| Umamusume: Pretty Derby | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay & Story | Release Date | Pre-Register & Pre-Order | Review |
Umamusume: Pretty Derby has you racing… horse girls? Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
← Return to Umamusume: Pretty Derby main article
Umamusume: Pretty Derby Review Overview
What is Umamusume: Pretty Derby?
Umamusume: Pretty Derby released on June 26, 2025 for Steam and mobile (Android and iOS) devices. This English release comes several years after the game's initial launch in Japan (February 24, 2021). Developer Cygames will also be the one handling the game’s global release, which is a positive sign for fans who want the Pretty Derby to be consistent with its Japanese version.
Similar to its Japanese version, Pretty Derby is a horse girl racing simulation game where players train unique characters inspired by real Japanese thoroughbreds, participate in races, and enjoy stunning 3D graphics and live commentary. Each "Umamusume" has her own story and characteristics.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby features:
⚫︎ In-depth Training System
⚫︎ "Horse Girl" Concept and Lore
⚫︎ Winning Live Concerts
⚫︎ Gacha System for Characters and Support Cards
⚫︎ Competitive PvP and Team Races
⚫︎ Slice-of-Life Narrative and Character Stories
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Umamusume: Pretty Derby’s gameplay and story.
 Steam |
 App Store |
 Google Play |
|||
| Free | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Umamusume: Pretty Derby Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Characters Are Full of Personality Heartfelt, Slice-of-Life Storylines Career Mode is Addictive Amazing Soundtrack |
Repetitive Senarios and Events Wear Thin Over Time Pacing Can Feel Sluggish, Especially After Multiple Runs Generous, but PvP is Still P2W |
Umamusume: Pretty Derby Overall Score - 84/100
It might take a minute to get over Umamusume: Pretty Derby’s bizarre premise of raising/racing horse girls, but once you do, there’s a sharp mix of sports sim and slice-of-life anime drama waiting underneath. The gameplay loop is repetitive, but it’s packed with enough depth and emotional payoff to keep you invested, especially when your carefully trained horse girl snatches victory from the jaws of defeat. Add in some charming stories, polished presentation, and a gacha system that’s decently generous (until you chase the meta), and it’s easy to see why this has become such a runaway hit.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby Story - 8/10
For a game about horse girls sprinting down racetracks, the story here has way more heart than you'd expect. It leans into sports anime territory. There are underdog struggles, team dynamics, and just the right amount of character drama to make you forget the whole "they’re technically horses" thing. The main story arcs hit really human notes, while the character stories flesh out the cast with enough charm and personality to keep you invested. However, the pacing of these stories can drag, and the repeated scenarios in Career Mode start to wear thin after a few runs, especially if you’re the type to speed through dialogue. Still, it’s hard not to care when your favorite horse girl’s big win feels like your own.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby Gameplay - 8/10
Beneath it all, Umamusume: Pretty Derby hides an addictive loop of managing stats, preparing for races, and watching said races unfold in a way that’s somehow nerve-wracking. The satisfaction of raising a trainee from underdog to champion never really gets old, especially when you start obsessing over builds tailored for specific tracks and weather conditions. That said, the repetitive structure and reliance on RNG can lead to some frustrating runs, especially when your perfectly trained racer loses to a bad start that is ultimately out of your control. Still, few mobile games make victory feel this earned—or this weirdly hype.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby Visuals - 9/10
The character designs in Umamusume: Pretty Derby are easily one of its biggest draws. Each horse girl looks visually distinct and sprinkled with little quirks that cleverly nod to their real-life racing counterparts. Concerts, too, warrant praise! It’s always amazing to watch a horse girl podium finish into a concert. I do, however, recommend playing the game on mobile if you can; the game clearly feels more optimized for it, unless you enjoy having half your screen eaten up by chat logs while the actual game plays in a vertical window. Small gripes aside, it’s hard not to appreciate how good this absurd horse girl universe looks in motion.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby Audio - 9/10
I did not expect to have Umamusume: Pretty Derby’s soundtrack on loop for hours, yet here I am, writing this review with "Go This Way" blasting in the background like it’s my new life anthem. It’s not even the kind of music I usually gravitate towards, but there’s something ridiculously infectious about the game’s upbeat tracks that worm their way into your head. That said, the soundtrack definitely leans hard into bubbly, high-energy territory, so if you’re not in the mood for idol vibes 24/7, it can wear thin fast.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby Value for Money - 8/10
For a free-to-play gacha game, Umamusume: Pretty Derby feels generous, at least until you start chasing leaderboard spots or min-maxing for Championship Meetings. The game throws a healthy amount of premium currency to new players, practically daring you to reroll for your favorites without spending a dime. Of course, once the honeymoon period ends and you’re eyeing those limited banners or meta Support Cards, your wallet starts looking mighty vulnerable. You can absolutely enjoy the game without paying, but staying competitive comes with a price tag that stacks up fast if you’re not careful.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby Review: Horsin' Around With Horse Girls Shouldn’t Be This Fun
There’s no delicate way to put this: the premise of Umamusume: Pretty Derby is weird. Even by anime game standards, it’s weird. You take racehorses—real-world, historically significant racehorses, mind you—and reimagine them as horse girls. Not half-horse, not centaur types (which would maybe make it more weird), just really athletic anime girls with horse ears, tails, and absurd stamina. You, the player, step into the shoes of their trainer-slash-manager-slash-occasional life coach and guide them through their careers as competitive racers… and somehow pop idols. Yeah, it’s a lot to process.
I’ve known about this game for years. If you’re remotely plugged into the anime gaming scene or just live in gacha-obsessed circles like me, you’ve probably seen the fan art, the memes, or those animated clips of girls sprinting down racetracks like their lives depend on it. But I never actually looked into it myself. Something about the whole "raising horse girls" angle just made me keep it at arm’s length. But curiosity is a powerful thing, and now that Umamusume: Pretty Derby is globally released, I caved. And I get it now. I completely get it. I played this game dangerously nonstop yesterday, and I’m saying that with as much self-awareness and caffeine-fueled regret as possible.
For those unfamiliar, Umamusume: Pretty Derby isn’t exactly a new kid on the block. It’s been a phenomenon in Japan since 2021, though the franchise itself goes back a bit further. The game’s roots trace back to Cygames—the same folks behind Granblue Fantasy, Shadowverse, and a slew of other hit mobile games—who announced the project way back in 2016. It took a few years (and, famously, a couple of delays), but when Umamusume finally launched, it made an immediate impact. We’re talking over 10 million downloads in Japan alone, critical acclaim, fan-favorite anime adaptations, sold-out concerts, a stage play, and a fandom so passionate they’ve practically turned the game into its own cultural bubble. To say it was overdue for a worldwide release is an understatement, especially given how aggressively fans outside Japan have been trying to play it for years now. But with licensing hurdles cleared and localization finally done, the rest of us can officially jump in, and oh god, have we been missing out.
The thing is, even going in with my usual cynicism, I couldn’t help but admire how polished and earnest Umamusume feels. I don’t even know if it knows it’s ridiculous, or even if it cares it’s so. Now, I find myself remembering the names of racehorses I never cared about before and—against my better judgment—genuinely rooting for my favorites in a way I didn’t think was possible in a game about anime horse girls.
Unravelling What’s Beneath the Mane
If you’re planning to jump into Umamusume and expect some lore-heavy timeline that perfectly follows the history of the real world racehorses these characters are based on, well, don’t bother. That’s not really how this world works. Each scenario stands alone, even though the same characters appear in all of them; there's no overarching storyline connecting them. For example, you could win the big race with Special Week in one playthrough, then jump over to someone like Daiwa Scarlet and watch her story unfold with an entirely different set of stakes, relationships, and outcomes—none of which directly affect the others.
The game, however, has a structured Main Story mode, which is broken down into chapters focusing on different characters. The first chapter, for instance, revolves around Mejiro McQueen, one of the more prestigious and traditionally "noble" members of the cast. She’s saddled (pun intended) with the responsibility of leading Team Sirius, their little underdog squad trying to make a name for themselves. Despite the ridiculous premise, it plays out more like a grounded sports drama, with McQueen shouldering the expectations tied to her name and dealing with her own insecurities about leadership.
The next chapters shift focus, though, with chapter 2 telling the story of Rice Shower, and this one honestly hit me a lot harder than I expected. If you know your Japanese horse racing history, Rice Shower’s real-world counterpart had a reputation for breaking records, often snatching victory away from favorites. The game takes that idea and runs with it, literally and emotionally. Rice Showers starts as this timid, self-conscious girl grappling with the weight of her unwanted notoriety. She’s technically talented, but the backlash and isolation from constantly upsetting fan favorites has left her with very low self-esteem. And again, yes, I’m talking about a black-haired horse girl in a frilly uniform, but credit where it’s due, the writing sells it. You care because it’s framed like a classic underdog sports story, full of those earnest moments that remind you these characters, as bizarre as the concept sounds, feel real.
That’s probably what surprised me the most with Umamusume’s storytelling. For all the jokes and memes flying around about horse girls, idol concerts, and anime nonsense, the game delivers these little slice-of-life character studies that sneak up on you.
My Life as a Horse Girl Whisperer
Outside of the Main Story, Umamusume gives you plenty of ways to get to know the roster of horse girls you’ll be obsessing over. The Character Story Mode works as the game’s equivalent of side stories. These are unlocked gradually as you build up their bond level. It’s not groundbreaking in structure, but it’s alright. You’ll get to peel back the layers of quirks and motivations that otherwise get lost in the shuffle in training schedules and race results.
But Character Stories, as endearing as they are, are more like an appetizer compared to the game’s real meat—the Career Mode. Careers are the bread and butter of Umamusume, and arguably the reason I’ve been glued to my phone with deeply concerning tunnel vision. Like the other modes, it’s a visual novel, but it also has some roguelite elements and stat management sprinkled in.
Every Career run starts with some important choices, the first obviously being which horse you’ll be training. After that, you’ll select your character’s Legacies, which are basically the characters you’ve successfully trained in previous Careers. Their accomplishments and unlocked traits can carry over into new runs. It’s one of the few long-term progression systems in a game that’s otherwise designed around self-contained and repeatable runs, hence the roguelite comparison.
Before the race begins, you also pick six Support Cards: five of your own, and one borrowed from someone on your follow list. These act as your training partners that grant different bonuses when they join your horse girl in workouts or events. They each come bundled with random side events during the run and often give additional bonuses.
Scenarios broadly follow the same structure: you’ve got about three in-game years to whip your horse girl into championship material. The timeline’s broken down into monthly schedules, giving you two turns per month, for a grand total of 72 turns before the final showdown. Races, training sessions, and social events fill up these turns, with success or failure hinging on your choices, resource management, and, well, RNG luck. It’s got that perfect storm of systems that makes you tell yourself "just one more run" until suddenly it’s 3:00 A.M.
It sounds repetitive on paper, and to be fair, it is, but that doesn’t undercut the magic of a well-played run. My first real run outside the tutorial was with our Overlord T.M. Opera O, and what a rollercoaster that turned out to be. I still remember her devastating debut race, finishing ninth, with no one even bothering to show up to her press conference. I was crushed, mostly because it was my fault for not understanding how the game works. But the very next big race? Watching T.M. Opera O, the same horse girl I’d trained, clawed her way from dead last to first place in a nail-biting finish that had me legitimately jumping up and down from my chair cheering.
Sure, part of it was down to strategy, but that emotional payoff was absolute cinema! Seeing your virtual horse girl sprint like her life depended on it, only to snag victory by a hair was surreal, and I still feel that adrenaline kick thinking about it. And then, for those idol concerts to be the podium finishes after they place? It's completely bizarre, yet bizarrely amazing.
Grindhog Day
However, the Career Mode’s roguelite loop does come with the usual caveats. You will see the same scenarios, events, and character interactions dozens of times. Same thing for the support card events. They were cute the first time, mildly charming the second, but pure background noise by the fifth run.
And because this is a visual novel at its core, some dialogue scenes drag on longer than necessary, especially when you’re just trying to fast-track a run. Thankfully, the game lets you skip most of this, but doing so also robs you of the little connections you build with each character. It’s a trade-off, and honestly, I waffle between both extremes depending on my patience (or caffeine levels) at the time.
Saddle Up!
As charming and character-driven as Umamusume can be, when you get down to it, the real meat of the experience lies in the gameplay loop of Career Mode—and make no mistake, it gets technical. This is where the anime horse girl novelty peels back, and what you’re left with is essentially a stat-crunching, decision-heavy, RNG-flavored training sim that’s more involved than it first appears. Every Career run revolves around a simple but stressful premise: your trainee has a specific set of goals to complete before the curtain falls on their career. Miss a goal? Run's over. Dreams crushed. Back to square one. It’s brutal, but also part of what makes finally seeing them succeed so satisfying.
These goals vary by character but generally boil down to meeting race placements (usually securing a specific rank or better) or reaching a target number of fans before certain deadlines. Fans are earned by placing well in races, which sounds straightforward enough—until the game starts throwing variables your way. Bad weather, poor track conditions, rivals with inflated stats, or just plain old bad RNG can and will derail even your most carefully planned run. You might think your horse girl is unstoppable after stacking her Speed and Stamina, only to watch her get boxed in during a crucial race or trip over a slow start animation. Yes, it's mildly heartbreaking. Yes, it made me roll my eyes once or twice. But it also keeps the tension high, and that unpredictability is honestly part of the thrill.
If you do fail a goal, say your horse doesn’t place high enough in a mandatory race, you do get a safety net in Alarm Clocks. These make it feel like that race was just a bad dream and your trainee's just waking up, hours before the real one begins. It has a cap of three per run (and only if you’ve stocked enough of them beforehand), so you can’t lean on this crutch forever.
Thankfully, you’re not left entirely to the whims of fate. Each turn gives you a choice of actions to shape your trainee's development. You can focus on stat training—boosting Speed, Stamina, Power, Guts, and Wisdom—or opt for rest to recover their condition. There are also outings for lighthearted, mood-boosting events, skill point farming, and, of course, the races themselves. Skill points are particularly important since they’re your currency for unlocking race abilities. These can range from passive boosts to game-changing skills that activate mid-race, often swinging the outcome in your favor when used correctly.
The repetition might sound tedious, but that’s honestly baked into Umamusume’s design philosophy. You’ll be grinding Career Mode over and over because the real endgame lies in Championship Meetings, which are monthly real-time PvP events where your best-trained horse girls compete under specific conditions. Track type, distance, weather, and even course layout all factor in. Here, you’ll be tailoring your horse girl’s build to thrive on, say, a muddy dirt track with sharp turns or a long, flat turf course under clear skies. The game even lets you preview the course map to study turn placement and elevation changes so you can fine-tune your strategy. At the time of writing, a day after the game’s launch, there are currently no Championship Meeting Events happening, but if fan discussions of these tournaments are anything to go by, the preparation leading up to these events is half the fun.
Not that I’d even be able to compete well in one as a mainly F2P player, though.
Got Me With That Gacha
Any game with PvP—especially a Japanese gacha game—is almost never truly free-to-play friendly. It’s just the reality of the ecosystem. Coming off of Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond, another Cygames title that lovingly handed me the harsh reality of how hard it is to stay competitive as a F2P player, I was bracing for Umamusume: Pretty Derby to follow in the same unforgiving footsteps. To my surprise? It actually didn’t… at least, not immediately. In fact, I’d go as far as saying Umamusume is pretty generous with its resources right out of the gate. The game practically encourages you to reroll as much as your patience allows, throwing enough premium currency at you early on to build a strong starting lineup if you’re willing to grind the tutorial and gamble a few dozen times.
For the uninitiated, Umamusume’s monetization revolves entirely around the gacha system—a love-it-or-hate-it staple of most Japanese mobile games. It’s free to play, but the gacha is how you’ll be pulling for both your beloved horse girls and the all-important Support Cards. And let me tell you now: no matter how cute your favorite horse girl is, don’t neglect those Support Card pulls. I know it’s tempting to blow all your currency rolling for Oguri Cap or Special Week, but without proper Support backing them up, they’ll be limping behind the pack, no matter how many sparkles or heartfelt speeches they’ve got.
Thankfully, the gacha rates here are somewhat fair. You’ve got a flat 3% chance to pull an SSR character or Support Card, which, by gacha standards, isn’t bad at all. My first 20 rolls blessed me with T.M. Opera O and Tokai Teio, which probably skewed my early impressions of the system (and fueled my unhealthy attachment to T.M. Opera O). Well, those took a bit longer. RNG giveth, RNG taketh away.
Of course, no gacha system would be complete without a pity mechanic. If you’ve got the mental and financial stamina to commit to 200 rolls on a specific banner, you’re guaranteed the featured character or Support Card. Let’s do the math: One ten-pull costs 1,500 Jewels. Buying 1,500 Jewels straight-up costs roughly $21. Multiply that by 20 for pity, and… yeah, those $21 purchases stack up terrifyingly fast just to get the character guaranteed. Granted, with a 3% rate, there is a chance for you to get that character early.
Regardless, though, you don’t have to spend money to enjoy the game. The game is already fun as is, at least for the more casual experience. But if your ambitions lean towards leaderboards and flexing your supremacy in tournaments, then your wallet’s probably going to feel lighter.
Still, credit where it's due; Umamusume doesn’t aggressively nickel-and-dime you the way some of its peers do. The daily tasks are shockingly manageable, mostly boiling down to automatable Team Races and a couple of standard matches. You’re not being held hostage by arbitrary stamina gates or daily logins requiring an hour of your life. You can skate by without selling your soul. Just… good luck resisting those banners. I already failed that test.
Is Umamusume: Pretty Derby Worth It?
You Can Bet Your Life On It
Look, I’m not going to pretend the premise isn’t weird. Even as someone who’s been orbiting the anime and gacha game circles for years, this one took me a minute to mentally process. You’re training anthropomorphized racehorses as cute anime girls who sprint, win trophies, and occasionally break into idol concerts like it’s completely normal. On paper, it sounds like a fever dream. But the moment you settle into the rhythm of the game—the stat building, the races, the underdog storylines—it clicks. And weird or not, it’s addictive.
Even the gacha side of things, which I usually approach with caution, feels manageable here. Sure, the PvP scene’s going to drain your wallet if you’re chasing the meta, but for casual players who just want to experience what the game has to offer, you can comfortably enjoy the ride without spending a dime. I’m honestly here for the anime sports drama, and I’m assuming a lot of fans are, as well.
As I’m writing this review, I’ve already got the game playing on the side and the Umamusume: Pretty Derby anime queued up on Crunchyroll. So yeah, I’ve officially crossed to the other side. And if you’re even a little curious, it’s absolutely worth galloping over, weird premise and all.
| Steam |
App Store |
Google Play |
|||
| Free | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Umamusume: Pretty Derby FAQ
What Time is Umamusume: Pretty Derby’s Daily Reset?
Dailies in Umamusume: Pretty Derby resets at 12:00 A.M. JST / 8:00 A.M. PT / 11:00 A.M. ET. You can check out the timetable below to find out what time dailies reset in your region:
| Region | Daily Reset Time |
|---|---|
| United States (ET) | 11:00 a.m. |
| United States (PT) | 8:00 a.m. |
| United Kingdom | 4:00 p.m. |
| Central Europe | 5:00 p.m. |
| New Zealand | 4:00 a.m. |
| Australian East Coast | 1:00 a.m. |
| Australian West Coast | 11:00 p.m. |
| Japan | 12:00 a.m. |
| Philippines | 11:00 p.m. |
| South Africa | 5:00 p.m. |
| Brazil | 12:00 p.m. |
| Universal Time (UTC) | 3:00 p.m. |
Game8 Reviews
Umamusume: Pretty Derby Similar Games
Umamusume: Pretty Derby Product Information
|
|
| Title | UMAMUSUME: PRETTY DERBY |
|---|---|
| Release Date | iOS/Android February 24, 2021 (JP) June 26, 2025 (Global) PC March 10, 2021 (JP) June 26, 2025 (Global) |
| Developer | Cygames |
| Publisher | Cygames |
| Supported Platforms | PC (via Steam) Mobile (Android, iOS) |
| Genre | Sports, Simulation, Anime |
| Number of Players | Single-Player (1) |
| ESRB Rating | IARC 3+ |
| Official Website | Umamusume: Pretty Derby Website |
매우 도움이 되는 글이었어요. 진짜구글상위노출 네이버SEO 서비스 <a href='https://xn--2e0b0ky2gg1v9lhuie2e902a.com/' target='_black' rel='nofollow'>https://xn--2e0b0ky2gg1v9lhuie2e902a.com/</a>
ускоренное индексирование сайта в google <a href='https://forum.spherecommunity.net/User-Jamesmew' target='_black' rel='nofollow'>https://forum.spherecommunity.net/User-Jamesmew</a> программа для прогона сайтов <a href='https://kythuatin.com/viewtopic.php?p=286012#p286012' target='_black' rel='nofollow'>https://kythuatin.com/viewtopic.php?p=286012#p286012</a> якитория промокод на скидку на доставку <a href='https://portugal-campings.com/pt/account/' target='_black' rel='nofollow'>https://portugal-campings.com/pt/account/</a> отправить страницу на индексацию ускоренное индексирование сайта в google <a href='https://aben75.cafe24.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=free&wr_id=872871' target='_black' rel='nofollow'>https://aben75.cafe24.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=free&wr_id=872871</a> кари промокоды на скидку 2022 прогон сайта во всех каталогах <a href='https://coinzaa.com/u/Pa' target='_black' rel='nofollow'>https://coinzaa.com/u/Pa</a>