So this is coming from someone very integrated in the HTTYD community (kingofthewilderwest), so bear that in mind with my following review.

Although I play School of Dragons on a fairly regular basis and don’t think poorly of the game, I will be honest: it is not the best game out there. Though I am hesitantly selecting "RECOMMEND," it is only with a lot of qualifications that I am giving the "recommendation". I imagine most people will not like the game, and I would only recommend it to certain people for certain reasons.

Its problems, in brief: the game is fairly simplistic and the quests are not at all challenging to complete (well, nothing is hard to do in SOD). The quests, because they are so basic, quickly feel like the same-old same-old. Many of the quests and conversations are geared toward children with some aim of education, so you will receive more than your fair share of educational overviews of glaciers, fish facts, evolution, prisms, and lots of ecology. The graphics are very poor and there are many mistakes with solid object collisions. Most of the side games are not too interesting, and are at best not very special. Loading time can be slow for the game, even for those of us who have good gaming computers and a great internet connection. The chat system has so much unnecessary word censoring that it is enormously challenging to communicate in English (you can’t even type numbers without being censored), and I cannot say a word to people in Spanish to converse bilingually. Members get a lot of wonderful cheats but it’s not worth the price paying for it. Last but probably most frustrating to players of SOD… the game is **extraordinarily** prone to bugs and errors to the point there is always some constant Thing that needs to be fixed.

Nevertheless, I still play the game. With this extremely large and diverse list of negatives, you probably are wondering why I even bother.

As someone who is integrally involved in the How to Train Your Dragon community, School of Dragons allows me a way to fly on the wings of a dragon and interact with many other individuals who share the same love and live in the same fandom. School of Dragons allows you to customize a Viking of any race or skin color, get yourself a dragon of any species or color you can imagine, and fly around a world of many islands. Frankly, so long as you have the money to buy more stable rooms, the number of dragons you can own is freakishly high. School of Dragons recently has been expanding the number of islands, locations, and quests you can check out, and the expansions have been fun to see. You enter the world of HTTYD. Though the graphics are limited, there are some beautiful views you can appreciate, and it’s great to be able to boast about your own dragons. There are always people present playing School of Dragons. You can race each other for trophies, join a clan, and try to get your clan to rank higher than other clans by the number of trophies you have – that’s sort of cool! And even if you are not a member, if you log in frequently enough, you can eventually collect all the features that the members have, such as the expansion packs to new islands and adventures.

Last, and the reason I chose to join School of Dragons, is that you get a little larger taste of canon. People can debate about what is and isn’t canon in the DreamWorks HTTYD franchise, but School of Dragons is an official game, and there are a few extra tidbits about the characters you can learn by going on quests. You can learn the ingredients of yaknog. You can learn the names of some of Fishlegs’ and Snotlout’s relatives. You gain a lot more access to many more dragons than you ever see in the movies and television series. These are usually just small tidbits of information, but they’re still an extra fun fact to include in your dragon knowledge.

To people who contemplate playing School of Dragons, I would say that it’s good for some casual fun. It is not something that is addicting, but it is something that can be relaxing and fun from time to time. If you can go in with that sort of casual mindset and chill expectations, it's something that can provide some entertainment. Instead of being frustrated at bugs and poor graphics, one can focus on the positives that School of Dragons *does* provide, such as allowing you to fly around Dragon’s Edge or race other players in dragon races. For people who aren’t prone to complaining, and for people who really love How to Train Your Dragon, you can perhaps check it out. It’s not like the game costs anything. At worst, you lose an hour of your life, you delete the game from your system, and you go on living without any trauma done. At best, you get to have a little fun riding dragons in a world that has captivated the imaginations of people around the globe.

So this is coming from someone very integrated in the HTTYD community (kingofthewilderwest), so bear that in mind with my following review. Although I play School of Dragons on a fairly regular basis and don’t think poorly of the game, I will be honest: it is not the best game out there. Though I am hesitantly selecting "RECOMMEND," it is only with a lot of qualifications that I am giving the "recommendation". I imagine most people will not like the game, and I would only recommend it to certain people for certain reasons. Its problems, in brief: the game is fairly simplistic and the quests are not at all challenging to complete (well, nothing is hard to do in SOD). The quests, because they are so basic, quickly feel like the same-old same-old. Many of the quests and conversations are geared toward children with some aim of education, so you will receive more than your fair share of educational overviews of glaciers, fish facts, evolution, prisms, and lots of ecology. The graphics are very poor and there are many mistakes with solid object collisions. Most of the side games are not too interesting, and are at best not very special. Loading time can be slow for the game, even for those of us who have good gaming computers and a great internet connection. The chat system has so much unnecessary word censoring that it is enormously challenging to communicate in English (you can’t even type numbers without being censored), and I cannot say a word to people in Spanish to converse bilingually. Members get a lot of wonderful cheats but it’s not worth the price paying for it. Last but probably most frustrating to players of SOD… the game is **extraordinarily** prone to bugs and errors to the point there is always some constant Thing that needs to be fixed. Nevertheless, I still play the game. With this extremely large and diverse list of negatives, you probably are wondering why I even bother. As someone who is integrally involved in the How to Train Your Dragon community, School of Dragons allows me a way to fly on the wings of a dragon and interact with many other individuals who share the same love and live in the same fandom. School of Dragons allows you to customize a Viking of any race or skin color, get yourself a dragon of any species or color you can imagine, and fly around a world of many islands. Frankly, so long as you have the money to buy more stable rooms, the number of dragons you can own is freakishly high. School of Dragons recently has been expanding the number of islands, locations, and quests you can check out, and the expansions have been fun to see. You enter the world of HTTYD. Though the graphics are limited, there are some beautiful views you can appreciate, and it’s great to be able to boast about your own dragons. There are always people present playing School of Dragons. You can race each other for trophies, join a clan, and try to get your clan to rank higher than other clans by the number of trophies you have – that’s sort of cool! And even if you are not a member, if you log in frequently enough, you can eventually collect all the features that the members have, such as the expansion packs to new islands and adventures. Last, and the reason I chose to join School of Dragons, is that you get a little larger taste of canon. People can debate about what is and isn’t canon in the DreamWorks HTTYD franchise, but School of Dragons is an official game, and there are a few extra tidbits about the characters you can learn by going on quests. You can learn the ingredients of yaknog. You can learn the names of some of Fishlegs’ and Snotlout’s relatives. You gain a lot more access to many more dragons than you ever see in the movies and television series. These are usually just small tidbits of information, but they’re still an extra fun fact to include in your dragon knowledge. To people who contemplate playing School of Dragons, I would say that it’s good for some casual fun. It is not something that is addicting, but it is something that can be relaxing and fun from time to time. If you can go in with that sort of casual mindset and chill expectations, it's something that can provide some entertainment. Instead of being frustrated at bugs and poor graphics, one can focus on the positives that School of Dragons *does* provide, such as allowing you to fly around Dragon’s Edge or race other players in dragon races. For people who aren’t prone to complaining, and for people who really love How to Train Your Dragon, you can perhaps check it out. It’s not like the game costs anything. At worst, you lose an hour of your life, you delete the game from your system, and you go on living without any trauma done. At best, you get to have a little fun riding dragons in a world that has captivated the imaginations of people around the globe.