Trials of the Blood Dragon is an insanely fun title filled with random moments and some of the craziest action I’ve ever seen in a platformer. Now all of you might be wondering why I said platformer. Well, while Trials of the Blood Dragon features the traditional Trials gameplay—even though the difficulty has been significantly decreased—it also incorporates platforming and shooting mechanics. The motorcycling remains the highlight of the experience because the shooting and platforming feels generic and floaty. Luckily the riding gameplay becomes really good towards the end even though it never lives up to the sophistication Trials Fusion offers.
As you can guess from the title, Trials of the Blood Dragon focuses on cyber commando Rex Power Colt. Well, not really. It focuses on his children. If you don’t know, at the end of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, Rex retired and married Darling and had two children named Slayter and Roxanne. Their mother leaves and their father goes missing and in his footsteps they decide to become cyber commandos. During their escapades they end up in Vietnam during Vietnam War 4. The locals have managed to harness the power of blood dragons and use them to produce unlimited energy that gives them advanced technology and the might to take on the United States. It’s up to Slayter and Roxanne to stop them and put an end to the war.
While this might seem like a pretty standard mission there are other elements like an alien invasion and space battles. Trials of the Blood Dragon is a bizarre experience but in the best possible way. It’s so good but so random and hilarious. There are a couple of dozen missions but in order to get the secret ending and attain a perfect rank, you have to do them multiple times. My first playthrough lasted me four hours but I’m sure that can be extended if you’re a perfectionist.
There are some issues with the game though. Firstly, the voice acting of the male child is terrible. It’s devoid of charm and emotion. The actor who voices Roxanne does an amazing job. Even the supporting cast is great aside from the second lead. Why they didn’t pay attention to the voice acting for such a major character confuses me greatly. Thankfully the dialogues are funny and the overall charisma of the other individuals makes up for Slayter’s mediocrity. How I wish they would’ve found someone like Roxanne to voice Slayter’s lines.
Apart from that, I wish the motorcycling gameplay was as challenging as Trials Fusion because this game feels like a step down from that. I realize that they wanted to make it accessible for everyone but maybe giving us an option to enable a more difficult experience would’ve benefitted the title and satisfied hardcore Trials fans. I’m sure it can be achieved without sacrificing playability or openness. However, considering that I couldn’t actually finish Trials Fusion because I wasn’t good enough, I can understand why the developers made this decision. Trials of the Blood Dragon is basically a sequel to Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and a story-driven game. It’s important to be able to finish it and reach some conclusion.
Going back to the platforming and shooting parts, I feel that they’re unnecessary even though they add another layer of gameplay to the title. There are also difficult jet-packing levels which require the utmost precision. Unfortunately, even though the game runs at a smooth sixty frames per second throughout the experience, the controls during these sections feel unwieldy. I’m not sure why this is the case but I bet it has something to do with the fact that they’re designed for motorcycling and not really shooting or jumping from one platform to the next. However, they’re quite passable after you get used to them and dare I say, even enjoyable towards the end when you’re thrust into the strangest scenarios imaginable. The weirdness of Trials of the Blood Dragon really appeals to me and enhances its charm. Also, there are really witty commercials in it which remind me of films from the good old days.
Summary
Overall, Trials of the Blood Dragon is a great game which builds upon the excellent Trials gameplay and adds more layers to it to offer a compelling experience. I just wish the shooting and platforming mechanics were tighter and that the Trials motorcycling gameplay was as strong as the mechanics offered in Trials Fusion. If you want a quick game to blast though or if you were a fan of the original Blood Dragon title, give this one a go. It’s definitely recommended by me at its low price.
Asher is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 1110 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: wrote over 1,100 ICXM pieces on Xbox news, hardware reviews, and platform commentary before joining Future plc’s Windows Central in 2017.