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Games where controlling a horse isn't absolutely terrible?

JinjoUnchained said:
As is often the case, the answer is Stardew Valley. If you choose to invest in a stable, you'll be out of some cash that could have been spent otherwise, but you get a snappy, fun horse that's easy to control and gets you around much faster. The horse is pure win in Stardew Valley.
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Well. Except for the bit where it gets stuck trying to go through anything narrower than 2 tiles vertically (but not horizontally, because that would make too much sense).

I'm also going to say Agro... though there is a definite learning curve. Once you stop thinking of her as directly controllable and more as a friendly AI that you can nudge lightly, everything clicks.
 
Flink said:
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hahaha... what is this?
 
Kadin said:
I'm playing through Twilight Princess again and it's amazing how bad controlling Epona can be at times. Just trying to simply turn around and not run into a rock is frustrating at times. So much fun trying to ride through a gated area and hitting the wall right next to it, having to stutter, back up, rotate and do it again.

I'm also playing through Witcher 3 and while it's not quite as bad as the above, it still could be a lot better. I don't understand why it seems so difficult to do properly, or is this intentional and the devs don't want it to be easy? I don't expect them to stop on a dime but the clunky controls just serve no purpose other than inducing rage when trying to get from point A to B.

What games have done horse riding properly?
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The pro strategy in Twilight Princess is to travel as a wolf. You're not as fast as Epona, but you have much more control.
 
Kadin said:
Yeah I'm playing TPHD on Wii U. Maybe I need to fire up the Wii and try that version again to compare.
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TheMoon said:
Yea, they changed the way the horse handles in TPHD. It now works in tandem with the camera control on the right stick. I had no problems adjusting, personally.
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Thanks for the info!
I found it a bit less fluid than I wanted it to be, personally, but not outright bad or anything.

Teran said:
I think a large part of that is map design. The areas in which you could use Epona were generally large/open without much complex geography to navigate through, so in the end it felt really nice to ride around at speed. Newer games have a lot going on to mess with your flow.
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Interesting point, thank you. I never thought of it that way but that makes a lot of sense.
 
The_Hitcher89 said:
Red Dead is decent, SotC is very fiddly but becomes good once you're adjusted to the controls

TW3 is some of the most frustrating traversal I've ever played. Roach would constantly seem to get stuck on seams in the geography if you know what I mean, and stop running. Ended up fast travelling constantly because of it.
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Yea! It drove me crazy how Roach would try to autofollow the road and then seem to "split the difference' when trying to decide which path to follow at an intersection/turn so he goes off the road slightly and then end up stopping or slowing for a split second on some terrain. I spent the last half of the game walking and fast traveling everywhere just to avoid dealing with it. SOTC and RDR riding felt muchhhhh better which was immersion breaking for me since The Witcher 3 does so many other things well.
 
TheMoon said:
Yea, they changed the way the horse handles in TPHD. It now works in tandem with the camera control on the right stick. I had no problems adjusting, personally.
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This helps a good bit, wasn't aware of the relationship with the camera. Already seems easier, thanks.
 
The WItcher 3 horse is okay I guess but it's easy to glitch. I've ridden up hills where the horse's head is planted in the ground and his ass is up in the air.
 
As said above many times MGSV has decent horse control. Then again, MGSV is just amazing overall gameplay-wise.
 
The horse controls in Twilight Princess are just about as smooth and simple as they can possibly get, if that isn't working for you, I dunno. Try Harvest Moon on the SNES?
 
I found GUN's horses to be quite good. Though it's been a long time and I may not be remembering correctly.

RDR also had good horse riding. Only issue I had was the horse's AI by themselves. Whistling for them to come, they arrive, but after constantly galloping away from you. Dumb nags.
 
I hated Agro. Most of the time he was fine, but when I was supposed to be riding at high speed and shooting arrows at a colossus that was nearly behind me, he always found a way to run into a small rock and stop immediately. Both of the colossi that required Agro took me a LONG time to defeat.

I was really happy to send Agro falling off a cliff.

(plus, it always sounded like your guy was yelling "HARBLO!" so I didn't know the horse's name until long after beating the game and looking it up online)
 
The first Assassins Creed had okay horses. It was bad that just getting into one would trigger everyone into attacking you though.
 
I think SoTC works because there is simply nothing ever in your way for the most part. RDR and MGSV are more practical for traversal when there are small obstacles involved.

If you throw a bunch of trees in front of Agro it will probably hit as many of them as Roach, if not more.
 
I don't like RDR's horse feel at all. The way you can run into walls and slide along them is terrible.

I was actually positively surprised by Battlefield 1's horse controls.
 
the problem with TP epona is that people think they just need to move the left joystick, but you really need to use BOTH joysticks, once you realize that she is not too hard to control
 
Red Dead Redemption for sure.

Roach in TW3 is okay for the most part but if I'm doing the regular gallop she stops dead at certain types of terrain because navigating it can be kind of janky.
 
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