Rival Stars Horse Racing: Desktop Edition

If you're a horsegirl, GET THIS GAME.

Personally, this is probably the number one horse game on the market for many reasons. Great graphics, for one. Constant updates, which was a huge surprise to me since I thought the game felt finished as is before those updates added things I didn't know I wanted/needed. The constant addition of new breeds and coat patterns makes me want to keep playing. The UI is easy to understand, and while I don't personally pay attention to the "story" i'm sure it's cohesive. The breeding times are short (cough - unlike a certain greedy horse game) and I really do love the fact that there is a FREE mobile version. Now, before you say: "Well if mobile is free, why don't I just play that instead of buying this game?" Well let me tell you why. The games are pretty different, with there own quirks that make them both great games. Rival Stars, in my opinion, is an incredible company that puts their hearts into every game they make.

My wish list for the Game (Mostly just customization things since I'm satisfied with the game itself:
- A horse breed with feathers. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I love my furry hoofed horsies
- A horse breed with special ears. Like the Marwari or a Mule. I love that they put in new breeds, but sometimes it's a bit hard to tell the difference between them. I need those curly ears that the Marwari have or those big goofy ears that Mules have
- For eyes to turn blue if there is a white face marking covering that eye. I don't know what it's called, but almost every horse I see that has like a white bald face, there eyes are blue too.
- Different manes and tails

its just nice to play and relax in the evening

It could potentially get a bit repetitive down the line, but I have 72 hours of play time at the time of writing and still not finished all tasks, and still enjoying the interesting colours and patterns of my horses

very fun and cool

definitely a favourite go-to game of mine, I can't really fault anything in it. I DO wish you could care for your horses (e.g, feed them, water them, wash them, etc) but nonetheless it's a great game

As a fan of horses, I adore this game. Customization is expansive, races are fun and engaging, graphics overall are excellent. There is so much good about this game, I am obsessed!

It's a bit confusing, but you can figure it out! Too much fun!

i love it i would say much more easier too get stuff and just overall love it prob my favourite racing game and its just amazing i got it today already rank 8 many good horses and played for 11 hours recommend

Love the game

it's so fun so many horses

I love how the game was made and its graphics.

it gives brat

very sigma

im OBBSESSED its way better than mobile.

i love this game one phone and pc. i just wish it would update at the same time !

Fun! Way better than the mobile version.

By far the best horse game that I've played! Really enjoying this game, and it plays amazing on the steam deck. Only thing I would change is more gross country courses. Would highly recommend this game!

As both a Thoroughbred Racing professional and an avid eventer, this game is so much fun! I find myself playing for a few hours at a time when I only plan on about an hour. Cannot wait for even more content, especially more cross country!

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☑ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

This game is amazing, I love the graphics and game play. The only downside to the PC version is that it is quite far behind the mobile but I still find it much more enjoyable as a pay once kind of thing.

great game played it for hours takes a while to. get going but great graphics

My daughters play it and love it.

I used to love this game, but I'm over it now.

Some time ago the devs added letter stats to the breeding. I thought this was a pretty interesting concept, but instead of adding depth to the breeding, its played out like a dumpster fire, instead.

Since the change was made, breeding has been utterly pointless. It is *impossible* to breed better horses. At BEST your foal will get the average of the parents stats, if you're INSANELY lucky. 62% of foals will had flat D stats across the board.

6 2 %

And the rest? Never more than the average of the parents.

You cannot breed up. Breeding, a CORE MECHANIC of this game, is utterly broken, has been for months on end, with no responses or updates from devs on if or when its going to be fixed.

Do NOT waste your money on this game. It has tanked. It used to be really fun, I would've recommended it, but not anymore. Spare yourself. Seriously. Pass on this trash.

this game is vary good for what it is. there are a lot of race horse simulators. this one has a extremely in depth breeding system for coats and stats. a story line to go along with it. the models for the horses are vary realistic.

Overall fun game, but please try the free phone version and only buy when its on sale (usually 30% every now and then) before buying this!

Altho the graphics, animations and little to no options are horrible and not fitting for a PC game, its fun to just grind and play around.
I wished the devs woudlve put a bit more love into it, than to copy paste their free phone game vor a ridicolous 37€ on steam. the "more content" part is true, but at the end that could also only be a DLC for a max of 20€.

a thing that also annoys me a lot is the tutorial. the game sounds where blasting in my ears but i had to force myself through the tutorial till i was eventually able to find the settings in the homestead. but i dont like tutorials that force you to click certain things anywayy so thats more of an individual taste thing.

I honestly can't reccomend this game. There is no new content and all that gets added are new horse breeds. The missions are difficult to finish when the longest track is 3.600 meters and I'm supposed to run 250.000 meters... I mean at least it's better than mobile but when you do get done with quests, there is really nothing left to do...

I love love love the mobile game, and it makes me so sad that I have to give this review, but it just can't be helped.

For the pretty steep price tag of nearly 40€, I had certain expectations for this game that it just fails to fulfill. Here is a list:

• Direct port, basically - This game is a PC port of the mobile game of the same name, and while I was aware of this, I expected there would be way more work put in to make the PC version more suitable for the platform. The only difference that the 40€ price tag gets you is this version is devoid of microtransactions, and instead you pay for everything with the regular in-game currency. The points below are often a result of this situation, but I put them separately for clarity.
  
• Environment graphics - The environment graphics just don't hold up on PC. The game looks fantastic, for a mobile game, but on PC, the cardboard cut-out trees in free roam for example are painfully visible as the screen is, of course, much bigger.
  
• The UI - The UI is, of course, massive, as it was ported from mobile. Controls have been changed at least so you don't have to click buttons on the screen to move your horse like it is in other mobile horse games ported to PC, but the buttons you click on in the menus are absolutely gigantic, and the text drifts somewhere between blurry and over-sharpened on PC screens.
  
• Mobile-suited gameplay loop - On mobile, this game is perfectly fine. This is because the gameplay is just right for mobile, it utilises the capabilities of mobile to a good extent. But on PC, this game is very, very, very simplified compared to most PC-first games. You run along the track, and then around the last 200m, you sprint. Again and again and again. You complete quests that usually ask you to race X amount of times, place in Xth place, make X amount of money.
  
[*] The feeling of 'emptiness' - The mobile game is filled with microtransactions. And you never realise how much of the game is comprised of waiting and paying special currency to skip until you no longer have that, and are left with just the bare content of the game. I am absolutely, by no means, saying microtransactions should be brought back into the game, but the game just lacks things to do as it was originally meant to consist 50% of waiting around.

3.5/5

Rival Stars Horse Racing is an entertaining game with a lot of potential, though lack-luster in many areas.

Notes:

- The horse graphics/animations are beautiful. Not 'Red Dead Redemption 2' beautiful, but when most horse game competitors have graphics that look like they went through a blender twice, Rival Stars easily surpasses them. I do wish there were a little more diversity in their animation loops. I also wish there were more customization options for your jockey, even though they aren't really an important aspect of the game, it would just be nice.

- The story is endearing, although not the most captivating -- after a few levels, I found myself just skipping through the dialogue without reading it, because we don't get to actually see anything happening, we just have to read people talking about something that happened. And that's fine, the story isn't the main attraction for this game, I just wish it were a little more catching to the player.

- The horse breeding system is addictive as hell lol. Especially now that they've added cross-breeding, breeding horses is seriously so much fun. I love all the different coat and color types for the horses, too.

- Unfortunately, my least favorite part about this game is... the gameplay loop itself. Because boy is it a loop. The first few hours I didn't mind it, but as time went on it got more and more irritating and, simply, boring. It's very mobile-game feeling (which makes sense, as Rival Stars is also a mobile game, and their mobile version arguably gets more love from the devs than this version). You breed a new foal. Train it. Skip through a hundred races with it to level it up. You use it to earn enough cash to breed your next generation of horses, and then the cycle repeats, endlessly. Or rather, until you reach max level, at which point there's not much to do in the game at all.

I know that we horse-girlies have very few options to choose from, because for some reason, the gaming world has yet to realize just how easy it would be to capitalize off of horse girls and horse games lmao. So, since our options are limited as is, I would definitely recommend Rival Stars Horse Racing. I don't think it's perfect -- I think it has crazy potential, though I can't say I'm optimistic that much of that potential will actually be met. Despite my negative notes, I have generally enjoyed my time playing this game -- I just can't help but wish for more options, diversity, and freedom in the game. More things to do, more horse breeds, Western riding, things like mini games, the option to directly feed and groom our horses, etc, etc.

its very fun to breed and make custom horses u will rage if u dont win races somtimes but thats okay! its really fun and u should totally try it!!

This game is a bit repetitive but I love making new horses and playing out the story, I would love new breeds and the ability to have multiple patterns, style hair, color hair/eyes, and more things to do but overall I LOVE this game and can't stop playing it!

Have been looking for a game similar to this! It's challenging and has many different types of gameplay.

its a fun game, i enjoy it and love this game.

my only issue is i just wish the game didn't nerf your horses as much as they do. the point is to breed and race the best horses, and the game is like good job perfect A+ grade 6 horse, go race your rival, oops now your horse is a B average have fun loosing. to be fare the diolouge seems like your supposed to loose to your rival until the last time.

Fun and interactive! Im way to attached to my horses in this game tho

Rival Stars Horse Racing is all a horse lover would want! It's easy to understand with simple buttons that do simple things and it is, by far, one of my favorite horse games.

Good game! Its really fun to breed different colors and get really pretty horses! The goals are not that bad in my opinion. Would recommend playing this game because its really fun and it has pretty graphics!

I love how you are able to race, create, and breed diffrent horse breeds!

good game wish i could choose the horse breed at the start of the game tho :{

Already had the mobile version. It is fun to play it on a bigger screen.

I am back and forth with this game.
The content pulls me in, but the lack of community/player interaction pushes me away.
It plays like an offline single player game, you and the game. The most player on player interaction you get is to send your in game friends requests for items and the "team" races. It lacks the interaction I crave for this type of game.

You breed, sell, buy only with the server, not other players. The most player interaction I get is on their Facebook page. Which only deepens my desire to interact with these players and their horses in game.
There is pay wall after pay wall on the mobile app, or you can spend money for it on the PC and face no challenges at all, so much so that it feels arcade-like.

If they added the following, I (and many others) would be even more hooked on the game.

- Sell/buy player studs and mare heats.
- Visit player pastures. Make it more than just a storage for extra horses and allow players to visit and swoon over their friend's horses + leave likes for some kind of in game reward. (Such as gold or cosmetics).
- Allow player to player trade/sells. There are thousands of players in this game, thousands of horses and somehow no player market where we can buy or sell horses without it going directly to the server itself. I would love to know that when I sell a horse it can be bought by another player and not deleted.

Fun! I'm so excited to see what more they'll add but overall a great game, stunning graphics, I'm in LOVE

one of the best equestrian games i haze ever played would rcommend

i love this game!!
The horses they have are AMAZING! I do wish they would add a bit more variety but they are currently working on updating the game. So far they have the Quarter horses, the Thoroughbred, the Arabian, and the Selle Francis!! They have so many types of races. They have flat racing and cross country, etc. I personally had to save some money bc I wanted to buy it but im 13. It is a bit pricey but it is worth it. I have 18 hours in this game and i want to continue adding more time. This Is A Must Have For Horse Riders And (like me ppl who dont have a horse but love 'em) Lovers!!!

this is a mazing game you dont need the stuff like you do on mobile i luv it!

i recommend it because it includes cross country, steeplechase, racing an so much more. i definitely recommend it for any people who love horses or are equestrians! its also got rare breeds you can breed too and a ranch you can upgrade. its super easy to earn money on a higher level! definitely a 10/10 i love it ive played for 32 hours so far lol.

It is super fun and easy to play! 100% recommend to all horse crazy people!

Absolutely love this game. The music during the race is flawless.

love, pc version is light years better than mobile

I love all of the different options

i love this game very much! Super fun and easy to play. I love racing the horses and getting to see new horses I create. You get tasks so its even more fun! I highly suggest you get this game!!

The game itself is fine but overpriced for what you get. It is getting better slowly but it might be worth waiting until more features added. You can easily finish the game in a day or two.
The racing itself is fine, the controls are basic. You work your way through levels, you don't have to manually race that often as you can use AI riders.
The cross country is different and fun but it can be clunky on low level horses.
The steeplechase is an attempt at adding something new but the controls are basic with very little challenge to it.
The graphics are good and there are a variety of coat colours and you can customise your own horses and bring them into the game.

The game is enjoyable, don't get me wrong, but not for that price.