Gacha games are a classic genre that runs the gamut of actual gameplay content—from turn-based combat to rhythm games, there are very few stones left unturned in this garden of chance-based monetization. With the proliferation of gacha games in the recent gaming zeitgeist, this most recent surge, arguably beginning with the release of Genshin Impact in 2020, has led to an oversaturation of this genre of game on the market. These games tend to focus less on gameplay and more on the mechanic of the gacha itself, often leaving the player experience less-than-ideal. The gachas that do succeed do so by offering a wide variety of activities in-game, creating a formula for success that balances gameplay, monetization, player engagement, and replayability.
Umumasume: Pretty Derby dares to take this formula and ask itself the question no one has before: “What if they were horse girls?”
The Gacha Formula At Work Yet Again
Gacha games offer studios a highly profitable game model, incentivizing the release of an untold number of games touting the same anime-style art direction and predatory pull rates all for the sake of making as much money as possible before the new-release hype wears off.
This leaves much of the gameplay details themselves up to the studio; with the game centered around the gacha mechanic of earning pulls and obtaining new characters, the gameplay, for many studios, seems to be a secondary concern. As a result, new gacha games tend to feel lackluster and overall not that entertaining, and many fall out of popularity quickly after players realize there’s nothing to the actual game itself.
Combat-based gacha games like Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, and Wuthering Waves rely on players’ desire for stronger characters and better items to motivate them to play and earn pulls. Infinity Nikki, a dress-up gacha RPG, retains players by introducing new story content and outfit pieces that offer exploration bonuses or other interactions with the world. Otome gacha games, like Love and Deepspace, offer new interactions with the games’ love interests that keep players engaged in the story.
Each subtype of gacha game has its own methods for player retention and engagement, but they all prey on a player’s fear of missing out. Limited-time banners and draw pools mean that players either need to save their pulls for something they really want, grind consistently to earn them, or be willing to spend money for the pulls they want. This is the same for Umamusume, but what really makes it different from other gachas, and the reason it’s taken off after it’s English-language release, is its gameplay loop.
The Umamusume Gameplay Loop Offers A Fresh Take On Gachas
Though Umamusume uses the same mechanics as every other gacha game for its pulls, where it really departs from what’s typical is through its gameplay. Most gacha games feature turn-based or real-time combat, even Love and Deepspace features quite a bit of combat despite it being an otome. Umamusume‘s main gameplay loop, on the other hand, follows the Career of one of the many characters in the player’s stable, ending either when the player fails to meet a mandatory Career goal or completes the “run.”
Cycle-based gameplay is more common in roguelite games like Hades and Risk of Rain, so Umamusume‘s Career mode stands out in that regard. Rather than building a team of characters to take on your enemies in battle, you’ll focus all your efforts onto one of your horses to give them the most successful Career possible. Each “turn” during your career offers you a chance to upgrade your horse’s stats or increase her energy, then leading to a race day where you’ll see if your hard work paid off.
This might not seem like much, but the races themselves are relatively engaging for what amounts to a cutscene of people running a race. There’s something magnetic about not knowing when your abilities will kick in, and the game play is actually more interesting because the races’ outcomes boil down to how well you prepared. Rather than being a game of mechanical skill, Umamusume is a game of macros, of risk management, and of luck.
Umamusume: Pretty Derby is a unique gacha game in a lot of ways, but the most significant way is its main gameplay loop. By combining the gacha pull system with its rogulite core gameplay loop, Cygames, Inc. have created a reason for players to constantly keep pulling. Even with no further updates, there’s a ton of replayability inherent to the Career system, and players will keep pulling for new cards because they can always be a bit faster than they were before. This alone is enough to put Umamusume on the list of gacha games to check out, even if you’re never planning on spending a cent.
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