Well this is a weird game.
I'm not the type to play a bad game for a few minutes then quit and talk trash on it. I understand the work that could've gone into a title like this, albeit perhaps work aimed at squeezing every last penny out of a very, very young and impressionable audience. I like to get a good feel for every feature before I pass judgement.
And I must say, I have gotten quite a feel for this game.
The first problem here is that these developers are working with an IP that is very clearly targeted at a young audience. I know a lot of adults who go crazy over Toothless and I'm sure you do, too, but the game is designed in every corner to be aimed at really small kids. They'll get their parents to download it or they'll play in-browser, they'll see the shiny armor or dragons or they'll try to use the farm and lord knows that most kids aren't patient enough to wait 10 minutes for a plant to grow. So they'll get their parents to buy them gems and the money JumpStart wants is made. It's really damn grimy.
The second problem, ignoring the business model and focusing on gameplay, is that it is very buggy and prone to crashing. In the (at the time of writing) 9 hours I've spent playing, I have crashed while simply jumping around or walking about 6 times. I've frozen at a loading screen 3 times. And my menus have glitched and stayed onscreen with no way to close them about 4 times. That's just 3 kinds of bugs I've run into, and I'm sure only just 3 of many that OTHERS have had to put up with as well.
And as far as the questing goes. What the hell? It consists of walking back and forth between movie characters, getting shown a little movie clip sometimes, answering some trivia, and being told to go do the same minigames over and over. Of these minigames I've gotten to play so far, there's a target practice railshooter thing and a flying challenge. Initially you cannot use your dragon to play these, you need to use Toothless every hour for the railshooter, and you have to use another dragon for the flying challenges. For the flying nonsense, there's also a huge repetoire of dragons from the movies/show that you can use as well, but of course, only if you shell out the cash for the lovely microtransactions. And my favorite part of that is that every single one of them is 250 gems (about $2.00)..... except Toothless. He's 500! (about $5.00).
You can use your own dragon after you level it up and then age it. Teen years are good enough for the railshooter and glide challenges, and then adult is what you need for actual flying stuff. But all this takes "Energy" from your dragon, which you can only replenish by either waiting or by feeding him fish you've caught in the fishing minigame thing. Well I mean, there's also microtransactions to help with the whole energy ordeal, but seeing as so far there've been microtransactions tied to almost every single facet of gameplay, this shouldn't be any surprise at all.
There's also the farming. The way this works is you have your little plots to plant seeds and you can eventually get coops and pens for some animals like sheep, yak, chickens, and some seasonal stuff as well (at time of writing, turkeys are purchaseable. I own one because of the microtransaction gems you're given for free to start with. Gotta love turkeys, man). All of this works off of a timer. All of it. Every last bit of this is timed, and every single part of it can be "hurried" with microtransactions. Feed your sheep to get it to grow wool. Or feed it, then dish out some gems to make it instantly grow wool. Plant some cool plants and wait a certain amount of time dependent on the plant itself. OR, pay some gems and have that sucker instantly matured (just like real life). Ran out of water in your well for watering your plants? No big deal, gems are god in this land. Pay out a few of them and your well will be full again.
And my absolute favorite part about farming (and fishing, but it's not even that notable to explain or talk about in my opinion), my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE PART is that there's bounty boards tied to exchanging your farming/fishing goods for money. In every scenario where I mathed out how much I'd be getting back compared to how much gold I was putting in to producing these goods, the amount I was getting back was NOMINAL. It was like 40-50 at absolute maximum for profit, after pumping in something like 100 to begin with. I understand the MMO grind, but take note that you can spend some gems to get a big lump sum of enticing, juicy gold, and realize just what kind of game this is (if you hadn't realized already).
There are almost no redeeming factors for this game. The fishing is kind of fun (although buying new rods takes gems, and that's just.... god dammit. Just why?), the farming is okay if you're a fan of Harvest Moon-y kind of mechanics, and the flight is kind of fun even if it's really clunky and you get stuck on terrain a lot. That's it. That's all I can think of that I've had fun with in my entire 9 hour first sitting with the game.
In other words, unless you REALLY, REALLY like this series or you love to laugh at poor, greedy design at every turn (like I do), avoid this title. And honestly there's no reason to NOT avoid it. There are so many good/passable free to play MMOs on Steam now. Go have fun in one of those.
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