Panzer Dragoon: Remake

Genre: On-Rails Shooter

Players: 1

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Review:

Panzer Dragoon: Remake is, as the name indicates, a remake of the classic Sega Saturn 3D On-Rails Shooter Panzer Dragoon, originally released in 1995. This version of the game reworks the original game’s visuals from the ground-up while also offering an alternate control option and a few other modern features.

When it comes to the presentation, there are two ways you can look at this game. On the one hand, this is a pretty faithful recreation of the original game, even down to its opening cinematic, and compared to the source material, this game looks much better. Obviously, we’re talking about a game that came out in the early days of polygonal graphics, and what the Nintendo Switch is capable of puts the Sega Saturn to shame. On the other hand… by today’s standards, even this drastic upgrade is still pretty underwhelming, with chunky character models and animations, and mostly underwhelming environments. If you’re a fan of the original, you’ll still find this to be a huge leap forward, just not as much of a leap as you might hope for.

In terms of gameplay, Panzer Dragoon has often been compared to the Star Fox series, as it features similar gameplay that has players on a set course with only limited control over their dragon mount. However, Panzer Dragoon differs in a few key ways. Firstly, players who hold down the fire button can lock onto multiple enemies, firing a homing shot when the button is released. In addition, players can tap a button to shift their view in one of four primary directions, and using this they must attack oncoming enemies coming from 360 degrees around you.

While this all has potential to make for some interesting gameplay, in practice it runs into multiple problems. Firstly, the reticule that players aim with in this game is not very helpful, placing multiple distracting squares over the battle, but with only one of those squares indicating where you’re aiming. The difficulty this causes with aiming means that if you’re not using lock-on shots you’ll want to be firing rapidly to cover more area, but repeatedly tapping the attack button while maintaining aim in this game gets tiresome quickly. The dragon’s movement is highly limited here too, in a way that feels much more restrictive than the Star Fox games, and if you’re not looking straight forward, you have zero maneuverability, and may very well find yourself running into things while you’re otherwise occupied.

None of these are new issues in this remake, and probably this game’s worst quality is how slavishly it recreates the original, but to its credit it does give players a few control and display options, including the ability to aim independent of movement using the second stick, as well as optional gyroscopic motion controls (the first I found to be useful, the second I did not).

There is one other issue I should mention here. Much as with the original game, Panzer Dragoon Remake is pretty short – just a few hours long. It would have been nice if this release also contained the game’s 1996 sequel, Panzer Dragoon Zwei (heck, ideally it would have also contained the 2002 Original Xbox game Panzer Dragoon Orta and made it a trilogy release), but I suppose a full remake of a classic game at a value price of $25 isn’t too terrible.

For better or worse, Panzer Dragoon: Remake is a game that has one foot firmly in the past, and that shows in every element of its design. Much as with the original release, the controls are limited, the aiming reticule is frustrating, and the game length is very short. Also, the visuals, while far beyond the original game, are pretty lacking by today’s standards. If you’re a fan of the Sega Saturn classic looking to relive the glory days, you may find this to be a satisfying attempt at polishing up that old classic. But for most, the elements of the game that haven’t aged as well will make this game harder to fully appreciate.

tl;dr – Panzer Dragoon: Remake is a completely-remade version of the classic Sega Saturn On-Rails Shooter that began the series. The graphics here are much better… though still not great. And there are more control options… but the controls are still a bit too limited. And the game was released at a budget price… but it’s only a few hours long. Compared to the original game, this is still a huge improvement, but by today’s standards it’s lacking in multiple ways. As a result, this is mostly a game for those looking to relive the glory days with a modern retouch, not for those who missed out on it the first time and want to see what the fuss was about.

Grade: C+

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