Review of the 90s retro-inducing Trials Of The Blood Dragon

Trials of the Blood Dragon is, at its heart, a side-scrolling motocross obstacle course game. With guns and cyborgs.

Even the menu evokes serious nostalgia.

THE 1990s were an amazing time to be a kid. There was a never-ending stream of awesome games for our Sega Mega Drive or Super Nintendo console systems, our parents knew we could leave the house without being abducted by aliens, and the sight of youths in their backyard with an air rifle didn’t result in tactical response team call-outs.

And the cartoons — truly, it was a golden age, combining 80s classics such as GI Joe and Voltron with new additions such as Ren and Stimpy, Rugrats, Animaniacs and that threatened harbinger of the social apocalypse, Beavis and Butthead. Good times, good times.

According to the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association’s Digital Australia 2016 report, the average age of a gamer in Australia is 33, which proves there’s a good market for retro nostalgia — and one which Ubisoft is obviously aiming to get a slice of with Trials of the Blood Dragon.

Developed by RedLynx software and published by Ubisoft for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Trials of the Blood Dragon is, at its heart, a side-scrolling motocross obstacle course game. With guns and cyborgs.

Part of RedLynx’s Trials series of games, the player has to complete a series of increasingly difficult (and gravity-defying) courses as the timer clicks down, with plenty of opportunities to pull off impressive stunts or — more likely — stack spectacularly.

The latest addition to the Trials series takes place in the Blood Dragon universe, previously unveiled as a popular and humorous add-on to Ubisoft’s first-person shooter game Far Cry 3 in 2013.

Trials of the Blood Dragon absolutely nails the early-mid 1990s aesthetic with a laser-sighted tactical nailgun. From the jumpy, scratchy, VHS-taped-off-TV visual effects to the neon colours to the excellent synthesised music soundtrack (provided by Australian synth duo Power Glove), wrapped up in a 16-bit console-inspired package, the game is a wicked nostalgia trip.

The plot of the game basically involves taking everything cliche relating to 1980s and 1990s Saturday morning action cartoons, throwing it in a metaphorical blender and then also letting you ride a motorbike and shoot cyborgs.

The original Blood Dragon game was an extremely well-liked add-on for Far Cry 3 and basically turned the game into a neon-coloured 1980s sci-fi action adventure, right down to literally starring Michael Biehn as the cyborg-soldier main character.

Trials of the Blood Dragon is set 12 years later and stars that character’s son and daughter, themselves cybernetically augmented, and going on dangerous motorbike-related missions against the enemies of America/Freedom.

There are 30 levels, all interspersed with story scenes done in a cartoon style akin to something like The Venture Bros, while the actual game levels themselves evoke a feeling of controlling a toy action figure in a variety of imaginative settings.

The controls are deceptively simple — accelerate, stop, or lean forwards or backwards for balance — but prove much harder in practice, especially as the levels get more and more difficult, sometimes frustratingly so.

For the first time in the Trials series you can also dismount from the bike and run through parts of levels in an old-school platformer style, leaping over boxes, dodging laser fire and navigating jumping puzzles onto moving platforms while avoiding deadly laser trip-wires; all of which perfectly fit the 90s game vibe the game is going for.

There are some clever touches to the levels as well, with a series of missions in Florida expertly combining the neon style of Miami Vice and overt “Just Say No To Drugs” themes with nods to the indie rampage game Hotline Miami; while the Riders of the Lost Grail missions pay homage to the Indiana Jones films; another level draws inspiration from Starship Troopers.

All this 90s nostalgia is great, but the actual gameplay itself isn’t particularly deep — ride your motorbike through a variety of levels, shoot at things, crash into things, restart from a checkpoint, miss a jump and die, restart from a checkpoint, make the tricky jump but fall into a lava pit, swear at the screen, restart from a checkpoint ... actually, it’s quite a lot like playing a 1990s platformer, now I think about it.

My major criticisms — besides the increasingly frustrating levels as the difficulty ramps up — are that the game isn’t very long (about five hours or so by my reckoning) and it’s not particularly involved.

It’s nice to play a game that’s so unashamedly straightforward and doesn’t pretend to be more than it is, however. Trials of the Blood Dragon isn’t a AAA blockbuster title by any stretch, but if you’re looking for a neon retro trip with a few laughs thrown in, it’s worth checking out. It’s a short ride, but even with moments of frustration, it’s still a fun one for the most part.

Originally published as Review of the 90s retro-inducing Trials Of The Blood Dragon