Alexandra Ledermann 7 - Le Défi de l'Étrier d'Or/en

Summary
Flora is a student at the new location of the riding academy, now situated in Italy and with Jade from the previous game being in management after the death of the old headmaster. Like in the prequel, you make your own class schedule and have adventures in between.

Game Design
The game is in 3D, with photorealistic textures. It is split into activities (no open world). At the start of each activity, you are placed in its setting, fulfill the task, and are taken back to the timetable menu. The game saves automatically after every time slot, making it impossible to go back if you've failed an activity. Also, it automatically saves a backup save file at the beginning of every week.

Gameplay
You play as Flora, a new student at the Sycamore Academy. The game starts with a dramatic cutscene This scene doubles as a hands-on tutorial for the controls and mechanics.

Soon after, Flora starts her time at the academy and needs to make a time table, deciding every morning which four activities to do, very much the same as in the prequel (but 6 days per week instead of 5). It is the player's responsibility that by the end of the week, all riding disciplines have been attended twice, along with regular horse care, trail rides, horse behaviour mini games, and social hangouts with the other students. An additional new feature is the responsibility for a foal.

The game goes on for six weeks again, with the new locations being the Sycamore Academy in Tuscany (Italy), the Beachwood Academy in Alsace (France), and the Cherry Tree Academy in an unspecified region (China).

There is a new weather mechanic, affecting whether you should give your horse a shower or pasture time. Turning it out during a thunderstorm or snow will decrease its moral! www.online-weather.ubi

Training Mode


From the main menu, you can access all training courses you've unlocked in story mode! You can ride individual courses or the whole eventing, and compete as up to four local players!

Controls
When you are in a setting that allows you to move around, you control your character with arrow keys. On horseback, you use Left+Right to turn left or right, Up to change to a faster gait and Down to slow down a gait. On foot, you walk forwards by pressing Up (faster by pressing Up twice or holding Shift), and Left/Right to turn. Space interacts with interfaces and Enter interacts with something you need the inventory for.

Horse Customization
There are five horse breeds that differ slightly in their model (size, placement of tail). There are 9 coat variations, available for all the breeds (except Appaloosa, which only comes in leopard and dappled grey).

Horse Care
You need to take care of your horse at least twice a week as part of your grades. The grooming minigames are as usual. Brush (but not the head!), scrape hooves (but not the frog!), wash with a hose. The first brush is soft, raises moral (trust?) and you can brush the head, too. The other brushes are more efficient, but the horse likes them less (brushing the head lowers moral). You can 3D-turn the horse with the arrow keys, and end the grooming session by hitting Enter. There is no progress bar, you can just hope that the visual disappearance of the dirt layer gives you a clue that you are, in fact, done. In good weather, you can alternatively shower the horse, which raises its strength stat. Cleaning the stall requires navigating the box with the arrow keys and picking up each piece of muck individually and bringing it over to the wheelbarrow.

Riding
There are three disciplines to excel in – dressage, show jumping, and cross-country. There are two mandatory training sessions, each counting 50% for your passing grade each week (or else, you need to repeat the week). The mechanics have been slightly updated from the last game.

Show Jumping
Move with Arrow Keys, jump with space. In front of each obstacle, there are three bars on the floor. Jumping when the middle one lights up leads to a successful jump. There is a moral bar which “charges up” while cantering or galloping (and resets to 0 when changing speed). When it's in the turquoise area, you can get a perfect jump.

Cross Country
Same controls, but next obstacle is lit up with a green circle that lights up when it's time to jump. There is a moral bar which “charges up” while cantering or galloping (and resets to 0 when changing speed). When it's in the turquoise area, you can get a perfect jump, which allows you to sprint afterwards (remember, slowing down needs to happen far enough from the next obstacle so your moral bar has time to recharge for a perfect jump).

Dressage
Dressage is a mini game of pressing the right arrow key the moment it runs through the target circle. You need to aquire the knowledge of all special moves by reading the books in the library, otherwise you can't complete them.

Trail Rides
Each location has a trail riding area. If you put a trail ride into one of your daily slots, you can ride there without a time limit. These locations have optional photo collectibles. It is also useful to do a trail ride at least once, early in the week, to already know the area, because some story episodes will take place there!

Horse Communication
From week 2, you get to train a foal! You need to train it by lunging and communicating with it. To understand its needs, you need to read about it in the library and then excel in the communication task. Note: This foal coat in pictures is a custom modded texture!

Library




Walk upstairs to the shelf to open the book menu. You have 180 minutes of reading time each time, each book uses up a certain amount, plus half that time to make a note in your notebook. The library contains books you need for dressage, horse communication, and a few random facts that might come in handy later in the game.

Common Room


In the common room, you can listen to your classmates' life stories, look at your photo collection, or browse the web:
 * www.horse-sports.ubi informs about the upcoming competition.
 * www.online-weather.ubi is a weather forecast so you know when not to put your horse out to pasture or shower it.

Dorm Room
You can access your wardrobe and your collection.

Village
You can go to the village to visit shops to purchase horse tack, player competition tack, leisure clothes/hairstyles, assets for the pasture, decorations and collectibles.

Collectibles
Each location has 3-4 collectible figurines hidden in the environment.

Tuscany:

Alsace:

Unspecified region in China:

There are also some photographies to take and sidequests to complete.

All collectibles by Shima Hantou (Czech): Tuscany / Alsace / China

Story
Unlike in the prequel, story chapters happen after schedule slots, so you won't be missing out on important tasks.

The plot is mainly about Flora becoming a successful student and equestrian, while uncovering sabotages and intrigues, but it also includes social calls like a christmas party or helping out your friends, and a romance.

Characters
The characters are a mix of known and new faces. The known faces of previous students have gotten a slight makeover in their models, they now look more adult.

Students
By selecting the social hangout as an activity, you can approach your fellow students and find out their life stories. You get two turns each hangout, and need to come back to it later to hear more.

Plot
Opening Sequence



Week 1 (Tuscany, Italy), Tuesday, after Slot 3:

Week 1 (Tuscany, Italy), Saturday, after Slot 4:

Week 2 (Tuscany, Italy), Monday, after Slot 2:

Week 2 (Tuscany, Italy), Monday, after Slot 4: Jade reveals the reward for the game, and it's...

Week 2 (Tuscany, Italy), Friday, after Slot 3:

Week 2 (Tuscany, Italy), End:



Week 3 (Alsace, France), Wednesday, after Slot 2:

Week 3 (Alsace, France), Saturday, after Slot 4:

The cutscene reveals that...

Week 4 (Alsace, France), Tuesday, after Slot 4:

In a cutscene [plot spoiler!]...

Week 4 (Alsace, France), Friday, after Slot 4:

Week 4 (Alsace, France), Saturday, after Slot 4: [big plot spoiler!]



Week 5 (unspecified region, China), Wednesday, after Slot 4:

Week 5 (unspecified region, China), Saturday, after Slot 2: ''Make sure your photo gallery has space before this chapter happens! If you don't have a chance to do that, you need to do it manually via game files (in your save file, edit Photo_PhotoData and delete at least one of the lines).''

Week 6 (unspecified region, China), Wednesday, after Slot 1:

Week 6 (unspecified region, China), Saturday, after Slot 4:

Plot Spoiler

Tricks & Hacks
In the first week, if you manage a perfect round in your eventing disciplines, you only have to do them once instead of twice, since a 5.0 (10.0 divided by 2) is enough for a passing grade.

You can end activities by walking back to the door, or hit Esc and return to the schedule menu right away.

German version
In the German version, Jade is called Viktoria (even though she had been called Jade in the German version of the prequel!). The home academy is named "Academia Fitzgeraldo", probably in honor of Mr Fitzgerald, the headmaster from the previous game. Also, the German version has localized the Alsace academy to Thüringen (federal state in the mid of Germany) and is named "Eichenwald" (oak forest). The China academy is named "Lotusblüten" (lotus blossom).

Cameos
The French version features, like its prequel, a cameo by Alexandra Ledermann; the German version, a cameo by Nicole Upphoff; and the English version, a cameo by Pippa Funnell. In the Czech version, it's also Pippa Funnell (English audio and models), but she is named Petra. In the American version, there is no cameo, and the champion is simply named Jenny with distinct models. In the Russian version, the models are the same as Alexandra Ledermann, but she is called Mapию Дaвэ. See more informations in Famous Equestrian cameos.

Academy names
In the original French version, the different academies are all named after a tree species: "Académie des Sycomores" (sycamore tree) in Italy, "Académie des Hêtres" (beech tree) in Alsace, "Académie des Cerisiers" (cherry tree) in China and "Académie des Pins" (pine tree) for the competitive academy.

In the English version, the "Beachwood Academy" is probably a mistranslation and would be "Beechwood Academy" instead.

In the Czech version, the home academy is named "Platanová Akademie" (plane tree). In English, sycamore is a possible name to plane tree in North-America.

Character names
Some character names been localized. Below is a list of the difference between versions.

Other
In Russian version, Flora is written Флора, and Mr Oldmaster is named Антиквар (litteraly, antiquarian).

Trivia


One of the ingame shops sells a copy of this game for DS to improve your popularity!

The competitive academy from France is named "Académie des Pins", probably from the famous French stud farm "Haras des Pins".

Messing with Game Files
This works the same way as in Alexandra Ledermann 6 - L'Ecole des Champions.

Accessibility
The dressage game requires very quick and accurate key pressing. The only way around this is changing the save files to get a better result.

In: Each line is a week, you can set the column "Dressage" to a lower value, even to 0, for teachers to let you pass at a lower grade at the weekly grading.

In: There are three sub-folders Level1-3, pick the files for dressage and set the penalties of your opponents higher for each (i did +200 points each for a secure win), or be on the safe side by changing the 0 in column "Eliminated" to 1 for each opponent you wish to be... eliminated.

If you still want a challenge, adjust according to your abilities how high/low you need the values!