Posts in review
The Sims 4 Horse Ranch – An Alright Experience that Could Have Been So Much More

When the long hoped-for Sims 4: Horse Ranch expansion pack released in July 2023, I briefly thought I would be on time and relevant with a review for once. And then I got distracted and put on sick leave. My in-depth look at the Horse Ranch pack may no longer be timely, but it will be overly elaborate and familiarly pedantic about equine accuracy, because that’s what you all come to The Mane Quest for, isn’t it. 


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The Horses in Ghost of Tsushima – Wonderful Details and Fundamental Problems

Ghost of Tushima is an open world action adventure game released in 2020 on PlayStation 4, developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. 

I don’t usually review AAA games on here, but I decided to make an exception. The fact that I started playing it in August 2022 and am uploading this review about 9 months later might give you a hint as to how that’s been working out for me. Let’s take a closer look at the horses of Ghost of Tsushima.

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Star Equestrian, a New Free to Play Mobile Horse MMO – Early Access Impressions

Star Equestrian is a brand new mobile horse game by Foxie Ventures. It will offer cross country and show jumping, an open world to explore, story missions and daily quests to complete, and  quite a variety of horses and tack to collect and level up.

To get my feedback and give me an opportunity to ask a few questions, Foxie Ventures’ Product Manager Steven Ready invited me to a live playthrough and video call. Join me today for a preview of what the game has in store.

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The Horse Nerd’s Review of Elden Ring – How Torrent Satisfies Gameplay Needs but Fails at Horse Movement

I figured I might as well put together some impressions and opinions on the horse-like creature that you ride in Elden Ring. And then I got sucked in and am now 30 hours into it with no intention of stopping soon.

If you’re not interested in detailed analysis of horse animation, then you’ve come to the wrong website. But this is The Mane Quest and complaining extensively about how horse legs work or don’t work is what we do. Let’s begin.

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Review: DreamWorks’ Spirit Lucky’s Big Adventure – A Promising Open World Game marred by a Thoroughly Frustrating User Experience

After some years of relative horse game drought, it’s quite astonishing that in Spring 2021, we got not one, but two moderately big horse games based on existing brands but with original worlds and gameplay. You already know I was quite fond of Horse Club Adventures despite some obvious flaws, so how does this one compare?

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Review: Horse Club Adventures – A Wholesome Summer Retreat with Suboptimal Animations and Controls

Horse Club Adventures is a multiplatform adventure game created by Wild River Games under the Schleich brand. Like many games in this genre, Horse Club Adventures is aimed at young girls and promises exciting adventures, thrilling races and solving mysteries with the power of friendship. Let’s take a look at how well it lives up to these claims.

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Review: Windstorm - Ari’s Arrival – An Open World Horse Adventure that Outshines its Predecessor in Every Way

Windstorm: Ari’s Arrival, created by Aesir Interactive, was released along with the movie of the same name in March 2019. I’ve been meaning to review it basically ever since. I have to admit that we’ve all been sleeping on this one, because it really gets a whole bunch of things right, and deserves vastly more attention from horse-loving players than it has been getting.

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Review: Rival Stars Horse Racing Desktop Edition — Gorgeous Graphics and Forgivable Flaws

Rival Stars Horse Racing is a horse racing game developed by New Zealand based company PikPok. The “Desktop Edition” follows the releases of Rival Stars Horse Racing on Android and iOS. Can the Desktop Edition of Rival Stars offer the best of both worlds and become one of the rare few quality horse games available on PC?

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Revisiting Star Stable Online – A flawed but lovable game experience

When I first looked at Star Stable Online, I came away with a very critical view, and voiced my annoyance at many of its choices in my first review. This time around, I spent significantly more time with the game, and spent some Star Coins here or there. Let’s dive into new realizations, remaining gripes, minor nitpicks and major flaws.

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Horse Isle 3: First Impressions Stream Highlights

Instead of a proper review, I tried a new format for playing Horse Isle 3: On December 5th, I streamed my first two and a half hours of gameplay, aided by some members from the TMQ Community.

I wasn’t able to record the whole stream, but I’ve edited the footage I have down to a 20min highlight video.

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Bibi & Tina at the horse farm — An Exercise in Mediocrity

After the less than stellar experience with My Riding Stables, I would likely not have bothered with this game if the publisher hadn’t sent me a review code. Fortunately, Bibi & Tina auf dem Martinshof frustrated me a lot less than My Riding Stables did. Is that enough to make it a decent horse game however or is the bar just incredibly low?

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Six Ages: Ride Like The Wind — Mobile Mythology-driven Strategy with Pretty Horses

Six Ages: Ride Like The Wind is a story-driven strategy game where you lead a clan of horse riders. The game is out on iOS already and will be released on Steam in October 2019. 

I’ve had Six Ages on my list of games to review ever since The Mane Quest was launched, because the developers offered me a review copy early on. I’ve finally had a look and realized that I won’t be able to give this game a fair review after all.


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Ostwind/Windstorm — Gorgeous Landscapes, Strange Horse Animation and Shallow Gameplay

Ostwind is a franchise of horse themed books, movies and video games. At their center stand teenage girl Mika and the stallion Ostwind, who form a deep friendship and supernatural bond.

At a glance, Ostwind quickly looks like having the highest production value of any horse game ever made, with its highly detailed environments and promises of a big open world. Does that impression remain after a closer? Find out below.

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Horse Riding Tales — Cute Horses, Bad Interface and Excessive Microtransactions

I spontaneously tried Horse Riding Tales after someone pointed it out to me as a new Steam release. Since I get instantly excited whenever I see anything that might turn out to be a good horse game on PC, I decided to give it a go.

At the time of writing I’ve played the game for about an hour and don’t much intend to return to it.

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My Time At Portia — A Wonderful Crafting Game Despite Rudimentary Horse Mechanics

My Time At Portia is not a game about horses. To be perfectly honest, it doesn’t have particularly beautiful or well-animated horses, they occasionally glitch around a little and there’s not even really all that much to do with them. Despite all this, Portia still manages to be among the better choices for “a good horse game”, simply because there are horses in it and it is very much a good game.

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