Horse Adventure: Tale of Etria

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Horse Adventure: Tale of Etria

by Aethyna Jan 31, 2017 | 2 Votes | 2 Played | 0 Reviews Your vote Horse Adventure: Tale of Etria

9.5 rate

Platforms:

Genres:

Simulation , Adventure , Horse

Publishers:

Ubisoft

Graphics:

3D

Labels:

Tribal Theme , Adventure , Horse Care , Horse Riding , Free Roam , Horse The 4 Millennial Horses, the source of all magic in Etria, have disappeared. The Ancients who safeguard the land with the Horses’ magic are now powerless to stop the encroaching darkness that is sweeping across the land. It seems your arrival to Etria is aptly timed. Will you help the Etrians recover their magic? Play Now Similar Games Played Post a Review

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Community Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

Ubisoft, the company behind successful horse games like Howrse and Horse Haven: World Adventures, is now back with an exciting new title, Horse Adventure: Tale of Etria. In this game, you’ll be teleported to a beautiful wondrous but troubled world called Etria where you are tasked with the crucial task of finding and bringing back the 4 Millennial Horses, the sources of the world's magic. Ride with your horse across the beautiful land while completing quests and challenges. Earn coins to customize your avatar and your horse or even to buy new horses to ride. Will you answer the call and help the Etrians recover their lost magic?

Plotline

Your horse adventure begins when you discover a runic portal while you’re riding your horse on a trail. As your curiosity grabbed hold of you, you urged your horse forward and through the portal to find yourself in a whole new world called Etria - a place where humans and horses live as partners in harmony. However, your arrival is aptly timed – the 4 Millennial Horses, the source of all magic in Etria, have disappeared. The Ancients who safeguard the land with the Horses’ magic are now powerless to stop the encroaching wave of darkness that is sweeping across the land.

You are here for a reason and you are the Etrians’ only hope. Will you answer their call?

Gameplay

To start your adventure as the Chosen One, you’ll first need to create and customize your character and your starter horse. There aren’t many options at first but once you’ve gone through the game’s interactive tutorial, you can then further customize your character and horse since you’ll gain access to more selections. Unfortunately for free-to-play (F2P) players, quite a lot of the cosmetics in the game are premium gems-only, so unless you are willing to spend real money, you may be stuck with the limited appearance options that are available to you.

That said, spending money might not be such a bad thing once you get a taste of the game’s amazing gameplay. The controls and the animations are incredibly well-designed, so every movement you make in the game while riding your horse seems to realistic. The camera view and the direction of your horse is heading are independent as well, and this allows you to survey your surroundings while riding towards a point of interest on the map.

Similar to most horse simulation games, you’ll also get to get your horse to jump over obstacles. A mini, circular button will pop up on the right whenever your horse approaches an obstacle that is low enough to jump. All you need to do is to ensure that the shrinking white circle reaches the green zone before tapping on the button to jump. This might take awhile to get used to, especially if you’re not familiar with the mechanics, but it is generally easy to grasp despite being a bit tricky to master.

The game is also very friendly towards its players as it displays sufficient indicators to gently guide players along, particularly when quests are involved. You’ll never get lost on the way to a quest giver that’s for sure! Quests in this game mainly consist of “collection” quests as well as “search and escort” quests which can be surprisingly fun.

The best parts in this game though is the challenges and the free ride mode. In the world of Etria, there are plenty of riding challenges that you can attempt. Depending on your performance (1 to 3 stars), you’ll earn a small amount of game cash, or Equus. It’s the game’s main way for you to “farm”, so to speak, enough game cash so you could buy a new horse, get your current horse some new tack or even get your avatar a nice new outfit. Personally, I like that the developers diversified each challenge so that players wouldn’t get bored doing the same stuff over and over again.

Some challenges have prerequisites which your horse will need to fulfill before you can accept them, and most of the time these prerequisites involve your horses’ stats or skills. Each horse in this game will have 3 main stats – Speed, Jump and Stamina. You can increase these stats by training your horse manually, such as jumping over obstacles repeatedly to increase Jump or galloping to increase Speed and Stamina. You can also increase these stats by assigning a trainer to your horse. F2P players will get 1 trainer for free, but you can always unlock more training slots and trainers by spending premium gems.

Horses can learn and gain new skills... a.k.a. Bravery Seals... in Horse Adventure: Tale of Etria too. To get a Seal, you’ll need to search for the Seal’s trainer, pay him or her the required amount, go through a short and interactive “training process” and voila! Your horse will now be able to, for example, run through shallow waters. Each horse can equip up to 2 Seals at a time so you can switch the Seals you equip according to the Seal you’ll need for a Challenge.

In this game, horses also come in different tiers. Higher tier horses (up to Tier 4) will be able to handle the requirements of tougher challenges. Horses can eventually be trained up to Tier 4, but if you want to skip all the hassle and that you happen to have a ton of Equus stashed away, you can spend game cash to buy a higher Tier horse from the shop. And yes, you can own more than 1 horse in this game even if you’re a Free-to-play player.

Nonetheless, if you just want to ride around on your horse and explore the region you’re in, you can do just that by activating the Free Ride mode via the settings. Once activated, all active quests will be cancelled – don’t worry, you can pick them up again if you are ready to return to adventuring – and you’ll be free to ride around and check out the scenery.

The game even provides an in-game Camera that you can use to capture beautiful scenes you’ve come across and, with a tap of the finger, shar the photo to your friends on Facebook... provided that you’ve linked your game account with your Facebook account that is.

Like in real life, horses will require proper care from you... its owner. If not, your horse could get sick and potentially die. Medicine in this game isn’t very cheap either so be sure to take really good care of your horses. By logging in daily to groom your horse, you can also head to the merchant to claim your free daily scratch “scroll” where you can win prizes, bonus Equus or even Premium Gems!

Community

Horse Adventure: Tale of Etria is fairly new, so its community is somewhat lower than the other horse games Ubisoft has released so far. The game is also not an MMO so you won’t bump into other players in the game. It’s mainly a single-player experience.

Graphics/ Sound

Horse Adventure: Tale of Etria has some amazing graphics that may bring to mind the art style of famous animated cartoon shows. The music in the game is superb as well. Featuring the soft and soothing, Celtic-themed tunes, the music of the game doesn’t only fit perfectly with the overall theme of the game; it also managed to provide the players with a far immersive gaming experience.

Conclusion

Although the game may have some troublesome glitches and bugs now and then, Horse Adventure: Tale of Etria is definitely the first game of its kind on the mobile platform. With time, these problems will eventually be ironed out and we, the players, will end up with a horse adventure game that may pave way to more similar games to come. Until then, enjoy playing Horse Adventure and be sure to send your feedback to the developers so they could keep improving the game!