Riding Star 3

Summary
Train horses in show jumping, dressage, and cross country, and take part in shows.

Game Design


3D world, very simple (e.g. not many details on the cross country course).

Care Mechanics
Horse Care includes feeding (regular feed as well as treats), watering, hoof picking, coat and mane/tail care. The grooming minigames increase the obedience stat (needed for dressage).

Riding Mechanics
The horse controls are a mix of mouse and keyboard controls. Mostly mouse, a bit hard to control and not very intuitive.

There is a step by step tutorial for each discipline that is offered at the beginning, but can always be accessed later. The competitions (Show Jumping and Cross Country) are on a timer, giving you penalty points for exceeding the limit. Dressage awards grades 0-10 for each dressage figure. You compete against 4 NPCs (only shown in the list, or visible on the podium if you come in 1st place), rider with the least penalty points wins (on a tie, rider with shortest completion time).

When riding, you can change the standard camera view by hitting "Enter" to Rider POV (tack will magically disappear), Horse POV or bird's eye view (pretty useless, but maybe a nod to the first Riding Star game?)

Cross Country
Cross Country takes you along a shown path across hedge and log obstacles, and penalizes you for refusals. The game requires you to jump the obstacles at a straight angle, with very narrow margins. If exceeded, the horse will refuse.

Show Jumping
Show Jumping is the same mechanic, but in a show jumping arena with typical show jumping obstacles.

Dressage
Dressage consists of following a shown path, choosing the required gait, and (on more advanced courses) the correct modifier (none for medium gait, arrow-up for extended, arrow-down for collected). However, the animations just get faster or slower when modified, they don't show a more collected or extended movement.

Gameplay
There's a career mode and a quick mode. In career mode, you can work your way up through the 4 stages of tournaments with each of your horses. You own a separate horse for each discipline that you can customize from three options for coat and mane color. In quick mode, you can choose a competition course (of those you have unlocked in career mode) and compete with a preset rider and horse. There is no storyline.

Differences between Releases
An older version of the game has Ludger Beerbaum's voice and face in some of the intro scenes. The Steam version does not include him.

The Nintendo DS release of the game is heavily simplified, to where you pick between pre-made horses and riders.

The DS version is included in the box set 3in1: Animals Vol. 2 published by TREVA Entertainment.



System Requirements & Compatibility
MINIMUM: OS: Windows Vista/7/8/10 Processor: Intel Pentium (or similar AMD) 1.5 GHz Memory: 256 MB RAM Graphics: Direct 3D compatible graphics card with 128 MB RAM DirectX: Version 9.0 Storage: 500 MB available space