Buckle the fuck up, gamers, because this is UMA COUNTRY
Curiously enough, the game launches around the same time Pippa should go live tomorrow, so she better hope her car doesn't explode on her. While pre-downloading, or downloading the full ~10 GB package in-game, you'll be hit with an instrumental version of this song on loop:
Here's the original trailer that introduced the IP, and after the immediate response of "lol wat" nearly killed it on impact (specifically at the ~15 second ice skating segment), the game was delayed and re-worked extensively, while the Anime went full-speed ahead.
Because no game + joking reception = billions of yen potentially wasted in creating a new multi-media IP, CyGames turned Gold Ship into a marketing icon, and made her a chuuba to keep up the interest while the game was reworked. But, since this has been documented to hell and back again, I'll just leave a clip of P A K A T U B E:
Nearly 10 years later, more and more Uma Musume would join Paka Tube, and they continue promoting the IP via chuuba propaganda (alongside the usual advertising, clips, skits, interviews, etc):
As for the game itself, it's difficult to find single cuts of gameplay to showcase because it's a whole lot of everything with the concerts, the training, the stories, but the main draw of the game is the realistic horse (girl) racing with live commentary by public broadcasters:
The winning Uma Musume puts on a victory concert, so combining horse betting with idol culture is a surefire way to print money for the Japanese audience, which is then put back into the fully-fledged 3D concerts (and pretty much every aspect of the IP, but you get the idea):
Watching the anime should also give you a good idea of what to expect, alongside actually building a connection with the Uma Musume you later meet in the game, which is all according to keikaku for CyGames (keikaku means horse girls). It's serious stuff, not at all like the meme that was the original IP trailer, for example:
...Which means I am yet again recommending watching the currently airing Uma Musume anime, Cinderella Gray, which itself is peak fiction (absolutely no joking whatsoever, if you are even remotely interested in the IP, you should probably watch this):
That's probably enough pre-amble out of the way, otherwise I would be here for ages regurgitating what I find. Since the Global Server is, indeed, going to have acceleration (constant banners + events, but all of them the same duration), use the gift of foresight to save up for the Uma Musume + Support Cards that you want. You know what's coming, you know what to skip, if you want to min-max efficiently and spend the least amount of money on the game possible (challenge level for Pippa: impossible).
If you have the game installed already from the DMM version, you need to
completely uninstall it - manually delete the leftover folders - or you'll face the same errors that are currently plaguing the steam forums (they are incapable of reading)
Otherwise, get ready for Pippa's pre-midlife crisis of deciding whether to spend money fixing her car, or pulling for horse girls!
By the time I started writing this effortpost, it was about ~16 hours to game launch, let's see how long it takes on-and-off until then!