Horse Life

Rating Everyone Genre adventure Publisher D3 External Links Official D3 Website

Not to be outdone by other DS releases involving equine care, D3 Publisher decides to pick up Game Life’s take on stable life. Horse Life, unfortunately, may become a victim of “cover syndrome.” Since book judgment abuse is a common problem in the United States, this will undoubtedly be passed off by some as a girly-girl game. I sure hope that at least one prejudger of books gets to read this article.

Horse Life takes a cue from more noticeable raising games, such as Monster Rancher, except you’re not training a magical beast for combat. Instead, pick one of three available horse breeds and groom him for a life of dressage, steeplechases and cross-country competitions. Use the money won from these contests to buy feed and snacks for your horse, grooming equipment, or matching competition outfits for your rider.

First and foremost, I am amazed at the self-contained instruction of this title. The manual itself is only five pages long and serves no purpose that would not be gleamed from starting up a game. Everything about navigation, controls, grooming and the various locations found around the ranch are found within the game. Instructions are precise and clear, even if they are somewhat repetitive in a few cases. That is definitely a major plus. One, it encourages players to pay attention and two, it eliminates potential frustration factor. Not that there will be much frustration with Horse Life, mind you. The learning curve is non-existent. This title focuses more on reaction time and precision. Complexity of maneuvers is not widely figured into training or competition.

A plethora of unlockables awaits the player of Horse Life. Starting with basic training, you learn the various steps of training a competitive-ready horse. The stylus and touch screen really shine here, unlike any other DS title I’ve ever seen. You see the action occur on the left side of the screen while the right side give you your prompts, taking the form of white circles. Whenever you touch a circle, you either tap it before it disappears or hold and drag in a pre-determined arrow path. This translates into your horse making a 90-degree turn at a corner, jumping over or across various sizes of obstacles, or performing tricks such as a Figure Eight, Levade, or Spanish Walk (Look them up!)

This title is only guilty of one thing: half-hearted attempt. Everything in this title is too short, and that cuts replayability in what would otherwise be a perfect example of a consistently replayable game. There are too many cosmetic varieties and not enough game enhancements. It would have been nice to see outfits that affect your score based on which events you attend, or certain types of horses showing favor over particular events. That could have led into taking care of multiple horses, hiring stablehands, maybe even controlling extra riders as a sort of mini-franchise. This is not to say that the developers put no effort into Horse Life, rather that they failed to let the potential momentum of this title carry on well past any serious gamer’s expectations.

Sequel, sequel, sequel! Someone, somewhere, please make a Horse Life 2 and don’t change the gameplay from this current offering. Rather, take what you’ve already got and expound upon it. If the above issues were solved, this would be a phenomenal piece of work, saying nothing yet about online wi-fi potential play, not only for competitions but also for showcasing your stable. I’ve never begged this hard for a better sequel since Final Fantasy VIII, and that game sucked! This one doesn’t.