Review Insights · App Store
Umamusume: Pretty Derby
Cygames, Inc. · 4,233 ratings · ★ 4.6
4.6
★★★★★
4,233 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 24 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"game"
18 negative reviews mention this · 75% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I hate cygames. Screw cygames they messed up all my runs" - boocat jones
2
"play"
10 negative reviews mention this · 42% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Seems cute but... I can’t even play because the game is so huge and takes up way too much space on my phone :(" - @Shu.kko
3
"playing"
6 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Connection error. Always says connection error and prevents me from playing the game entirely, even after reinstalling" - อยากกินเค้กกันเถอะ
4
"gacha"
6 negative reviews mention this · 25% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Basically a scam and a casino.. Trash rng and gacha system, for a consumer like me who spends top dollar ($10k+USD) on gacha games. This is definitely one of the worst gacha game to spend money on. The ROI is absolute dogwater. It’s one of those games that upholds the cas…" - Professional money waster
5
"games"
5 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I hate cygames. Screw cygames they messed up all my runs" - boocat jones
6
"spend"
5 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Basically a scam and a casino.. Trash rng and gacha system, for a consumer like me who spends top dollar ($10k+USD) on gacha games. This is definitely one of the worst gacha game to spend money on. The ROI is absolute dogwater. It’s one of those games that upholds the cas…" - Professional money waster
7
"times"
5 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Basically a scam and a casino.. Trash rng and gacha system, for a consumer like me who spends top dollar ($10k+USD) on gacha games. This is definitely one of the worst gacha game to spend money on. The ROI is absolute dogwater. It’s one of those games that upholds the cas…" - Professional money waster
8
"every"
5 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Basically a scam and a casino.. Trash rng and gacha system, for a consumer like me who spends top dollar ($10k+USD) on gacha games. This is definitely one of the worst gacha game to spend money on. The ROI is absolute dogwater. It’s one of those games that upholds the cas…" - Professional money waster
9
"makes"
5 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Basically a scam and a casino.. Trash rng and gacha system, for a consumer like me who spends top dollar ($10k+USD) on gacha games. This is definitely one of the worst gacha game to spend money on. The ROI is absolute dogwater. It’s one of those games that upholds the cas…" - Professional money waster
10
"characters"
5 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Prices are too high short event times. I get its a gatcha/gambling game but its frustrating when you love this Universe so much but it makes zero sense to spend over 200$ to get 2 characters. The time limit is too short to get these characters free after 200 pulls its highway ro…" - what is this @
11
"scenario"
5 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Overrated garbage. This “game” is one of the most monotonous pay to win slogs in mobile history. All you do is navigate through menus and pray that your character wins in the cutscene. There is a reason that everyone talks about the characters but never the “…" - a guy who looks for good games
12
"cygames"
4 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I hate cygames. Screw cygames they messed up all my runs" - boocat jones
📋 All 24 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
I hate cygames
Screw cygames they messed up all my runs
Seems cute but..
I can’t even play because the game is so huge and takes up way too much space on my phone :(
Connection error
Always says connection error and prevents me from playing the game entirely, even after reinstalling
Basically a scam and a casino.
Trash rng and gacha system, for a consumer like me who spends top dollar ($10k+USD) on gacha games. This is definitely one of the worst gacha game to spend money on. The ROI is absolute dogwater. It’s one of those games that upholds the casino saying of “The house always wins”. As always, games that win multiple game awards. Would often times start to treat consumers like garbage and won’t adhere to making simple improvements or rather, stop making improvements that benefit the consumer. Cygames live very comfortably, knowing that their trash gacha system works. Because people will still spend money regardless. 200 pity is already at the edge of being unreasonable. But no carry over of pity for the next banner? That’s just plain greediness in broad daylight. Every other aspect of Umamusume is good i.e; anime, manga, music and the fact that I like horse racing. Those factors made me download this game and I mainly play and spend money on the Japan server. After a year of playing on both Global and Japan server, on top of spending top dollar. I can confidently say it wasn’t worth spending too much money on it. Not to mention, the time players have to put on it only for them to be greeted by terrible rng and gacha. Makes me feel bad for the people that plays the game casually, and the people that don’t spend money on games.
But who am I to have an opinion against a multi-billion dollar company about their game that won multiple awards. And then there’s me, who’s just a nobody that has more than enough money to waste on games like this. Keep doing you I guess🤷
If ever a refund option will be added for this game(which would never happen of course) . I would just let you keep my money. That way, I will just think of it as a donation to support the people that genuinely like this game no matter how bad they are being treated.
But who am I to have an opinion against a multi-billion dollar company about their game that won multiple awards. And then there’s me, who’s just a nobody that has more than enough money to waste on games like this. Keep doing you I guess🤷
If ever a refund option will be added for this game(which would never happen of course) . I would just let you keep my money. That way, I will just think of it as a donation to support the people that genuinely like this game no matter how bad they are being treated.
Cannot play
I’m not even able to play the game. I keep getting met with the connect error screen no matter what I do. I don’t understand.
Prices are too high short event times
I get its a gatcha/gambling game but its frustrating when you love this Universe so much but it makes zero sense to spend over 200$ to get 2 characters. The time limit is too short to get these characters free after 200 pulls its highway robbery.
Unfair to be forced to lose a race
If your Uma has the stats to win she should win, not lose because the game forces you to lose. Until they fix this I will not give them a single dime.
I hate long waiting
So when I tried playing the game, the problem is I have to wait a really long time And I'm a really, really really really really really really really really unpatient person and this pisses me off so please fix it if it is a bug because I do not like slow waiting
Won’t let you select your birthday to play
Just what the title says
Overrated garbage
This “game” is one of the most monotonous pay to win slogs in mobile history. All you do is navigate through menus and pray that your character wins in the cutscene. There is a reason that everyone talks about the characters but never the “gameplay.”
Not only that but the games gacha is inherently flawed. You have to choose between summoning for the characters (the entire selling point of the game) and the support cards which are the tools you need to succeed in the game and most of the “top tier” ones need multiple copies to be effective. It does give out a lot of free currency as far as gachas are concerned, but the content to obtain said currency is a monotonous slog, and the gacha rates are so laughably bad that it nullifies this games so called “generosity.”
If you think that’s bad enough the game is currently in the “track blazer” scenario that turns the rng and tedium up to eleven by the time I’m writing this, and this scenario is mandatory if you want your characters to have a fighting chance in the online races.
If you want to engage in Umamusume content, then don’t play this garbage. You’re better off watching the characters online or the anime, but this game is a sorry excuse to the IP despite it being the game that kicked it off.
Not only that but the games gacha is inherently flawed. You have to choose between summoning for the characters (the entire selling point of the game) and the support cards which are the tools you need to succeed in the game and most of the “top tier” ones need multiple copies to be effective. It does give out a lot of free currency as far as gachas are concerned, but the content to obtain said currency is a monotonous slog, and the gacha rates are so laughably bad that it nullifies this games so called “generosity.”
If you think that’s bad enough the game is currently in the “track blazer” scenario that turns the rng and tedium up to eleven by the time I’m writing this, and this scenario is mandatory if you want your characters to have a fighting chance in the online races.
If you want to engage in Umamusume content, then don’t play this garbage. You’re better off watching the characters online or the anime, but this game is a sorry excuse to the IP despite it being the game that kicked it off.
Go watch its shows instead.
Champions meets are not content for players who aren’t already in the top percentages of competitive play. Trackblazer is the definition of tedium, gacha is so expensive calling them “micro transactions” is a joke.
Truly Unplayable
The gameplay was bad to begin with, but is much worse than it should be because of numerous promised QOL updates not being implemented and a severe lack of resources. With the current scenario, you will lose many races due to RNG/AI and need to consume clocks to retry them. But clocks are a rare material compared to how many you need. You can buy 3 a day for coins and cannot buy any more, yet you'll need to use those 3 clocks for a single run. Shockingly, you can't even spend real money to get clocks. You'll go through an hour long run just to get a useless "legacy" 9 times out of 10 because of RNG, and you can only do a certain number of runs per day due to borrow limits. This is extremely frustrating and fatiguing.
There are other issues as well. The God-awful localization makes it very difficult to play Uma just for the story (and so does the unforgiving character gacha). There was a big controversy originating from the Discord server recently that showed that Cygames does not care at all about the official server or the fandom. It started with someone sharing Uma x Trainer fanart, which their mods said was against the rules (it wasn't). These mods incited harassment and doxxing against an innocent artist, banned thousands of people, made slanderous comments towards the real-life horses, and promised guidelines from Cygames themselves but never shared any, instead staying silent until the issue "blowed over".
So far, Cygames has ignored nearly every issue or request raised by their players. I pushed through these issues and kept playing, but I have truly reached my limit and quit the game a couple weeks ago, as did my friends and clubmates. Even when a new scenario comes out, you can count on Cygames to make it painful to play.
Their poor management is really showing in their rapidly declining monthly revenue. Such a shame to see a game with a lot of potential kill itself like this, because I love the characters and enjoyed the Japanese version.
There are other issues as well. The God-awful localization makes it very difficult to play Uma just for the story (and so does the unforgiving character gacha). There was a big controversy originating from the Discord server recently that showed that Cygames does not care at all about the official server or the fandom. It started with someone sharing Uma x Trainer fanart, which their mods said was against the rules (it wasn't). These mods incited harassment and doxxing against an innocent artist, banned thousands of people, made slanderous comments towards the real-life horses, and promised guidelines from Cygames themselves but never shared any, instead staying silent until the issue "blowed over".
So far, Cygames has ignored nearly every issue or request raised by their players. I pushed through these issues and kept playing, but I have truly reached my limit and quit the game a couple weeks ago, as did my friends and clubmates. Even when a new scenario comes out, you can count on Cygames to make it painful to play.
Their poor management is really showing in their rapidly declining monthly revenue. Such a shame to see a game with a lot of potential kill itself like this, because I love the characters and enjoyed the Japanese version.
Amazing potential squandered by gatcha system
When I first played it, I thought “wow this has got to be the best mobile game I’ve ever played.” The character designs are great, I love the character’s personalities, I love the dumb theater mode where you can watch concerts, it’s just great. That’s it though.
I’m no stranger to gatcha games and I’ve played a lot. The support card system is hands down the worst gatcha system I’ve ever seen. Supports card are basically items that boost your characters and you can hold 5. For them to be effective you need to pull 3-4 copies. If you choose to not summon on supports your characters will be weak, but the banners have just as bad of rates as the actual umamusume, so you’re forced to pick between summoning for characters or a png that makes you stronger.
This game genuinely gets ruined by the support card system and it’s a shame because I want to like it, but because of that system it’s just not fun.
I’m no stranger to gatcha games and I’ve played a lot. The support card system is hands down the worst gatcha system I’ve ever seen. Supports card are basically items that boost your characters and you can hold 5. For them to be effective you need to pull 3-4 copies. If you choose to not summon on supports your characters will be weak, but the banners have just as bad of rates as the actual umamusume, so you’re forced to pick between summoning for characters or a png that makes you stronger.
This game genuinely gets ruined by the support card system and it’s a shame because I want to like it, but because of that system it’s just not fun.
Haru Urara and other dirt racers
Criminal how they did Haru Urara in the game, her stats are difficult to train and her affinity with every Uma is super low it’s impossible to get the necessary aptitude for her to run Arima Kinen. It also bothers me that the dirt races don’t yield as many skill points and fans; I understand that dirt races in Japan usually don’t get much attention but it’s still messed up how you guys treat her in game with her stats and affinity. Not to mention what I’ve heard about the use of Ai in the game. Please fix Haru Urara’s stats with an increase in her starting stats and increase in affinity along with a buff in dirt race fan and skill points yield.
RIP Uma Global
As much as I enjoyed this game when it released, it's become a massive slog in the long term, suffering many issues that all gacha games eventually have. Really bad rates (even worse than other Cygames releases like Granblue), horrible RNG in the new scenario (Making a New Track), repetitive daily missions, boring limited story events. I seriously enjoyed both Ura Finale and Unity Cup for how they integrated the story of you and your Uma working together for three years, getting to know them and forming a bond with them - MANT just cuts this altogether, is only playable with Umas with certain aptitudes, and gives you horrific RNG all around. Right now, Cygames *seriously* needs to do something to improve the experience, because the game just isn't fun, and it hasn't been fun for a while.
Track blazer is miserable
Love spending 30 mins on a run that turns to glue Becuase you decided to run end closers. Spark farming sucks. The scenario has no qol and overall has been a miserable experience
Incredibly predatory
All of the good gatcha pulls are locked behind “paid carrots” the game really goes out of its way to push buying carrots. I absolutely do not recommend this game to anyone wanting to play and not spend money.
This game shouldn’t be rated 12+ if the developers made the game specifically 18+ by default.
The app store needs to change this games age rating. I was looking for something new to play and upon finding this one I was really invested with a lot of the designs shown, the gameplay also looked interesting, I genuinely thought I was preparing to experience something good from this game, but I was immediately let down. Upon trying to set my age, the game wasn’t allowing me to proceed any further… as if my age wasn’t valid. Come to find out that despite being told on the app-store that this game is supposedly “12+” the developers purposely made the game attended towards a more mature audience via. “18+”.
I am 17 years old, and this is a “12+” game.
I am 17 years old, and this is a “12+” game.
Game wont load
I am on an adequate device, on iOS 16.6, but the game does not load. It crashes on startup, very fun on PC though
I hate my life
I hate everything. NO SATANO DIAMOND NO KITASAN NO SSR KITASAN NO FINE MOTION NOTHING
Unplayable
I have attempted to play this game three times and every time I try to play it tells me I have a connection error and I have tried to fix it and nothing works
Doesn’t respect your time, wouldn’t respect your money
I’ve been playing it since it released a little over a year ago, and I had a lot of fun with the gameplay! Unfortunately, as time has gone on and they’ve added new career scenarios and different types of events, it’s really started to become a drag.
Selecting the “shorten all events” skip option feels like it does next to nothing, and with the number of random events the Trackblazer scenario has, each career takes about maybe 40 minutes if I’m moving as quickly as I can. Most of that time isn’t spent strategizing on what to do, it’s spent waiting for each event and cutscene to give me a choice (if it has one) or end. It might be more tolerable if you could spend double the tp (or whatever the player’s stamina/energy is called) to have it roll 2 umas at the end of the career instead of one, but as it is now I feel like I’m wasting my time to, for the vast majority of the time, get basically nothing.
All of that is compounded by the support card system and the way the gacha functions. As far as I know, there is no pity system that guarantees you get an ssr after a certain number of pulls - the only thing you can do is spark them after 200. That might be more passable if it weren’t for the fact that many support cards only unlock the bonuses that make them at best good and at worst usable when you uncap them multiple times, which requires either multiple copies of the card or the use of an item that you can get 1 of maybe every 6-10 months, which is atrocious given the number of support cards in the game and the fact that, because it’s live service, there’s no guarantee the card you uncap now will be viable down the line. All of which is to say, unless you get extremely lucky, the only way to guarantee yourself the support card you want at a level that makes using it feel like it’s actually worth it, you have to spend money (unless you feel like skipping a bunch of banners and even then you’d probably still have to get lucky since every spark takes 30,000 carats).
If you enjoy the characters from this game and the Umamusume franchise as a whole, and want to support it monetarily, I would recommend you spend your money elsewhere. Get something that you can keep even if this game eventually comes to the end of its service - a poster, a figure, a plushie, whatever. To me, that’d be worth more than anything this game can currently (and may ever) provide.
Selecting the “shorten all events” skip option feels like it does next to nothing, and with the number of random events the Trackblazer scenario has, each career takes about maybe 40 minutes if I’m moving as quickly as I can. Most of that time isn’t spent strategizing on what to do, it’s spent waiting for each event and cutscene to give me a choice (if it has one) or end. It might be more tolerable if you could spend double the tp (or whatever the player’s stamina/energy is called) to have it roll 2 umas at the end of the career instead of one, but as it is now I feel like I’m wasting my time to, for the vast majority of the time, get basically nothing.
All of that is compounded by the support card system and the way the gacha functions. As far as I know, there is no pity system that guarantees you get an ssr after a certain number of pulls - the only thing you can do is spark them after 200. That might be more passable if it weren’t for the fact that many support cards only unlock the bonuses that make them at best good and at worst usable when you uncap them multiple times, which requires either multiple copies of the card or the use of an item that you can get 1 of maybe every 6-10 months, which is atrocious given the number of support cards in the game and the fact that, because it’s live service, there’s no guarantee the card you uncap now will be viable down the line. All of which is to say, unless you get extremely lucky, the only way to guarantee yourself the support card you want at a level that makes using it feel like it’s actually worth it, you have to spend money (unless you feel like skipping a bunch of banners and even then you’d probably still have to get lucky since every spark takes 30,000 carats).
If you enjoy the characters from this game and the Umamusume franchise as a whole, and want to support it monetarily, I would recommend you spend your money elsewhere. Get something that you can keep even if this game eventually comes to the end of its service - a poster, a figure, a plushie, whatever. To me, that’d be worth more than anything this game can currently (and may ever) provide.
Sorry!!
I didn’t really get into the game much, even after playing
2 Stars until QOL
I don’t like the lack of transparency and communication from the dev team. There are obvious problems regarding spark and clock QOL that need to be addressed.
Sentiment summary
88%
Positive (4-5★)
2%
Neutral (3★)
10%
Negative (1-2★)