Great for Those Who Know Very Little About Horses; Annoying for Those Who Know Too Much
Gameplay: The concept of this game is very original to the DS system. You play as Ginger, who is a student at a riding academy. Ginger is giving a horse to look after and ride during her time at the school. The game is set up into six one week "chapters." During the week you can choose to care for your horse, chat with your friends, study, or practice your riding. On the weekend, if you're grades are good enough, you can compete in a competition.
Caring for your horse may seem like fun at first, but after awhile it becomes another annoying task that you have to complete. First you have to brush your horse. Depsite what the foreman will tell you each time before you brush, you do not have to use every brush. You don't even have to brush until all the dirt is visibly off your horse. In fact, you can't totally clean your horse. Simply brush until a red bar at the top of the screen is full. Whether your horse is still covered in brown dirt doesn't matter. It's clean. It is the same when it comes to hosing your horse off, too. After you "clean" your horse you have to pick out its hooves, clean its stall, and let it graze.
Chatting with friends doesn't come without its problems as well. It is the easiest way to gain popularity (which, for some reason, is graded at this school. Not the best lesson to be teaching younger kids) but the principal only lets you chat a couple times during the week, depending on the week. Studying is also completely pointless. The only reason to do so it to learn new dressage moves (which I'll get to in a minute).
Then we come to the riding aspect. Show Jumping and Cross Country , though very easy, are very fun. My only complaint here is that it tells you when to jump. Although that's a great way to learn, it makes the game extremly easy. I wish there was an option to turn that off.
Dressage, however, is another story. It could have been handled in a much better way. Instead of having control of the horse and directing it through the dressage test, that is all done for you. Instead, during the test, you simply tap this random icon that appears randomly on the screen. If you don't tap it you get a fault and your score will be affected. When you get to a certain point in the test to will be required to draw a particular figure on the screen depending on your gait or the move you currently need to do. These "figures" must be learned through studying. If you fail to draw the correct pattern then the horse will still do the required move, your score will just be penalized. Not only do you have to draw these pointless figures, but they have to be perfect or close to it. That means start practing drawing near perfect circles. Not just that, but these dressage tests can last over five minutes, which means you'll be sitting there, tapping and drawing perfect circles for all that time.
The weekend competition is completely pointless. Not only are your competitors so bad that you could easily beat them by boycotting the show (if you could, that is) but you don't get anything if you win. You don't even get recognition. If you place in the top five the principal will congratulate you and that's it. No prize, and no recognition for winning.
One thing about the gameplay that I really hate is that there's no practice mode. You have to play the story mode. Games like this normally have a mode where you can practice any of the competitions without having to go through story mode.
You also get to own and train your own foal. This is not as big a thrill as it is in real life. It's not even mandatory. How your foal is cared for does not affect your grades and, if you ask me, it's not worth it.
Graphics: The graphics in Horsez DS are above average. They are pretty good for the DS system, but not the greatest that its seen. Compared to a game such as The Sims 2 and The Sims 2: Pets, this game has excellent graphics. However, when compared to Nintendogs or even Mario Kart the graphics are not so great.
Sound: I suggest you play this game with the sound off. Although the sound effects aren't all that bad, the music is absolutely annoying. Listening to the horse's hoofbeats or whinnies is not worth it.
Value: Like I said, this game is pretty easy, which makes it go by pretty quickly. I got this game two days ago and am already half way through week four. Judging by this I'll be done within a couple days. I'm sure I'll get some replay value out of this, however, so its not a total waste.
Tilt: Horses are my thing, and its about time the DS had a game dedicated to them. However, although I was expecting a few errors in the realism department, I would have at least hoped that the people making the game knew what a "canter" was. However, there is no canter. Instead there's "collected gallop."
Now, like I said at the beginning, Horsez DS is not a bad game. However, the more about horses you know, the more annoying you'll find this game. If you know very little about horses, then chances are you'll enjoy it quite much. Just don't expect it to be a replacement to the real thing.