Licensed tie-in games can be extremely hit and miss. For every pleasant surprise we get from titles like Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix and DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace, we get titles like Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and the embarrassingly dreadful Popeye. For the most part, licensed games are usually nothing more than a quick cash grab; cheap games that are churned out in order to gain a small profit based off brand recognition alone. So it’s always a nice surprise when a licensed game actually turns out to be good. This was the case with Dragons: Dawn of New Riders, based off the wildly popular How to Train Your Dragon franchise. It was surprisingly fun and well balanced. Now the newest game in the DreamWorks Dragons franchise is out, DreamWorks Dragons: Legends of The Nine Realms. Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near as good.

In Dragons: Legends of The Nine Realms you play as Thunder, the descendant of Toothless and the female Light Fury from How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. After Thunder gets separated from his family, he sets out in search of them through the Hidden World. This consists of several inter-connected realms: the Bio Realm, Fire Realm, Ice Realm, Dark Valley, and King’s Realm. It’s up to Thunder to find his family and protect the realms from a dangerous threat (spoiler alert: it’s a dragon).

The gameplay is by far the most disappointing aspect of Dragons: Legends of The Nine Realms. As I’ve already mentioned, I actually enjoyed my time with the previous game, Dragons: Dawn of New Riders, quite a bit. It played like a Diablo game geared for children, which was a lot of fun. I was hoping for more of the same in this game, but about the only thing they have in common is that they’re both isometric. Its gameplay mostly consists of platforming (yes, platforming with flying dragons) and fighting other dragons. Honestly, both gameplay aspects are pretty terrible. The controls are unreliable at best, and aiming your dragon’s attacks can be especially annoying. The hit detection is also problematic, as there’s little consistency to how close you have to be to effectively land your attacks.

There’s also not much in the way of puzzles in Dragons: Legends of The Nine Realms. Aside from Thunder, you’ll be able to eventually play as three other dragons: Plowhorn, Wu and Wei (a two-headed dragon), and Feathers. Each dragon has its elemental attack that can be used to get past different elemental barriers. This follows the same trope we’ve seen in countless other games: fire barriers are red and need ice to freeze them, ice barriers are blue and need fire to melt them, etc. Obviously, this design choice was made to make things easier for kids to play, but even then there’s no challenge to to anything. Dragons: Legends of The Nine Realms becomes very boring very fast because of this.

Another huge issue is the amount of bugs present in Dragons: Legends of The Nine Realms. A few times during my playthrough it failed to register that I had successfully dispatched an enemy dragon, and it kept trying to lock on to where it was when it was killed. That meant I couldn’t lock on to any other enemies and it would only show the health bar for the deceased dragon, even though it was fully depleted. Each time this happened I would would have to reload my last save and start that level over. There’s also instances where the audio completely cuts out, as well as numerous times where either my dragon or an enemy dragon would get stuck in a wall. Good times!

The graphics in Dragons: Legends of The Nine Realms are extremely underwhelming. Because of its isometric style, the dragons are so far away that you can’t see much detail. Naturally, you can see more during the cutscenes, but even those have mediocre animations. Each map is boring and bland, making the journey feel even more tedious. The framerate is also terrible. It’s pretty unstable throughout the game, but plummets whenever there are enemies onscreen, which is almost all the time.

The sound design fairs better, but not by much. There’s no voice acting, other than a narrator briefly explaining things in the beginning. However, the sound effects are pretty solid throughout. The soundtrack is serviceable, albeit unremarkable. In fact, that pretty much sums up Dragons: Legends of The Nine Realms: unremarkable.

Dragons: Legends of The Nine Realms was hugely disappointing, mainly due to the fact that the last game from this franchise was an unexpected delight. The controls are awful, the settings are bland, and the puzzles are a joke. In fact, about the biggest challenge you’ll find in Dragons: Legends of The Nine Realms is trying to get your dragon to properly aim at a target. It makes me wonder who this game is for. It’s too simplistic and boring for adults, but too difficult and aggravating for children, thanks to its bugs and terrible gameplay. It’s also surprisingly short, only taking about four to five hours to beat, with the shockingly hefty price tag of $50. If you’re a fan of DreamWorks Dragons franchise, do yourself a favor and skip this and play Dragons: Dawn of New Riders instead.

Graphics: 5.0 Due to its isometric style, most of the dragons are so far away you can’t see much detail. The environments are bland. Visuals during cutscenes are mediocre and the framerate plummets whenever enemies are onscreen.	Gameplay: 4.0 The concept of playing as different dragons with varying elemental powers to get past obstacles is a good one, but it’s beyond basic. The controls are unreliable at best, with aiming dragon attacks being particularly difficult at times.
Sound: 7.0 No voice acting other than a narrator briefly in the beginning, but the sound effects are pretty solid all throughout. The soundtrack is serviceable, but pretty much forgettable.	Fun Factor: 5.0 The beyond simple premise and design of the game makes it unappealing for adults, while the poor controls and myriad of bugs make it difficult for kids to play. Fans of the show may still enjoy playing as their favorite dragons, though.
Final Verdict: 5.0

DreamWorks Dragons: Legends of The Nine Realms is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A copy of DreamWorks Dragons: Legends of The Nine Realms was provided by the publisher.