TL;DR – The Panzer Dragoon Remake is a pretty fun little rail-shooter, with an imaginative setting and some nice visual design. While the game is fun, there is one significant caveat – namely that you can finish it in an hour. No, that’s not because I’m a GOD GAMER, the game really is just that short. To the game’s credit, that doesn’t mean it’s not without challenge and it is a game that focuses first and foremost on the gameplay. It’s pure arcade fun, with nice visuals and a good soundtrack. Yet much like the House of the Dead remake I’ve also “reviewed”. It’s hard to recommend at full price for those who aren’t already fans of the series. Those who can find it on sale however, will find an enjoyable if short experience.
Quick Note: I played the remake as evidenced by the title, but haven’t played the original. So don’t expect any comparisons between the two versions
Panzer Dragoon Remake is a great little arcade game at a reasonable price. While the original game has remained largely constrained to the ill-fated Sega Saturn (and the PS2… kind of). Those who haven’t played it before can now play it on multiple new platforms. In my case, I chose the PC release from GoG with only a faint idea of what the series was about. As dedicated readers of this blog – who don’t exist – will be aware, I’m a sucker for a bargain. At £1, I can safely say that Panzer Dragoon really was a bargain. Not only is it a solid rail-shooter that manages to slightly embarrass Starfox 64 (my previous favourite) with it’s gameplay. But thanks to this remake it looks and sounds great too. Even if it’s a very short experience, it has a couple of tricks up it’s sleeve that combine to form a compelling gameplay experience.
First things first. The Panzer Dragoon remake may only have one weapon that you can use, but there’s an interesting give-and-take at the centre of the gameplay as this weapon has two firing modes. You can just spam shots, as much as you’d like and in a way that’s par-for-the-course for shoot em ups. Where things get a bit more interesting is that you’re able to hold down the fire button for a lock-on effect. With this lock-on being able to stack shots so long as you keep the enemy in your crosshairs. This makes it useful for enemies who are hard to hit, but there’s a catch. You see while enemy projectiles can be dodged, it’s quite difficult to do so. After all, you are moving on rails as it’s a rail-shooter. Fortunately you can shoot down the majority of these enemy projectiles, but only while shooting “normally”. This forces you to shoot your (locked-on) shot, so that you can now shoot down the incoming projectiles. While this might not sound like much, during frantic parts of the game you really have to constantly think about whether it’s worth sacrificing the ability to easily damage multiple enemies that are darting around, so that you can make it easier to avoid taking damage. The game is therefore able to produce a subtle but constant balancing act. Where you need to maximise the damage you deal while minimising the damage you take. Further compounding this, is the fact that while you can dodge there’s generally a limit as to how much you can dodge. Especially because aiming the targetting cursor at enemies, causes you to move in that direction. So if you are trying to dodge incoming shots which will allow you to keep charging your lock-on shot, then you still need to be mindful of where you’re aiming. As otherwise you’ll end up moving back towards the enemy fire you were trying to dodge! I appreciate that this all might seem a tad verbose. Basically you move with the cursor and you only have a limited amount of room to manoeuvrer.
One other thing that the Panzer Dragoon remake does to keep you on your toes, is manage the health system in a slightly unusual way. You see you can’t get more health during each of the game’s 7 stages. And beating a stage only gives you some health back. Therefore unless you are a real expert, you’ll probably struggle to clear the game with one life. Fortunately enough, you can gain more lives (or credits as they’re called here) by shooting down enough enemies. As a consequence, you’re actively encouraged to be more aggressive. If you shoot down 70% of enemies, you’ll only get 1 extra life. Whereas shooting down 90% of the enemies will give you two extra lives. Of course, as mentioned above the more lock-on shots you use the harder it is to deal with incoming enemy fire. So Panzer Dragoon is a game that incentives aggressive play, while also kind of punishing it.
Another twist that Panzer Dragoon offers that other rail-shooters don’t, is that you can rotate your direction of view while moving. Most rail-shooters would only let you shoot targets in front of you. In Panzer Dragoon on the other hand you’ll be shooting to your left, right and even behind you. This mechanic is used to good effect when fighting larger enemies, who you overtake and who overtake you which makes the fights feel larger than they are. It’s also a way to add further challenge to the game. As while you do have a radar that shows all nearby enemies and where they are. You still need to prioritise targets lest you get repeatedly hit by enemy fire from a direction you’re not watching. These enemies themselves are also quite varied. There are a range of both larger and smaller enemies each of which have their own attack patterns. Some attacks can be negated by shooting them down, while others just have to be dodged. Considering how short the game is, the amount of enemy variety is actually pretty impressive. Plus each level obviously has it’s own unique boss. Some of these bosses even have multiple forms, but none of them felt unfair or overly difficult. Instead Panzer Dragoon is a game that manages to deftly handle it’s difficulty curve. So that the late game is a large step up over the early game, without ever being overwhelming.
And the stages themselves have a nice amount of variation, both in colour palette and theme. There are sandy dunes, Mediterranean-esque ruins, industrial bases and besieged cities to take in over the course of your mission. Each area looks great and manages to look distinct, without being so distracting that it makes spotting the various enemies difficult. As for the soundtrack, it’s pretty good and suitably high-energy for a game which while short is consistently entertaining for it’s full duration. Finally while there is a story (and the credits even mention three lore experts) it is pretty minimal. You get a surprisingly lengthy opening cutscene which could charitably be described as a bit mad. Then are thrust into the action with only very short cutscenes occasionally appearing between stages. The plot is unsurprisingly quite simple. You are given a dragon by a guy and you need to stop the bad dragon from entertaining some sort of doomsday device. Along the way various fauna, critters and soldiers of some sort of empire will try and stop you for some reason. Don’t worry though, because the main point of the review is that Panzer Dragoon looks good, sounds good and runs at a pretty stable frame-rate. At least in this remake edition.
And that’s about all I have to say about the Panzer Dragoon remake, because as mentioned it’s exceedingly short. To be fair, after playing it from start-to-finish in an hour, I did unlock the “secret menu” which allowed me to: browse an art gallery, watch the credits again and even play through any stage with cheats enabled. While these additional features are cool, they can’t mask the fact that this is a very short game and one without any co-op or multiplayer features. As a consequence while I do think it’s a great game, it’s one I can only earnestly recommend in two circumstances. Either you are a big fan of the original and/or rail-shooters more generally. Or if it’s available at a low price during a sale. As mentioned, I paid £1 for my copy from GoG and I imagine a similar price will be available during the next big GoG sale. At that price anyone should buy it.