Let's be real for a second. Uma Musume: Pretty Derby is a weird lightning-in-a-bottle moment that probably shouldn't have worked, yet it totally did. You're taking horse racing—a sport usually associated with old men in flat caps and betting slips—and turning it into a high-octane idol simulation. It’s bizarre. It’s addictive. And if you’ve spent any significant time training your horse girls to win the Arima Kinen, you know the specific "just one more run" itch it scratches.
But eventually, the grind wears you down. Or maybe you're just looking for something with a slightly different flavor of management. Finding games like Uma Musume isn't as simple as looking for "anime girls doing sports." It's about the mechanics. You want that specific loop: the roguelite-style training sessions, the stat-balancing act, and the payoff of seeing your character perform in a high-stakes environment.
The market is flooded with clones, but most of them are garbage. Honestly, if it doesn't have that "Successor" system or a deep enough RNG to make every run feel unique, it's not really hitting the mark.
Why the Training Sim Loop is King
The DNA of Uma Musume actually traces back to a very specific lineage of Japanese games. If you want to understand why games like Uma Musume feel the way they do, you have to look at Princess Maker or Tokimeki Memorial. These weren't just "waifu simulators." They were spreadsheets disguised as heart-pounding dramas.
You have a limited number of turns. Every choice matters. Do you go to the gym to boost your Stamina, or do you rest because your energy is flagging? If you rest, you might lose a turn. If you push through, you might fail the training and lose stats. It's a gambling loop that triggers the same dopamine hit as a lucky pull in a gacha, but it’s tied to your own decision-making.
Most people think these games are just about the cute art. They're wrong. The real hook is the optimization. It’s about taking a character with mediocre growth rates and somehow, through perfect RNG and a bit of "Succession" luck, turning them into a god-tier racer.
The Idolmaster: Shiny Colors is the Closest Relative
If you haven't played The Idolmaster: Shiny Colors, you're missing out on the literal blueprint for Uma Musume's training mode. It’s basically the same game but with pop stars instead of horse-human hybrids.
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The "Produce" mode in Shiny Colors is brutal. You pick an idol, you have a set number of weeks to reach a certain fan count, and if you fail the final audition, the run is over. That's it. You get some rewards, you unlock some potential for the next run, and you go again. Sound familiar? It should. CyGames clearly took a massive amount of inspiration from Bandai Namco here.
The nuance in Shiny Colors comes from the "Support" cards. You aren't just leveling up your main character; you're building a deck of mentors that provide buffs during training. This is exactly where Uma Musume gets its Support Card system. The downside? It's almost entirely in Japanese, and while there are browser-based translation tools, it’s a hurdle. But if you can get past the language barrier, it is the purest "training sim" experience outside of the racetrack.
Blue Archive and the Tactical Management Side
Now, Blue Archive isn't a training sim in the strict sense. You aren't choosing whether Shiroko goes to the gym or takes a nap every single day. However, it occupies a similar space in the "management" genre that appeals to the same crowd.
The game is heavy on the "Sensei" fantasy. You manage a club of students in the city of Kivotos. The combat is auto-tactical, but the prep work is where the game lives or dies. You’re managing resources, leveling specific skills, and trying to pass "Total Assault" raids that require precise team compositions.
What makes it feel like games like Uma Musume is the vibe. It’s "comfy" until it’s suddenly very stressful. The storytelling is top-tier, and the character interactions feel earned. If you like the social aspect of Uma Musume—the "Umapyoi Legend" moments and the slice-of-life stories—Blue Archive delivers that in spades. Plus, the soundtrack is an absolute banger. It’s city-pop and future-funk mixed with tactical gunfights.
The Sports Management Deep End: Football Manager
Stay with me here. This sounds like a leap. It isn't.
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If you strip away the anime girls and the idol performances from Uma Musume, what are you left with? You have a sports management sim where you deal with injuries, training regimes, tactical positioning, and long-term scouting.
Football Manager (FM) is the final boss of this genre.
In Uma Musume, you care about whether your girl is a "Leader" or a "Chaser." In FM, you care about whether your midfielder is a "Mezzala" or a "Ball-Winning Midfielder." The level of granularity is insane. You’re looking at heat maps, expected goals (xG), and player morale.
People who love the "meta" of Uma Musume—the people who spend hours on Discord arguing about whether "Guts" is a dead stat or if "Intelligence" affects skill activation rates—are the exact same people who would lose their minds playing Football Manager. It’s a spreadsheet game. It’s addictive. It makes you feel like a genius when your 17-year-old wonderkid from Brazil scores a hat-trick in the Champions League final.
It’s just Uma Musume for people who like spreadsheets more than cat ears.
Idol Prid: The Modern Contender
Idol Pride is another one that flew under the radar for a lot of Western fans but is structurally very similar. It uses a 3D engine that is honestly stunning, sometimes even rivaling CyGames' work.
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The core of the game is about positioning. You have a lineup of idols, and you have to place them in specific spots to maximize their skill triggers based on the song's beat map. It’s less "active training" and more "managerial puzzle." You aren't clicking "Train Speed" 50 times, but you are spending 20 minutes tweaking a lineup to ensure your center’s "Special Appeal" triggers at the exact right millisecond.
The management side involves scheduled activities and fan events. It captures that feeling of being a "Producer" or "Trainer" better than most. It’s also much more accessible than Shiny Colors if you’re looking for a global or easier-to-navigate version.
Why "Clone" Games Usually Fail
You'll see a lot of "Uma Musume clones" popping up on the App Store or QooApp. Games like Lapis Re:LiGHTs (which unfortunately shut down) or various Chinese-developed racing sims. Most of them fail because they miss the "Weight."
In Uma Musume, when your horse girl loses a race by a nose, it hurts. You see her crying on the track. You see the disappointment. CyGames invested heavily in the emotional payoff. A lot of games like Uma Musume focus too much on the math and not enough on the soul.
If the characters feel like generic assets, the training loop becomes a chore. You need to actually care about the outcome. That’s why Blue Archive and The Idolmaster succeed where others fail. They build a world you want to be part of.
Actionable Steps for the Displaced Trainer
If you're looking for your next fix, don't just download the first thing you see. Here is how you should actually approach finding a replacement:
- Identify what you actually like. Is it the stat-tinkering? Go for Football Manager or The Idolmaster. Is it the characters and the "Trainer" relationship? Go for Blue Archive or Fate/Grand Order.
- Check the "Inheritance" system. If a game doesn't have a way to pass stats from old characters to new ones, it’s not a true Uma Musume spiritual successor. That "roguelite" element is what prevents the game from becoming a linear power-creep nightmare.
- Look at the community. Uma Musume has a massive wiki and data-mining community. If a game doesn't have people arguing about math in a subreddit somewhere, it probably isn't deep enough to hold your attention for more than a week.
- Try "Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX". Honestly. It’s on Switch and PC. It is the grandfather of the "train a creature, enter a tournament, die/retire, start over with an egg" loop. It’s retro, but the mechanics are still some of the best in the business.
The "Training Sim" genre is undergoing a bit of a renaissance right now. We're seeing more developers realize that players actually enjoy complexity, even in their mobile games. Whether you're moving on to actual sports management or staying in the realm of anime idols, the key is finding a game that values your tactical input over just your credit card limit.
Don't settle for a reskin. Look for the mechanics that made the racetrack special in the first place. Whether it's the 1:1 training of Shiny Colors or the tactical depth of a specialized sim, the perfect loop is out there. You just have to be willing to look past the ears.