Panzer Dragoon (1995)

I can appreciate what a thrill this presentation would have been in a 1995 on console, kids must have been dazzled by the design, music and cutscenes. There's a surprising amount of depth in Panzer Dragoon's world and it's sold with every little dialogue.

For that reason, maybe people didn't mind replaying this over and over. I found the hitboxes too big, and enemy encounters to be unfair in that many hits felt impossible to avoid. The campaign is too stingy with continues and not refilling your life meter after each level compounds this difficulty. I get it, it was a different time (especially on console), but you'd probably want to start with the remake if you're jumping in now.

Pretty fun shooter! Lovely aesthetic, though a bit blurry with the Saturn's graphics. I felt the difficulty curve was a little odd. The hardest level for me was in the middle and the final boss was pretty easy, beat it on first try.

Not sure If I want to 1cc this but I look forward to playing Panzer Dragoon 2

3.5/5

Panzer Dragoon may be seen as one of the legendary classics on the Saturn and a prominent game in the rail-shooter genre, but it's got a few rough edges amidst the magic that others have since improved upon.

Featuring a complex fantasy plot in a world thousands of years after humans battled biological super weapons, the protagonist is a hunter who comes across a strange blue dragon. Said blue dragon was to stop a black dragon from reaching a black tower but the rider is killed, forcing the hunter to become the new rider. There's also some imperial forces and monsters and whatever, but this plot is very poorly communicated and doesn't add to or detract from the game.

The visual aesthetic certainly stands out. Taking a bit hint from Moebius's Arzach comics, you'll be soaring across ruins in the sea, vast deserts, myriad tunnels, and mainly anything with a large flat plane and very few obstacles. It soon becomes pretty obvious how limited the game is, with most enemies looking so either heavily pixelated or polygonal that you don't know what you're shooting and it becoming apparent that this is King's Field level of early 3D. The music tries to go for a little fantasy epic/tribal thing but isn't outstanding.

The gameplay is pretty unique, and does inspire some rail shooters that come after it. Controlling a dragon, the player can fly said dragon and shoot using a flashing reticle. Tapping down shoots but holding it down targets multiple objects and fires a lock-on laser. This lock-on laser is not only useful but mandatory, as there will be too many enemies on screen and the dragon controls very sluggishly. The player can also move their view in 90 degree increments and shoot to the sides or behind the dragon - however, the player can only move the dragon when facing front. This provides a bit more interesting combat but the challenge can get pretty finicky when a lot of the deaths are down to slow movement and slow reticle movement.

Panzer Dragoon is a standout game in that it showcases the Saturn's 3D potential and does some very unique things, but it also feels very limited in being able to fulfill its own potential.