Trials of the Blood Dragon offers a fantastic challenge and features an outrageously funny storyline. However, the lousy platforming shooting elements and frustratingly difficult levels can seriously drag the gameplay experience down.

If this game had nothing but driving, it would’ve been fine. But for some reason Redlynx decided to add on-foot levels that are exemplary bad: controls are wonky, character is likely to get stuck in the ground, and level design is bland at best. You literally have to endure playing through them – and they take as much as a third of the game. [Issue#211, p.60]

Trials of the Blood Dragon is a confused concoction. The Trials gameplay is as solid as ever—RedLynx know their craft—but the side-scrolling levels are clunky and out of place. The whole thing feels like a waste of the Blood Dragon IP.

The Trials component of this crossover came out swinging, with inventive level design and a host of enjoyable new mechanics, but Blood Dragon deserved better than this.

I hope next Trials game will be developed entirely by RedLynx, because the motorcycle levels in TotBD are as good as ever, but the rest is simply a foreign body. [08/2016, p.71]

In the end, Trials of the Blood Dragon is a mess. The platforming is barely passable, and several mechanics feel terrible to use.

Fascinating, but not in a good way. It's rare for a major publisher to release something that, for a significant part of its short length, feels so bad. Yes, the bike sections are standard fare for the series. RedLynx is good at making Trials levels, and has made a handful of them here. But their quality only serves to highlight how bad the other levels are. This is the worst Trials game. It's also the worst Blood Dragon. Neither series comes out of this partnership looking good.