Berk Is Back All Dreadfall-y – Dragons: Rise of Berk Review

Update October 19, 2017 Back up to 5 stars! After a couple of torturous days (as much for the developer as the players) not being able to spend time with our dragons, Ludia came through in a big way. First I have to emphasize how much we players appreciate the communication through the ordeal. That went a huge way to this game earning its stars back. I got a helpful response here in the App Store, a well-worded “we’re working on it” email response to my Helpshift support request, and several posts were written on Facebook keeping players apprised of the situation. The gift of runes is also much appreciated. THANK YOU, LUDIA! Our dragons were very hungry but very happy to have us back. The Dreadfall (Berk’s Halloween season) update is our favorite. We love Berk in black-light! It looks awesome and the dragons appear to like it as well since they are all lit up. There are gresscars (jack-o-lanterns) scattered around for extra festiveness. Ludia has added a couple special events and a host of new dragons to get and raise. A few of these rank into our favorites in the game (hopefully we can get the ones we want most. We’ll have to wait and see). We can once again sort our dragons in the hangar by level and they kept the search option in both the hangar and the Book of Dragons. This is a major plus as our collection is growing (we have 247 dragons now) and it could be difficult to find “the one” we are looking for. The new Trader Johann ship look is nice and so are the new card designs, not so busy. Gobber’s Duties are a nice little push to participate more in the minigame portions of RoB and are a chance to get more runes. The Monthly Event Calendar rewards have been lessened but this doesn’t bother us as the main goal in the game is the dragons. The added islands are a good way to expand, but they are a bit too pricy. Ludia has run 2 more Gauntlet events since our original post. They were still fun but the rewards were rather sparse in comparison to the first Gauntlet. (We made out like bandits in the first one. I guess they couldn’t reasonably keep that up.) Overall a great game. We were quite bothered by our inability to access it over the last few days, which we would not have been if the game was only average. Our original post still holds true, so read on for more general details about the game as a whole. (I’m leaving the 2 other October update posts on here for the time being so some of the above comments & the developer response below make some sense.) Original Post, mid July 2017: My son and I have been playing Dragons: Rise of Berk for about 3 years now. It's been a fun way for him to learn "money" and time management skills. It can get expensive if you choose but it can be played well without spending any real money. There are lots of opportunities to get the premium in-game currency without having to purchase it. Neither is it necessary to be a member of the Dragon Riders (subscription option). We currently have 228 dragons. It's interesting how attached we get to them. One of our favorite features is naming our dragons. Trying to find names that fit has become another learning experience. The graphics are fun and colorful with lots of detail if you have a screen big enough to view it well on. The audio gets a bit annoying and repetitive (as it does in all app games) so we leave the sound off most of the time. The (first) Gauntlet event was great. We did most of it in one day because we didn't want to put it down, even though the event ran for 7 days. We hope they do something like it again. It was difficult enough to be challenging but not impossible, and lots of chances for great prizes as well as lots of chances to try over again if a section didn't work out the first time. The PvP Brawl is not as good as the main part of the game. The player always goes up against bots instead of other players and the simple strategy and mechanics get boring. The new "evade" skill is frustrating since the opponent evades about 4 times to the player's 1. We have gotten our dragons to high enough levels that the Raid minigame is a waste of time (we have an "excellent" chance of beating Drago with a single dragon, even our 35th ranked one), so we rarely bother with it, but it was fun when we were first starting out. Freeing the armored "defender" (also called "battle") dragons is satisfying. All in all, the game is well worth it. It's a great way to fill in a 5-10 minute gap in real life activity several times a day and is as fun for adults as for kids. It's fun to work out which dragons you want the most and figure out the ways to maximize your chances of getting them and exciting when you do (even more so when you get a surprise 1). Leveling them up can take a while but it's fun planning which to train and when and watching them grow. Having your game linked to your Facebook account is great because you can play across multiple devices without losing any data, but you can play as a "guest" without linking your game. Update October 17, 2017: Just installed the new Dreadfall update. Can’t get past the loading screen before it crashes. NOT COOL Ludia! Please fix. Update October 18, 2017: The developer response below was posted today. I really do appreciate the increased effort by Ludia (developer) to communicate with players (as evidenced both by their response here and multiple responses and an “alert” post on Facebook) as well as attending to the crashing issue affecting many players across multiple platforms. I had already submitted a support request including our support code before I posted this update to my original review, so for now I will just be patient and hope for a patch soon. Bumping the star score back up to 3 until the patch, at which time I will edit this review. Thank you Ludia. It is a great game (or I wouldn’t be so bothered that we can’t currently play).
Review by Devil's Wife on Dragons: Rise of Berk.