Panzer Dragoon Remake Review

"Flying Around"

Campaign

January 20, 2021 at 7:14pm
By Jason Stettner

This is a remake of the classic Panzer Dragoon, a title that I’ve heard high levels of praise for over the years so I was eager to try it out. This is basically that original style, with some adjustments to the core experience with the goal to modernize it. The just of the story which is told through brief cinematic moments is that on a lone planet you encounter two dragons awakening from ancient times. You’re on a special blue dragon and you must hunt down the prototype dragon prior to it reaching some special tower.

So it’s a tale of long past dragons battling it out essentially. The conclusive battle was honestly a tad underwhelming to say the least. Whatever the case, you move through several levels that are all rather brief in an aim to finish the experience. It does have some secret modes to it, but overall it’s a very minimal sort of experience. It’s not particularly long, and only decently challenging in a few spots.

The levels are fairly varied in terms of the design, but the general goals are all the same. You’ll blast some things on rails and then conclude with some sort of boss fight. They aren’t particularly expansive, feeling limited in scope and very much aged. If you want that classic style, I think you’ll get that here. If you’re looking for something larger in scale you won’t really get that.

Gameplay

This is an on rails dragon shooting game. You’ll be flying about blasting enemies using either a more traditional option or modernized targeting. Both were rather bland in terms of interactions. You’re set in a four direction design, swapping around how you’re looking. At times I found it rather difficult to line-up enemies since they always seemed out of these four frames to target. The enemies are decently varied, but do get repetitive after awhile since it’s just a gauntlet of blasting on each level.

The end bosses are certainly unique, providing a decent challenge for sure. The game also has difficulty options, that go further with certain secrets that are unlocked upon your first completion. The visuals are overall decent, they’re colorful and distinct. At the same time the worlds you visit feel really bland. With this being a remake they’re perhaps a tad too faithful to that original vision as the landscapes felt incredibly barren.

Good texture detail for sure, at the same time it doesn’t feel very advanced from what came before. When going to upgrade games it’s important to keep that original feeling, but it just seemed like there was such a wasted potential here to take it further beyond the original style. Adding extra life to the world, or something along those lines to make it feel more modern. Again, it just feels like a barren wasteland that you’re going along.

The Conclusion

Panzer Dragoon Remake is a good representation of that original vision, while not really upgrading it for the modern era to any degree. It’s an alright game, I believe it was incredibly overhyped by everyone that ever mentioned it to me.

I had expected something more wondrous, and ultimately it was just a quick blast through. It wasn’t very long, and to me there’s nothing extra to do here. I believe it was about a half hour of play or so. There just isn’t a whole lot of value here as they don’t add anything new to the game.

If you’re here for some nostalgia it hits the mark. The visuals are solid, but again super barren feeling ever so empty and bland. In all honesty it’s just not that great of a game. It feels very aged, with a narrative that wasn’t very interesting and it ends on one super underwhelming note.

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Panzer Dragoon Remake Review on Xbox Series X
Review Code Provided by Forever Entertainment

Rating Overall: 5.4