Horse riding has been done so very, very well in games in which your horse is purely a mode of transport; Shadow of the Colossus, the Assassin's Creed & Red Dead Redemption games being a few of our favourites. So it's a new thing for us to have a game so centred on the horse itself, and Windstorm the seemingly untameable stallion, is very much the star of this game.
The first thing you'll have to do is choose from 4 difficulty settings, from "Riding Beginner" through to "Nojrsodsch" which is apparently what the Mongols called a "Horse Whisperer".
Based on the Gèrman Ostwind series of books and videos, you play teenage girl Mika, and yep, she's a Nojrsodsch, and is able to befriend a seemingly wild black stallion called Windstorm. Mister (Herr) Kaan is your mentor and the manager of the Kaltenbach Estate, where Mika has returned for a holiday. Herr Kaan will often have some task or another for you and Windstorm to complete somewhere on the sizeable map.
Windstorm controls pretty much as you'd expect, similarly to a vehicle driving game; steering with the Left stick, with presses of the Right trigger increasing speed, Left trigger slowing down (not sure why speed control is incremental rather than analog, but it doesn't really feel right). 'A' is Sprint, which is limited by Windstorm's attributes, and indicated by a gauge in the bottom right. 'X' makes Windstorm jump, which is a good thing as there are many obstacles to avoid. The camera can be toggled between loose or fixed to a rear view with a press of 'LB'.
The game has several tutorials at the start and feels a bit like it's nannying you, but once completed you can explore the Kaltenbach estate as much as you like. By today's standards it's not a large “open world”, and you sometimes have to follow trails, but because you're on horseback it feels plenty large enough.
As you progress you'll earn XP, which in turn make attribute points available to upgrade Windstorm's Speed, Stamina, Agility and Resilience. These upgrades are subtle but noticeable, and if you don't like the way you've set them, like most games with RPG elements, you can reset and upgrade Windstorm's attributes differently.
Paths to follow or checkpoints are clearly marked with orange beams, and a white beam showing the next checkpoint. This works well, whether out on the ranch or in the showjumping ring. It's a basic but important thing, but despite working well in the showjumping ring, the jump mechanic (press 'X' while a ridiculously oversized green gauge appears) seems inconsistent and fussy.
After a few missions or rides you should check on Windstorm's condition by clicking on 'Paddock'. Here you can groom Windstorm's coat and clean his hooves, pet him, play with him and muck out and even clean his stable! Strangely there's no option to feed Windstorm so I guess he feeds himself or munches on the plentiful grass when I'm not looking. All the above actions improve Windstorm's affinity to Mika.
Missions are rather samey because they're all either races, chases or searches. Some searches are easy as the target item(s) are marked on the mini map, but others can be quite tough, as can some of the chases–Kaltenbach definitely has the fastest cow in the world. If you think this'll be a nice, easy riding game for your child then think again, but it has no violence which means it definitely has a niche.
The game looks nice but is rather limited. Mika never gets to do anything on foot and missions are ended abruptly and wham! You're back at the ranch ready for the next one. You can go exploring but too many invisible walls mean the ranch is nowhere near as "open world" as it appears. We also found what we presumed to be a bug; you start every mission from the estate. Turn around and try to explore what looks to be quite an interesting area (the Kaltenbach estate buildings) and Windstorm just gets stuck, and all you can do is quit back to the estate.
Visually Windstorm the stallion is quite well animated but sometimes glitches on rocks, humps and hollows, and I've found other animals (there are quite a few cows, horses, deer, wolves, foxes, raccoons, birds etc) in some very odd places (such as a white horse in a tree.) Other animals also pop up rather close and glitch badly during chases, but unlike Red Dead's horses, Windstorm will never run off a cliff.
You can take photos (and "take a photo" of something is a recurring mission) but the pictures in your Photobook are just generic views, and not your personal snaps, which is a shame.
I'm not sure why they couldn't be bothered to translate the place names on the in-game "You Are Here" map signs, this will only add confusion to those who don't know the game's origins and there's no arrow to indicate where you are either, which brings into question the purpose of their existence–especially when you have a full map of the estate at your disposal with a press of the "View" button. A way point marker would have been a nice addition here too, and made navigation easier.
Other bugs included a "collect the books" mission that I had to complete with the mission intro overlay partially obscuring the view! Another mission had a previous orange search zone overlaying the current one–which was very confusing. Restarting the game solved both these issues, but they really shouldn't have occurred. And a final, more concerning issue is the mission structure. Repetitious as they are, we played Windstorm until they dried up altogether–the problem being that we still had 4 progression-based achievements left to get... Which means that you have to grind away repeating the same old 4 Ghost Races dozens of times in order to earn enough XP to "finish" the game.
Having said all that, we did enjoy Windstorm–to a degree. Importantly, it actually feels like you're riding a horse and the scenery is really nice to look at, but the lack of imagination means the missions are repetitious, and even allowing for the fact that this is a remaster of a game first released in 2017, the restrictive nature of the game engine will always limit your enjoyment.
Many thanks to Mindscape for the review code.