While not totally unlikable, How to Train Your Dragon isn't about to win any awards for originality or even polished same-old.
For a short while, it will appeal to the same whipper-snappers who enjoyed the movie - or will enjoy it as the case may be.
To play How to Train Your Dragon, you're looking at an Easy Bake Oven recipe that is one part Pokemon battle card game, one part role-playing game (RPG) hokum, one part puppy simulator, blend and stick under a lightbulb. Or, in the case of the Wii version, waggle and stick under a nightlight.
In other words, a game of reading a lot of words (not to be confuse with, say, literature) and going on quests (to be easily confused with wild goose chases for the sake of extending play), plus rifling through attribute/attack/pet-care menus, earning/finding/pilfering items and upgrades for your fantastical fire breather, and entering tournaments because, you know, "the point."
It's not actually bad as role-playing Pokemon puppy simulators go. Quite involved and sometimes skill-testing and everything. Purdy-enough to look at, too, though hardly eye-popping.
In fact, tested by no less than three tykes ages 6, 9 and 12 (family planning much?), How to Train Your Dragon was enthusiastically met by all, with quite a bit of "aw yeah!" "whoooaa!" and phwaaa crrssssh dragon smashing noises, too.
Within a short span, however, the 12-year-old got tired of the 6-year-old asking for help, because of the combo attacks that seemed counter-intuitive or broken (we'll never know); the 9-year-old got tired of reading all the text aloud to the 6-year-old (who can read just fine, just not at a speed conducive to "fun," more like "how to pass grade 1"), and the lot of them went "what else ya got?" within a few hours.
Slacker reviewers that they are (not like their dad), none of them cared to actually finish the game. It is assumed that most 6, 9 and 12 year olds won't care to, either. It's also assumed that gamers age 13 and up won't even bother starting.
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