Different from the first game of the series, I can absolutely recommend this.
While the first game felt like a core with all the fetch quests and boring races, which made me lose interest after 2 hours of playing... this one here kept my interest until the main story end and after. There are still some quests reminiscent of the first game, especially the quests where you have to ride somewhere together - and it doesnt go completely without some fetch quests. But its done a lot better, and wrapped up in a better story / side story. And when you have to ride with your club, they adjust to your speed, finally. Which makes it less likely that you leave them behind (can still happen with shortcuts tho). But there is still the issue with them taking longer if you take the lead. Part of that is due to them bugging somewhere and being stuck though (happend to me twice).
The world feels a lot more alive, too. With npcs and wild animals running around, and with cars driving on streets. I had a lot of fun in my first hour of playing, just blocking cars on the street, causing a traffic jam with my horse. :D And I was happy to finally visit the city you could just see from afar in the first game. Took the chance and jumped into a pool with my horse.
A lot more cosmetics are unlocked from the very beginning. Finally you can use all coat colors instantly!
Controller support got better too. You can now finally trot if you push the control stick up half way. And you dont sprint by pressing and holding it anymore, but instead by hitting the one shoulder button. I still prefer playing with keyboard and mouse (even if I cannot trot then), but now the controller is definitely a nice option.
What I am neutral about is the new bonding with your horse system. Your horse doesnt have full stamina from the beginning and its more difficult to jump before bonding. You have to collect apples from apple trees all over the map, or progress in story to level up your horse. Its a reward system that many games have. However, I missed the old sprint, where you could just hold shift and sprint as long as you want until stamina was zero. Now you have horse shoes for stamina, similar to the carrots in Zelda Ocarina of Time. Hit shift once, horse shoe gone. Want to sprint more? Need more horse shoes. You kinda get used to it after a while, but especially at the beginning it takes long to get from one place to another. And you have to watch the stamina a lot more. When there was just a stamina bar to watch, the only time you needed to look at it was when it reached zero or when it was full again. Now you need to look everytime one horse shoe drained, so you know when you can hit the next one. And then keep track of when they are all back from cool down.
I like the races a lot more than before, since you do not have to do all of them three times (+ mirrored!) like in HC 1. Instead you can get 1-3 medals depending on how good you did in your run. If you did well, you only have to win that specific race once and move on to the next one. I prefer that, and they introduced some fun races in this game. They are more challenging too. Which was one of the things I criticized in HC 1. In the first game the races were too easy and felt like playtime fillers. Now some of them are even really difficult that I feel like small children would be frustrated by them. If even an adult like me, who has played a lot of horse games cannot win 3 medals in some races. Looking at you stupid cows... and the second last dressage level has a very difficult rhythm, which I would even call unfair, if you compare it to the other dressage practices. Other than that, I felt most races were well balanced. And I rather have some difficult ones than constantly having my hand held by the developers.
Overall, compared to HC 1, I feel like the target audience for the game moved from 5-8 year olds (first game) to 12+ teens and adults now. Based on the gaming experience. Which is great!
Summary:
+ good graphics (improved compared to first game too imo)
+ lively world (cars, animals, people)
+ different equestrian disciplines (western, dressage, jumping)
+ fun new balloon popping race and animal driving
+ more + different music tracks, fitting locations
+ more cosmetic options from the very beginning
+ more challenging than the first game
+ mostly improved controls, especially on controller
+ you can lead, pet and call your horse
+ you visually see when your horse is dirty
+ a lot more locations were added to explore
+ there is some kind of choice system with a few quests
- the game is a bit buggy at times: your horse def does not like fences and hedges, stuck in the air above them. I lost the horse club girls a few times because they were stuck somewhere, almost could not finish one of the quests because of that, but I rode back and fixed it. she was running against the forest instead around it I think? sometimes they cannot reach spaces bc stuck in the ground or behind a horse, you can push them around a bit, which usually fixes it.
- still no quick travel
- still difficult to take shortcuts (game doesn't let you jump down a small hill etc.)
- they made the field right next to the lakeside farm impossible to ride through... I liked that shortcut cross the field
- not enough stamina at the beginning
- the cows are very stupid
- the second last dressage practice is just unfair
- when playing on controller, at least for me, the character always turned towards me, instead of the camera turning behind the characters back (and its not an issue of my controller)
- the main story is very short, maybe 4-5 hours if you don't do races or side quests along it
I'm glad the developers improved a lot after the first game. Its a bit buggy and the story is shorter, but its definitely a lot more fun. They really went from zero to hero with this one.
