Umamusume: Pretty Derby

"I wanna train anime horses, I don't wanna work a second day job." Yeah, I'm tired. For the longest time I personally slandered this game to my friends for it having "0 gameplay", because I thought that all you did was put your pulled anime girl in races and watch the game play itself for ya. I was like "how could anyone that doesn't only play for flashy girls like this game." I played it once when it first came out, thought this was just gonna be the usual gacha shiznick with working a dayjob of dailies to progress your account (even though these games make sure that powercreep stops you from ever getting to an "endgame" point to play the endgame stuff fully), it seemed like that and I quit after like 5 hours in when the game launched. Then I played it again recently, and actually had a blast remembering/finding out that there's a whole training system you do BEFOREHAND to make an uma (horse) ready for the races ahead. And it was genuinely fun researching the hell out of the cards and parents I could use for specific umas and to be pushed to go for the rare training chances and friendship gauges. I then set a goal for myself to reach my first S rank uma trained. I could consistently reach A ranks and maybe A+, but was setting a goal for S rank, and then maybe, one day, a U rank. I didn't do a lick of main story, didn't do races, and mostly just listened to the uma's career stories while progressing careers right? Saving all the online stuff for after right? Genuine fun and interactivity in my own way right? "He was whipping up umamazing foods like actual happiness! Actual happiness?! Actual happiness!! And Joy!!" And then I'm introduced to the "independent training" feature. A feature that allows someone to just hit a button, leave the game for an hr, and skip the entire career. >I think its just a feature to get the crazy amount of sneakers/mats you need for potential levels. >I try it out for the first time on haru. >Come back an hr later. >S+ rank with all the skills i could want. ... wtf man There's no way everything I'm doing just doesn't matter and I should just do the auto version right? I just got lucky right? >Try it out on El Condor >S+ with all the pace skills I want bro. >Gold Ship >S and skills > my 5 other umas i wanted to get to >S+ and skills across the board and my team is setup ... I got done, 5x the amount of work that it took me to in one week, all within a day from this auto feature. ... "He was whipping up crippling depression. Like actual misery... Actual Misery? Actual misery, and sadness..." yeah. My goal is gone now. I tried out actual races and get "okayness, in a kettle" with my personally trained umas. And then molly whoop the races with the independent trained umas. uhhhhhhh yeah. my slander was spot on ig. Conclusion: This game is another gacha game that has a good honeymoon phase but then devolves into the same daily monotonous chore game that other gacha games fall into, where you only play (mindlessly put up with satan pitchforking your insides and ballsack) for the characters. And if that's for you, go for it mane. The characters are all fun and unique. Gold Ship and El Condor were my favorite bundles of joy. But for me, this is just another gacha game that has some good passion behind it that I really, REALLY wish I could enjoy. At this point, if you like the characters but don't wanna submit a chunk of your life to them, just watch the anime man. I should mention too, that if you enjoy optimizing the hell out of a game to the point everything just becomes numbers and colors to you, go for it man. This is probably the best gacha game I've ever played for the hardcore theory crafter/metamancer, since sources tell me you don't wanna run independent training if you know EXACTLY what you wanna do in a career and when to do it. And yeah, I'm ♥♥♥♥♥♥ tired of gacha games dude.