Game Review: My Little Riding Champion (Xbox Series X)

What makes a bad game? Is it bad graphics? A bad story? Awful gameplay and controls? Awkward animations and voice acting? The feeling that you’re wasting every minute of the life you invest into the game? Glitches? Unobtainable achievements?

All these can make a game bad in their own way, but it’s rare that a game comes along that nails every single one. Say hello to My Little Riding Champion, an insult of a game, especially when you factor in the price, and the rarity of a physical copy which sees prices hitting the £100 mark on the likes of eBay.

CAIPIRINHA GAMES GMBH, the developer has a bit of a history with these types of games though, having thoroughly underwhelmed with the awful game, The Unicorn Princess. Which, if you played, will mean you’re going to be quite familiar with most of this game’s mechanics.

The story puts the player in the shoes of a young woman named Luisa, who has taken over her deceased uncle’s stables near the countryside village of Rosshain. There, she hopes to build on her uncle’s legacy by ensuring the local riding club stays alive. Something she can do by winning equestrian competitions and beating her rival, Cornelia.

In between training horses and winning competitions, players can explore a barren landscape, do fetch missions for secondary characters, take part in treasure hunts, take tourists on coach trips, and find collectibles. Each as awfully managed as the other.

Let’s start with how the game looks and sounds, which might be enough to make most sensible players turn the game off after ten minutes of play time. It looks like it came out in the early to mid-noughties and sounds even worse. Why bother with voice acting when this is how it sounds? This is a game where no voices would make the experience far more palatable.

Although that’s not saying much as this is a stinking pile of horse manure in every regard. Every thing about the My Little Riding Champion is a chore. Riding a horse is awkward, and downright horrible when it comes to pulling a carriage. The training and competition requires such specific timing when it comes to jumping over obstacles, any fun factor is removed completely. Grooming your horse is lazily done, the world is so empty, it makes exploring it beyond boring, and it is filled with glitches and bugs.

One of which saw my horse, and the carriage it was pulling, get launched into the air, entering a void of blackness, before the game crashed. All because I turned to sharply, and the animation that should connect the carriage to the horse freaked out. This is basic stuff, and yet it doesn’t work. So much of this game doesn’t work.

I’ve gotten stuck on my horse, unable to dismount, forced to quit the game. I’ve been unable to pick up collectibles until the game was reset or had quest markers not appear. All of this, post-patch, which hilariously in some regard, actually broke an achievement and it’s unlikely it will ever be fixed.

Which is why physical copies of this game are so sought after, as the disc version is patchless and the ‘ride your horse for 24 hours’ achievement can be unlocked by staying offline. Bought it digitally like a chump (as I did)? You’re s**t out of luck, but the moment one achievement was unlocked in this game, it became an ugly stain on a gamer card.

It’s such low effort, the excuse that it is made for a younger audience doesn’t fly. It’s to boring, lacking in anything fun, and has so many technical issues, no age range can enjoy this. The worst game I’ve played on modern consoles? It’s in with a really good shout and I’ve played My Unicorn Princess.