Now, designs. Awful. Even standing on it's own, the humans all have their own style to the point where none of them really look like they fit in the same show. Most of the character's eyes are too massive, while Hiccup rip-off's are small and far away from each other, and some people's heads are way too big for their full body model.
The new dragons almost all look terrible, including the Night Light dragon that's apparently a descendant of Toothless. What a coinky-dink to pair with Hiccup rip-off.
The Night Light is barrel-chested with a waistline that makes me question where it's intestinal tract is anymore and is given a version of the pug treatment with it's face compared to Night/Light Fury's, and weird broken wrists that make it look like a horse when it sits. There's a two-headed dragon with a red face and a blue face, which you think would make the body purple, but no, it's a gross yellow with it's wings still blue and red patterned. The faces are also just weird, based on Eastern dragons that just don't seem right (Maybe it's the attempt to make it more HTTYD-like?). A red and green splotchy dragon with a crest(?) and fan on the end of it's tail with eyes way too big. The only kind of ugly-cute dragon is the beetle-rhino one cause it reminds me of a weird bulldog in a gross way.
There's a large gray and black tunneling dragon that looks kind of cool, but also doesn't match with historical tunnelling dragons with just a fat, four-limbed design.
A digusting tiny white dragon with a singular horn, buck-teeth and HUGE eyes, and nothing else other than wings and claws. It literally looks like one of those awful Poopsie toys come to life. Also, it screeches HORRIBLY and I had to skim that section. There are also more tiny dragons that look similar except light purple and they have the same unicorn horn plastered all over their bodies.
Seriously, whoever signed off on those little pests designs needs to either reevaluate their lives or never sign off on designs again.
There's this grossly flabby dragon with an alligator/snake head and tusks, a curled tail like a pigs, and tiny wings with a full design that makes the Gronkle look like a model (I'm being serious).
There are more dragon designs, but I'll leave it there. Again, there's absolutely no cohesion in design with each looking like it belongs to a different show. It's only made worse by the fact that they use designs and models from the other shows, models like the Terrible Terror, Skrill, Monstrous Nightmare, and Razorwhip. Dragons that only highlight how out of place the dragons and humans in the show are within the franchise.
The animation is subpar, half the time the character's and dragons expressions being unreadable or far less concerned/excited/etc than they're supposed to be. Movements are stiff, hair clips in and out of character's shoulders, and characters look photoshopped into the background half the time rather than being a part of it. They had the Monstrous Nightmare running on it's back legs instead of crawling around on it's wings like it's supposed to.
By the end of Season 3 (Honestly, most of Season 2 as well), the show becomes pretty episodic with big events happening the last one or two episodes. It felt more like Dreamworks Dragons: Riders of Berk, if DD:RoB gave me a headache just to look at and watch.
As a standalone, I'd barely give it a 4/10. There's definitely worse things to watch out there.
However, I can't review it as a standalone given the sheer amount of half-baked and almost insulting attempts to get you to connect by referencing HTTYD.
Remember Forbidden Friendship? The over five minute scene with a beautiful soundtrack in the background where you can see the barely tolerant relationship between Hiccup and Toothless slowly become more friendly? Well, here's the Hiccup rip-off and Toothless rip-off doing a poor recreation that ends in the Hiccup rip-off eating a frozen fishstick because it's exactly like Hiccup eating the fish!
Remember Romantic Flight/Going For a Ride? The scene where Astrid begrudingly sits on Toothless and is shown that dragons aren't just mindless, violent creatures in a way that changes her worldview from that of a dragon-hunter? Well, here's goth girl and Hiccup rip-off doing a similar thing, except this doesn't change her world-views because she was enamored with dragons anyways, so there's no impact.
Remember how the credits of the HTTYD movies have really intricate concept designs of dragons? Here's a weird attempt in our credits where the art doesn't look nearly like the same design as the HTTYD credit ones and looks flat.
Remember Hiccup's mom's breast helmet? Remember the hand against the snout thing to represent a bond? Remember the scale firesuits the original characters in HTTYD had by the third movie? Remember all these devices and items from viking times that all have the same Night Fury symbol from Hiccup? Hey, hey, isn't Tom (Hiccup rip-off) so quirky for being adventurous because he's got viking blood?
I went into this with low expectations. And I was STILL disappointed. This didn't need to be made, or rather, this didn't need to be a HTTYD show. It could have been it's own thing and it probably wouldn't have been criticised as much. Key words, 'as much'.
This series does not 'pay respects', as a different review worded it, to the original series with nods to the past. It JAMS half-baked nostalgia down your throat while being so painfully boring and tedious to watch that my eyes glazed over almost constantly. It is not 'as great as HTTYD' or 'the best spin-off that ever happened to the HTTYD franchise'.
If I could give it a zero, I would, but 1/10 will have to do. You want a more recent modern spin-off cartoon of a beloved franchise? Watch Camp Cretaceous, at least the first few seasons. It's not 10/10, but it's a lot better than this crud.
I hope to whatever deity exists that this doesn't get anymore seasons and that HTTYD can rest in peace as a franchise rather than being callously drug back up and beaten for more content.
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