually going on. There are a lot of bugs, at this time, though fingers crossed those get ironed out pretty quickly.

The game's map is spacious, the art is stylized and cute. Visually it's a good game, runs well on my laptop. I look forward to seeing how it progresses as time goes on.

Owlbearhug
Owlbearhug

I would not recommend this game as of yet, the bones of a good game are there. I like the riding around on the map, petting the horses, and the fact one horse seems to have a different personality and rides differently than another. However, the story is so bland and underwhelming that I didn't even know i finished it until got the achievement for it around 10 hours in. The breeding is brutal if you're not prepared to to spend an hour grinding to gather resources enough to breed a batch of five horses, which is sad because that is the closest thing to end-game content this game has. The game is desperate for some quality-of-life updates, which as of 11/12/22 we don't have any news on if or when they will get to the updates. If you're a horse riding enthusiast or someone interested in dabbling in husbandry it's not a bad game, it just isn't worth 30-40 dollars as is. Pick it up for sale if you're interested.

ShadowMood02
ShadowMood02

The game does have some bugs that need to be fixed, but it is so much fun. If you love games where you explore and gather resources I highly recommend this game. I'm having so much fun just exploring the map on my horse and building up my estate. If you love horse games this is a must play.

I do recommend going into the settings and having it auto adjust the camera. The auto adjust doesn't do it as much as it should, but it does help a lot. I also find it easier with a controller than a mouse and keyboard.

A couple of things that frustrated me at first is how to clean and brush my horse. They both require certain facilities on the estate, so you just have to wait until you unlock those options to build them.

I was able to play this on the steam deck, but I did lower the graphics as the deck was struggling a bit. I didn't mess with them much to get the best settings for graphics vs. performance, as the game is so pretty on the PC I just went back to playing on my desktop.

Meribiaa
Meribiaa

Charming, fun, colourful, and cute! It's like Zelda: Breath of the Wild with everything but the horse mechanics stripped out! I'm still early into the game, but I've tried the horse catching mechanics and the breeding mechanic and it's *addictive*. I want ALL the horses. Which fuels the desire to work on building up the ranch. Rinse and repeat!

The horse care mechanics (brushing, hosing down, petting, feeding) are quick, cute, and satisfying. Your horse gets satisfyingly "crusty" and practically shines when you wash it all away. You can improve stats, help cure fears, and adapt and appreciate the aspects of a horse that can't be changed.

The riding mechanics are mostly smooth, and the races + jumps are actually doable. Nothing worse than a horse game that's broken/too difficult out of the box!

I love the art style and the attention to detail. Is there some wonkyness? Yes. BUT it's still early days, & this team has proven in the past to be very adaptive to feedback, and there's so much that it does right that I don't mind my ponytail getting stuck as a unicorn horn for a bit.

I bought this for the PC, but I've enjoyed it so much that I've splurged on the limited edition physical edition for Switch to get the merch and support the team. I hope there's more updates + future games from Aesir!

MotherOrganoid
MotherOrganoid

This is a solid horse game, one that fills a niche between Star Stable and less horse-focused games like Red Dead. That said, it is a bit lacking, but hopefully further updates help fill that void up with more horse breeds, more gameplay choices, and more. The stylistic graphics are very nice, the controls are relatively simple, and its straight forward. Its easy enough for kids and complex enough for adults. The taming aspect is a LOT of fun and I get a kick out of scanning the herds for new horse breeds and colors I don't have.

MagieSuzuki
MagieSuzuki

First off, this game is filled with bugs, the camera and controls are not good at all, and in all honesty this game is not worth it's price. I bought both the Switch and PC version, and in all honestly, I'd pay $15 at most. I don't plan on getting a refund, but with the amount of money I just wasted here, I hope you use it to make the reviews seem more positive than what they look like now, because this game is not doing well in any console or in the PC. Paying $40 on the Switch for this game is nothing but a scam, I'd prefer it if wasn't on the console at all, unless you plan of supporting it.

I don't recommend buying this game AT ALL, until it has been fixed.
Most of the reviews already cover what's wrong with this game, so I wont bother to repeat what they have already said.

Ghost Stallion
Ghost Stallion

Already played 10 mins in and I am already getting nauseous from the movement and the extreme brightness style. I had this game in my wish list before it was released because I love horses and I am trying out games that contain horses. Unfortunately looking at the screenshots before the game came out, it did looked like a game I probably wouldn't enjoy due to the style. But I still wanted to give it a go. The movement and the format is frustrating. Moving around with the mouse was inaccurate. I probably will go back to the game time to time but I might have a limit to play it due to the motion sickness.

DryburghGamer
DryburghGamer

Brilliant horse-riding adventure. Absolutely breath-taking forest and mountain scenes. If you enjoy riding horses, doing home/ farm make-overs and completing quests you will love this game. It still needs quite a bit of TLC to reach its full potential, but I absolutely recommend it!

Azura
Azura

Loaaads of potential here. However ; Lacks quests, the main story line is short, the game is pretty buggy. All in all - feels pretty EA. I like the feel of the game, it was fun to play and explore away and be free in a sense. There is ONE post game quest that gives you a horse that's pretty crappy in comparison to the horse you get from the main story. Why? World feels empty, breeding is kinda expensive in a sense that you have to constantly farm peppermints and treats (food) Once you're finished building up your estate, you're kind of done. Wish I could give this a positive review.

Shimmlight
Shimmlight

As much as I love the content of this game so far, I am experiencing motion sickness from the camera. Even without the motion sickness aspect I find that the strange camera controls mean I sometimes crash into walls when going around bends. It would be much better if it just followed the player rather than having to pan around manually. More options for the camera settings would be great. As this is a core part of the gameplay experience I can't really recommend it in this state, which us a shame.

Premlin
Premlin

I wanted to love this game. I was at the edge of my seat, waiting for it to come out - a former horse girl and horse game enthusiast in me was filled with absolute glee to play a new game!! Oh, the nostalgia of brushing your little horse, riding around tracks, and ---
Wait, where is all the content? Sure, the game is pretty. And as a concept, the game could be absolutely amazing. The nostalgic value alone is immense. But that's where it ends; the huge open world is at times hard to navigate and the world is absolutely empty. This world that is supposed to be filled with horses and life, yet only has a few NPCs around the island, some wild horse groups and ... That's just it. There is no sense of life, or time, or anything in the game - the only constant is you riding your horse around, trying to get used to the janky controls and wondering if you missed something. There is no passage of time even as simple as day/night cycle, I honestly can't tell what's the benefit of sleeping in the game. There is no feel of actually improving your horsemanship, or bonding with your horse, let alone the NPCs on the island. All the promises of building your own grand estate- the buildings and pastures are empty, no horses to be seen anywhere. The whole island is a ghost town. It feels like the "game" is just the developers putting out the rough sketch of the map and controls to show the players, with little to no actual story, gameplay and contents of the game... And then it ends being the whole game.

Everything feels soulless and empty. I only played the game for around 6 or 7 hours, and 5 hours of that was me thinking "oh, this is about to get better, surely!! Surely I just missed some super important NPC or I need to unlock something for the game to get better" and the last one and a half hour I was riding around, trying to find something actually fun to do. The game is stalling, the storytelling is horribly dull and almost non-existent and the other characters are soulless and badly written stereotypes. All in all - I wanted to like this game, but it is just a colourful, pretty game with nostalgia value but absolutely no filling.
Yeah, if you can get the game in sale for like 5 bucks, go ahead and get it, play it for an hour or two - it *is* pretty and showing game developers that horse-focused games have a demand, but aside from that, the game is absolutely not worth any more money or your time.

laredawebb
laredawebb

I've been looking forward to this coming out. When I first started playing I wasn't a fan of the art style but it has grown on me during game play. The horses are beautiful and there is a wide variety of colors. The story line is fun and pretty simple. I enjoy riding the horses and trying to train out there bad traits. I have truly enjoyed my time in this game.

The camera takes some getting used to and there are a few bugs here and there. All the ones I experienced are already listed on the developers list to be fixed. The grind for materials is real but if you want a game that you can ride everywhere, this is your game.

I have two things I'd like to see updated that are not on the fix it list. 1st divide out the refined material (planks) into different types. Right now it's all lumped under planks and this makes it difficult to determine how many of which type you have. 2nd it would be nice to have a tool tip or something on the building tool tip with which materials are required...the little photos are nice but the mud kind of blends and sometimes it's hard to tell which one you need. I can't imagine what it would be like for someone that is colorblind.

Aristots
Aristots

So far i'm really enjoying the game but everywhere I go with wild horses and I scare them off they do not respawn anymore in that area. I've tried resetting the game and sleeping in my tent, is this a glitch or can I just not catch anymore wild horses from those areas.

Драгонвульф
Драгонвульф

I burrowed to play 55 hours. When I jump, then 1 out of 3 times I died; during the race, barriers and arches do not load immediately and because of this it is impossible to win the race; before the race in the top, the npc had 2 minutes, and after the race (losing) it became 48 seconds (because of which it is simply impossible to move further along the quest); optimization is bad (tried to play both on a laptop and on a computer - crashes and friezes everywhere). And the most annoying thing is that during these 55 hours of playing, I lost 12 game saves. I'm just tired of trying to start playing this game. If the cloud doesn't want to sync saves, then let them be on the PC until you figure out this problem.

NOTMADDIE
NOTMADDIE

Has some bug and a few issues here and there however still very fun finished the whole game in a few days but i hope there will be more updates with more content very soon love the game but it feels like i was pushed out earlier than it should have been but I'm a pretty paient person so I'm willing to wait for more content if your not id say give them about a year a revist the game