{"id":18888,"date":"2019-03-15T00:01:33","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T00:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=18888"},"modified":"2019-03-07T13:24:31","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T13:24:31","slug":"dreamworks-dragons-dawn-of-new-riders-switch-ps4-xbox-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/15\/dreamworks-dragons-dawn-of-new-riders-switch-ps4-xbox-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Dreamworks Dragons: Dawn of New Riders (Switch, PS4, Xbox One)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The final installment in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy just hit theaters recently, and now you can have even more adventures with your favorite dragons and Vikings with Dawn of New Riders.\u00a0 It\u2019s available on most current home consoles, but reviewed on Switch here.\u00a0 Even though there are events from the third movie happening in this game, Dawn of New Riders is a whole new adventure.\u00a0 In this game, you play as Scribbler, a Viking scholar who has lost his memory.\u00a0 He finds himself on an island refuge for dragons and must fend off trappers.\u00a0 He finds a dragon egg that soon hatches into a new friend: Patch.\u00a0 Together, Scribbler and Patch embark on a 2-D top down Zelda-like adventure to save the dragons.\u00a0 Along the way, they\u2019ll meet up with several familiar characters from the movies and cartoon series, including Hiccup, Toothless, Astrid, and more!<\/p>\n

You play the game in top-down fashion, similar to an older Zelda title.\u00a0 Although this game is a bit more linear.\u00a0 You can equip weapons and armor like helmets, axes, hammers, and swords, and can upgrade them later to be more powerful.\u00a0 Scribbler can swing weapons to attack enemies, roll out of the way, and use potions to refill his health.\u00a0 You can also switch to Patch, who can help you solve puzzles.\u00a0 Patch can step on switches and use his magical dragon breath to activate certain spots.\u00a0 After you complete certain objectives, Patch will grow and learn new abilities.\u00a0 Ice breath allows you to walk on frozen water, while electric breath can power certain statues.\u00a0 After a while, Patch will grow quickly and allow you to ride on his back.\u00a0 Then you can fly to other islands.<\/p>\n

The game flows like this.\u00a0 You\u2019ll travel to a land and explore an outside area, like a grassland campsite or snowy mountains.\u00a0 Then you\u2019ll explore a dungeon and defeat a boss to move the story along.\u00a0 During each section, you\u2019ll defeat enemies and solve puzzles.\u00a0 Hit breakable items to collect herbs and other materials.\u00a0 You\u2019ll want to collect as many as you can, because those materials are what you use to upgrade your weapons and trade herbs for potions when you see Astrid.\u00a0 You\u2019ll want to especially stock up on potions because the baddies can get pretty tough.\u00a0 Astrid appears at certain points in the overworld and in the beginning and end of dungeons.\u00a0 The game saves automatically when you pass by torches.<\/p>\n

While the game is a lot better than most movie licensed titles, it isn\u2019t perfect.\u00a0 Play control feels a little off, and it would be nice to have more frequent save areas, especially in the dungeons.\u00a0 Sometimes the dungeons lock you in, so you can\u2019t get out and fly back to camp to upgrade weapons right away, which is annoying.\u00a0 But otherwise, this game is a lot better than I expected it to be, so if you like the How to Train Your Dragon series and top-down action adventures, you may want to check this one out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dragons: Dawn of New Riders is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Fantasy Violence.\u00a0 When you defeat human enemies, they just fall over and disappear in a puff of smoke or run away.\u00a0 When you fight dragons, you don\u2019t really hit them, but instead you hit glass bottles attached to the dragons that are filled with liquid that controls them.\u00a0 Once you break them, the dragon is freed and flies away.\u00a0 Reading skill is a must for the text, and younger gamers may find it a bit too difficult.\u00a0 If you\u2019re OK with your kids watching the movies, they\u2019ll be OK with the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final installment in the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy just hit theaters recently, and now you can have even more adventures with your favorite dragons and Vikings with Dawn of New Riders.\u00a0 It\u2019s available on most current home consoles, but reviewed on Switch here.\u00a0 Even though there are events from the third movie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews","category-movie-reviews","category-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18888"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18890,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18888\/revisions\/18890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}