How To Train Your Dragon NDS
How To Train Your Dragon on the Nintendo DS fairs pretty well with good use of the touch screen and well done graphics and audio but the gameplay is still repetitive on the handheld.
Ratings:
Graphics & Audio: 20/25,
Gameplay: 14/25,
Creativity 12/25,
Fun 14/25
Total: 60/100
While the console version of How To Train Your Dragon falls in the sad but all too true typical average game from animated film genre the Nintendo DS version is better. The handheld version on the Nintendo DS does stand out as a bit above average with good graphics, well done use of the touch pad and fair battles with the dragons.
How To Train Your Dragon on the handheld does stand out a bit as a good game that kids will like if they are at all interested in the feature film the game is based on. How To Train Your Dragon starts out with the choice between Astride and Hiccup and customizing your dragon that amounts to making your dragon look from silly to downright ridiculous with over sized fangs or huge hammer tail and more.
You start your adventuring by learning how to train your dragon and fight with him as well as learn how to make armor upgrades for better fighting capabilities. That about sums up this game but they did players a favor by limiting the gameplay down to the basics and concentrating on keeping things neat and simple.
After choosing your trainer and dragon the map appears on the lower screen which has various routes available for you to take while the upper screen has the information or animations during the map screens. During fighting you use the touch screen to choose attacks, defense or moves and the buttons and D pad are almost never used.
Attacks and defense are simple and using the touch screen makes fighting actually pretty simple by quick use of the stylus instead of button mashing. You simply press the attack or defense choice and the top screen will show the fight in the turn based match.
Your fights are won and lost by the level of your dragon, the armor upgrades you have and the attacks and defense you use to hit individual dragons. Some dragons are more susceptible to fire attacks while others are hurt more by physical hits so knowing something about the dragons helps.
The higher level your dragon the more hit points it will have as well as better attacks and defense but you can also string combinations together to deal specific types of damage. The combinations work well and there is no button mashing because of the turn based gaming which does help the game.
Using the touch screen to choose your attacks and having things as a turn based lets you concentrate on your tactics and strategy and less about how fast you can hit the buttons. The game slows down a bit due to the turn based fighting and adds a sense of accomplishment when you do win and lose.
Upgrading your armor, moves and attacks is all done as part of moving around on the map and training and buying or selling objects that make up the various armors is all done easily by menus and the touch screen. The game also has some mini-games during your learning and leveling up but the games only add to the fun and not take away from your adventure as they are simple enough but varied enough to be enjoyable.
A few times you may not understand what needs to get done in the mini games but after a try or two you can figure things out and kids are sure to be better at these than us adults. How To Train Your Dragon is based on the animated film and is geared toward kids and the Nintendo DS version is enjoyable enough that kids may like it more than the other console versions.
Graphics are fairly good for the map and a little better for the fight scenes and the occasional voice acting is well done with real human voices. No cheesy acting here and the game does lend itself to the handheld very well but the main fighting looks very good even if you cannot completely control your dragon in real time.
The game does have a tie in to the movie but is not story based and has the fighting and learning how to fight with a few mini games and the armor building parts. How To Train Your Dragon on the Nintendo DS is a fairly good game and well worth the cost of about $30 for a fun game on the handheld that kids are sure to enjoy at least some.