Of all the games released this year, all the triple-A blockbusters and genre-defining smash hits, nothing shook me as much as Umamusume: Pretty Derby. I won’t deny that it was once a game I was embarrassed to be playing. But now? I’m all in, dude. I’m an English 27-year-old who is invested in Japanese horse racing. And if you too can push past your misgivings, you’ll find one of the better strategy games released this year.
First, an explainer. Umamusame is at its core a horse racing management game. You start off with a horse full of malleable potential like burning steel. The fact that this horse is a singing, dancing, anime girl is besides the point, pal. You’ve got precious few days to train them up and get them ready for the races. You raise up several skills, build upon relationships with supporting characters through rigorous training, and earn fans through good performances on the track.
Hidden beneath the cutesy aesthetic is a war waged in the mind. You think you can win the URA Finale with faith alone? Faith paves the road to the glue factory. A few hours with Umamusame: Pretty Derby had me looking up YouTube guides, noting down when key events started on the calendar, and micromanaging everything. Everything.
Let me offer a glimpse at what I’m talking about. You don’t just bring a horse to a career run, you bring support cards. The types of cards you want to take depend on the horse you’re using. Let’s say you’re blessed to get my personal favourite horse Mihono “Cyborg” Bourbon – you’ll want Speed support cards, some stamina, and wit too. The cards you pick are critical for early bonuses to key stats. He was voted 1992 horse of the year, by the way. Named after the French Dynasty, destined as he was for greatness – and an anime adaptation, no less.
When you actually start your career, you need to pick and choose which stats are the most optimal to train every turn. Speed is king and the more of it you have the better, but Bourbon excels at medium-distance races. This means you’ll want at least 800 Stamina to avoid losing steam later in your career. Front Runners want to invest time in Wit, too, so they can prevent mistakes during races and preserve Stamina further. Training everything but Wit takes up energy, so you have to account for rest time.
It gets pretty darn complicated, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Did you know the horses go on a trip to the beach in July and August? While at the beach, skill training is automatically boosted to max level, so you want to ideally train every day you can while there. That means you’ll want to plan ahead so you enter beach training with maximum energy. I have on more than one occasion quit a run through a horse’s career early because I forgot about when beach training starts.
If this all sounds like nerdy nonsense, it kind of is, but it’s the meat you dig your teeth into. Mastering this juggling act is exhilarating in its own right, learning by heart when certain events happen, where to position your horses, what skills are best to learn. Tactically picking certain skills for a horse so that once their career is finished, they can pass on that skill to a future horse to enhance their own abilities. A deep chasm is what Umamusame is, begging to be explored.
Though that’s only one side of the coin, one metal door on the starting gate. The racing itself is sublime, I can think of few other words to describe it. It’s made in a tower at Cygames HQ, filled by evil wizards. Seemingly they shoot lightning at each other and from charred remains discover the secret to making anime girls running the most tense, hypest thing in the world.
Did you know that Umamusame: Pretty Derby has cinematic close ups during its races? The regular angle is pulled-back, so you can see the position of all the horses. But at key moments it will zoom in at horse-level to show just how close a horse is to overtaking, or how tight a lead actually is. When the race is about to end, the UI fades out and the camera is fixed to the finishing line. This means you see the horses coming in from a perspective that makes them look closer together than they actually are. Then the orchestra’s tempo doubles. Then you realise, heart palpitation-inducing as it may be, it’s a devious trick that just brings the whole thing home.
There are caveats of course: Umamusame: Pretty Derby is a gacha game and as such is designed to suck money out of your wallet. It doesn’t really matter how good a game is, to those susceptible to such monetisation practices. The best support cards and horses are contained in limited-time banners that do tempt you into spending real money on gambling. There’s no way around that.
Still, if it’s something you can ignore or at least establish a healthy relationship with, I’ve got to say Umamusame: Pretty Derby is a real eye-opener. It took home a trophy at The Game Awards this year for a reason. If you had told me a year or so ago that I’d know a number of specialist facts about long-dead race horses I’d not have believed you. And yet here we are. Throw aside your pride and give it a go.
This article is part of our end-of-year series, Games of 2025, where we talk about great moments, great games, and our personal favourites of the year. You can read more in our Games of 2025 hub. Thank you for reading, and happy holidays!