Panzer Dragoon: Remake (2020)

This is a bare-bones on-rails shooter that retains pretty much all the same mechanics and beats of the original, but with a big visual upgrade. Clocking in at a blistering 50-60 minutes, you'll find even a lot of demos are longer than this - You can finish the whole thing, including the secret Episode 0 level, in a long lunch break. Ridiculously, the game has an achievement for playing 100+ hours, which I can only assume is a joke by the development team 😒

At least for PC on Windows 11, the game fails to detect my Xbox controller on launch, requiring me to unplug and then re-plug it back in after starting the game. And when I do, it swaps the left & right triggers+sticks 50% of the time. I thought it was just me, but it appears to be common bug since launch 🪲. It's annoying enough that for a brief period, I considered getting a refund.

Summary: This game just isn't a good value unless your nostalgic to revisit the game after 30 years and get it on sale for less than $5 USD.

A few thoughts.

• The last boss is a joke.
• This takes maybe an hour to beat, but there's a trophy for playing for 100 hours. Insane.
• I don't know how much I paid for this, but it was too much. I need to stop buying random games and just upgrade my PS Plus once I get through my backlog (as if that'll ever happen).
• I remember playing the original version of this on Saturn in my neighbor's basement until I accidentally tripped over a wire one day and broke his Saturn. Sorry Chris.

I've never owned a Saturn. So aside from an occasional dip into emulation, I've only appreciated the Panzer Dragoon series from afar... especially for the inspiration it takes from the works of Jean "Moebius" Giraud. Here's his cover art for the Japanese release, which is simply stunning:

So I feel it's a missed opportunity that the overhauled visuals stray further than ever from that ideal. They are certainly an upgrade in terms of fidelity, but they feel less impressionistic to me than what I've experienced of the original.

Complaints aside, this is a competent remake. It would have been nice to include some form of bonus material given the game's short length, but I enjoyed my playthrough nonetheless.

A cool rail shooter with very unique art direction and soundtrack. It kinda feels like a poor man's Star Fox in regards to gameplay, with the movements of the dragon being just a a tad to clunky and the homing function of the bullets making levels feel less skill-based. There are no real wow-moments like the destruction of the Space Armada in Star Fox, but some clever bosses, set pieces and the earlier aforementioned uniqueness in style saves Panzer Dragoon from being forgettable.

This is also the first game in 2-3 years I actually felt was too short. I am of the opinion that a vast majority of games made in recent decades have had a problem with respecting people's time by padding out an experience in order to please consumers perceived desires of "value for money" rather than adapting gameplay length to the actual time the game is able to maintain variety and freshness. Here the opposite is true. I think that some more levels exploring new mechanics (and perhaps adding branching paths) would improve Panzer Dragoon greatly. I could definitely see this as a 2,5 hour game rather than a 1-1,5 hour one.

I am surprised that this series has not been expanded upon by Sega. The setting is super cool, something even more apparent in Panzer Dragoon Saga (which by the way is one of the few classic JRPGS that dares to only be in the 15-20 hour mark, kudos!).

But until then, Panzer Dragoon remains a solid exclusive in the Saturn game library.

I never played the original Panzer Dragoon, but as a fan of similar games like Rez, I was always curious to give it a shot. For those unfamiliar, this is a remake of a classic on-rails shooter whose gameplay consists of minimal movement with a focus on being along for the ride and taking out as many enemies as possible.

The most basic explanation of the conceit of the game is that you have an encounter with a dragon and are beckoned through some mysterious force to hop on and ride to a destination only it knows how to get to. It makes a lot of sense for the genre and lets you ride through its nice looking landscapes and focus on shooting with the B button, turning to look in 4 directions with R and L, and doing some basic dodging. Some targets like big armored snakes and gunships can just be painted over with the cursor to lock on, while others like explosive projectiles require individual shots to take down. Some sections can take a couple tries to get the dodging down. I thought the difficulty was just right, and there’s an Easy and Hard mode too.

The art direction is a strong point, with some cool-looking areas and enemies that stand out and generally have obvious weak points. The highlights for me were the really cool Episode 4 boss, some of the big wide-open colorful levels early in the game, and final boss. Music is occasionally really good, and other times sounds sonically stuck in the past. I felt it could have been so much more organic-sounding to fit the upgraded visuals. Unfortunately, even in docked mode, the game struggled to keep up with its own visuals with big moments sadly accompanied by an unstable framerate (EDIT from 2021: Apparently this is patched somewhat now) and disappointing draw distance.

Clocking in between 60-90 minutes per playthrough on Normal difficulty (mine took about 70), gamers on a budget might find this to not be worth the money. Like Rez, replay value comes from trying to shoot down 100% of the enemies in each level, and thats about it. Despite that, I enjoyed the game and would recommend it to anyone who wants a simple but unique retro-style experience.