It’s no surprise to see games that are designed to be fanservice for followers of specific IPs, may it be a wholesome or raunchy type of fanservice. Good thing Cygames’ Umamusume: Pretty Derby Party Dash is more of a wholesome type and rather a fun party game with friends. But is this kind of game enough to satisfy fans or does it feel shorthanded? Let’s find out.

Production 4 out of 5

For those who are unaware of Umamusume: Pretty Derby, it’s a multimedia franchise that ran a series of anime and mobile games that started around 2018 for the anime and 2021 for the mobile game. If you’re wondering why their names are Special Week, Mejiro McQueen, Silence Suzuka and Gold Ship, that’s because they are all named after famous racehorses of the past that were reincarnated as semi-anthropomorphic cute girls sporting horse ears and tails. If you’re trying to play the game without any knowledge about the franchise, you might have a hard time getting familiar with the setting since the game will focus more on the characters. Party Dash will include 25 Umamusume characters and each of the 5 will form a team that you can play during the Story campaign. Each of the 4 teams showcases their reasons and determination in competing in the Slapdash Grand Prix, it’s a real treat for fans who have certain favorites but newcomers may have a bit of a problem relating to the characters.

Instead of full 3D characters similar to the mobile game, Party Dash went in with 2D-pixel art sprites that are still well-animated and each character can still show their personality. Another plus with the presentation is that all characters are fully voiced by their respective voice actresses, so it’s something that fans will truly enjoy.

Mechanics 4 out of 5

Now focusing on the game itself, Party Dash is a series of mini-games featuring the Umamusume characters. Each mini-game is fun and can go crazy especially when played with other players. Hurtling Hurdles puts you in an obstacle race where you can grab items that can stall your opponents, Blazing Basket is an NBA Jam-style basketball game where you go one-on-one against 1 to 3 teams in a basketball court filled with explosions and/or conveyor belts. Dodgeball Demolition is your traditional dodgeball but with specialized balls that dish out massive damage to anyone getting hit, and there’s Gourmet Gauntlet where you serve a ton of food to your partner to chain combos and rack up points. There is a fifth and secret minigame that you can unlock through a piece of furniture that lets you play Goldshi’s Grand Adventure 2, which is a sidescrolling rogue-lite shooter that was the fun minigame that I played for hours as it has more element of randomness to give it higher replay value.

Though each of the minigames is fun, some of them can feel very repetitive after several runs which dries out their fun factor, especially with Hurtling Hurdles where it always sticks to just one racetrack layout variety and no other choices or anything that could randomize the track, the same could be said for Dodgeball Demolition as it could have made it more fun if it had stage varieties that had obstacles that amp up the challenge. Another problem with the minigames is how they explain the game mechanics as it does not say which particular button you should press for a specific command, adding more confusion on how the input commands work, having the option to display the input commands during a match may have helped

Content 3 out of 5

Party Dash features a Story mode where you can play all 4 teams in a chapter-based progression which you can finish in just around an hour or two. Multiplayer mode lets you have couch gaming sessions with 3 more of your friends and Online lets you play and compete with other players online.

Completing the Story mode or any matches will give out currency to purchase furniture to customize your Clubroom or Scout Tickets that let you recruit more Umamusumes that you can build for your custom team, but the recruitment process feels rather pointless to do if you are just a casual player that has no attachment to the franchise, since you can still get to play the 4 teams in any game mode. The Clubroom is just a novelty feature that lets you see how your Umamusume would interact with each other and with the installed furniture but the level of customization is quite limited as you can only arrange an item to a certain angle.

Feature 3 out of 5

Party Dash will have DLCs planned for release in the future that add more teams and characters to the roster and some title cosmetics, but it would’ve been nice to add more minigames or even story chapters to add more content to the game.

Conclusion

It’s hard to recommend Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash to anyone who is not familiar with the Umamusume: Pretty Derby franchise, though it has fun minigames in its package, it feels lacking, perhaps adding 2 more minigames and another secret game can make it a complete package for its price tag (going around USD 40), but you can give it a try (if it’s on a lower price tag or on a sale) if you want something as a party game when you have friends around or something that you can do for a quick game in a couple of minutes. But for those who love the franchise, of course, this is a sure recommendation.

We give Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash a score of 3.5 out of 5

The game was reviewed on Steam and it is also available on the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4