Umamusume: Pretty Derby is the spearhead of a franchise that is getting better and better with each passing year. The upsides of this are obvious, but the downside is that as you travel back in time the material gets worse and worse until you eventually reach a preview video so bad it nearly killed the franchise before it began. What this means in gameplay terms for the flagship Umamusume product is that we here in the Anglosphere are getting the bare bones day 1 patch version of the game with minimal features and unbalanced mechanics. ... Or are we?

In the time since the English release of the game the developers have been on the bounce when it comes to releasing updates from the future ahead of schedule, meaning that we Anglic speakers are getting the best possible version of the game and in a way that creates its own meta and unique expectations going forward. Even better, the developers have been on the bounce when it comes to fixing the problems that inevitably come with straying from the update schedule and rejiggering the code like this. The future is looking bright, and it's looking brighter faster than ever before.

Oh, and in other positive points: the characters are incredible, the writing is great, the same game file can be played on desktop and mobile, the gameplay loop is simple but really fun and surprisingly deep, and the whole thing oozes such love and attention for the source material that you will find yourself drawn into a whole new sport with such fervor that you will be reminding people to not forget about Aston Machan.

Never forget Aston Machan.

So yeah, great game, you should play it.

... Also, as a final note, does anyone else find it weird how they're throwing free premium currency at us faster than we can earn the money for the paid stuff? That's weird, right?