It’s been quite a while since I actually wanted to punch a video game. Omnibus came close I’ll admit, but that game was just endearingly frustrating. It didn’t feel like a personal insult. Trials of the Blood Dragon, however, does. It’s like a bad first impression, followed by a brisk slap to the face with a cold haddock. I’ll be fair, I was biased against this game since it was announced (and released) at E3. The giddy rush of “new Blood Dragon game!” followed by the confusion and icy disappointment of “wait, and it’s a Trials game?” was one of the most distinctly unpleasant game reveals in recent memory.
To be clear, the original Blood Dragon, an out-of-nowhere expansion pack for FarCry 3, was the perfect storm of nostalgia and guilty pleasure. A neon-soaked, deliciously self-aware send-up of 80s action movies and pop culture, where you played as a cyber-commando voiced by Aliens and Terminator star Michael Biehn? It’s like Ubisoft accidentally made the game everyone wanted. And instead of a proper sequel we get…this.
Granted none of this is the fault of developer RedLynx, the longstanding studio in charge of the arcade motocross-style Trials series. It’s just that Ubisoft has saddled them with one of the most perfectly-tuned action-comedy franchises of the last few years, told them to turn it into a Trials game, and as expected they don’t do a great job of carrying the story or gameplay forward. Supposedly, Rex Power Colt retired from being a Cyber-commando after the first game and had a couple kids with Dr. Elizabeth Darling, his fling from Blood Dragon. Then Dr. Darling vanishes for no reason, Rex goes back to war (we’re up to Vietnam War 4 at this point) and his kids are raised as cyber-commandos in his absence. Now they have their own missions fighting neo-communists in Vietnam-controlled China.
If it sounds like one of those terrible, early-90s Saturday morning cartoon spinoffs for a popular 80s action movie, well that’s because it’s supposed to. The problem is that none of those cartoon series are remembered very fondly, and teenage sidekicks of action heroes invariably developer Wesley Crusher syndrome. Rex’s kids are somehow as cardboard as they are annoying. More glaring however, is that this “radical 90s!” premise would be a bad setup for a first-person, Far Cry-style Blood Dragon sequel, but for a Trials game it’s even more jarring.
In terms of gameplay, Trials of the Blood Dragon is an odd mix. Fans of the trials series will feel right at home from the start, as the quick, arcade-style Trials gameplay is in fine form. As Rex’s son Slayter, you’ll zip through the flashy 90s-themed levels on your motorbike, and occasionally blast away at enemy soldiers or obstacles. Checkpoints are frequent, as is wiping out. It’s basically just Trials with a little bit of target shooting and pop culture references.
This means that it has the same quick, punchy, “retry a dozen times until you get it right” mechanics from many of the current arcade-style revivals. Unlike Hotline Miami however, where the constant trial and error death and repetition is supposed to symbolize some debauched, acid-trip of murder and rebirth, Trials of the Blood Dragon actually grades you based on your failures. You final score is docked for every time you die or wipe out, encouraging you to replay levels over and over until you can do it in your sleep. You might be able to tell, though, that this isn’t a game I plan on replaying all that much.
The problems come in with Slayter’s twin sister, Roxanne. She’s more of a foot soldier so she ditches her bike early and goes it alone, slow and at times stealthy. This is where Trials of the Blood Dragon really starts to fall apart. These side-scrolling platformer levels are painfully rudimentary, with stiff controls, floaty, imprecise movement and some pretty cursory shooting. It’s like the publisher mandated that because it was a Blood Dragon spinoff, there had to be some guns and some shooting of the cyber-enemies and explosions and hey kids you remember Power Rangers right?
I’ve played a handful of the game’s rather brief level set but I’m still not sure who this game is for. Trials fans won’t like that their arcade motocross game is constantly interrupted by 2D platformer levels. Fans of Blood Dragon won’t be too excited about the Trials levels, and they’ll absolutely hate the stiff, obligatory action-platforming. The presentation and admittedly great soundtrack try to distract from all this, but a bad, confused game is still bad and confused at the end of the day. I’ll have more detail in my final review, but so far Trials of the Blood Dragon has left me cold and scratching my head.
