If all creators of animated films could please put down their storyboards and their strudel for a moment? Here’s one small tidbit of advice that will save you time, money and your reputation, while saving gamers time, money and stress-induced nosebleeds: if you are going to create a video game version of your movie — though these days “if” inevitably turns into “when” without pause or cause — choose an audience please. Either have a game with fast-moving, simplistic elements for the kids or have something more complex and deep that reaches beyond the movie for gamers of average age.
How to Train Your Dragon could have been, should have been, something more. Instead, gamers won’t work through the movie’s plot in their own way, won’t develop the kinship with their dragon that was mirrored in the film and won’t unleash their dragon’s powers upon the evil hordes of ancient past. In hindsight, hoping for any of this was an act of futility. From the title alone, anyone can see yet another poorly executed animated movie tie-in coming from a mile away.
The title says it all. You are playing this game to train dragons. It would be nice to have more to report, but that’s it. Everything revolves around that. Most of your time is fittingly spent training your dragon, collecting more dragons and getting those dragons ready for tournaments pitting you against other dragons. While there is an adventure component to the game, at its heart this is a fighting game in disguise. Think Mortal Kombat but with dragons.
Also fitting is the fact that the dragons are the best part of the game. There is enough variety in the style and look of the dragons to please everyone and the customizing, feeding and fighting components were enjoyable. Even with the barrage of weaker portions of the game, you will find yourself strangely connected to the various dragons you train, even looking forward to returning to your home to feed it the recipes that keep your fiery friend happy, rested, and loyal.
The combos you unlock as you progress through tournaments and level up your dragon are equally enticing, but the action will either become too frustrating or too repetitive for the intended audience. On the adult side, the horribly cheesy dialogue and pedantic, collecting-recipe-ingredient side missions will either have you snoozing or have you wishing you had your own dragon to send this game to a fiery grave.
With the myriad of animated films being released and the unfortunately inevitable video game tie-in, the gaming industry is missing out on a key opportunity. It would be refreshing to see a game where the graphics are as close to the movie as the current hardware will allow, or a game that is more of a companion to the film than a tie-in, taking the plot into new directions and unlocking character histories. As it stands, games like How to Train Your Dragon become just one of many movie-based games that should have been left as an example of the old adage, “if you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all.”
When he’s not teaching junior high, St. Albert Catholic alumnus Derek Mitchell spends his free time connected to a video game console.
How to Train Your Dragon
Platform: Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360<br />Genre: Fighting<br />Online: None<br />Rating: E (Everyone)
