It is my favourite!
Great game with dragon :D

To die hard fans, unfortunately this remake leaves much to be desired. It is an obvious amature attempt at remaking the extremely refined gameplay of the original.

This probably sounds undeservingly harsh given the usually positive reviews of this game, so I will try to describe why I find this game so disappointing.

I am someone who plays the original Panzer Dragoon games on a real Sega Saturn every year. I have a relatively fresh image of how the original plays and why it feels so good to play. The feel of the remake is its ultimate flaw. While it would just be silly to expect every little thing to be perfectly recreated, there are quite a few issues I feel are legitimate to critique.

(TL;DR: Lock on mechanic not refined, some bosses/enemies don’t attack as often or aggressively, enemy pacing issues, controller mapping bugs, broken dragon animations, the entirety of episode 5 is terrible, uninspired dragon sound effects, cutscenes are just awful, achievements are dumb, super dragon is a dumb name. I say a couple nice things about episode 4 and 6.)

Gameplay
-Even on hard difficulty the game is not all that difficult. There are enough differences both large and small in enemy pacing, positioning, and projectiles where the result is there not being the same challenge compared to the original. Some enemies don’t attack as often or aggressively. There are also times where enemies can be destroyed too quickly causing unintended lulls in action.

-The dark dragon at the end of episode 2 does not attack properly and poses no danger, it shoots maybe one wave and then you often kill it before it can do anything else.

-You can lock on to random points in episode 5 that can take away a lock on slot for actual enemies you are actively trying to destroy. You also can see enemies from far away that you shouldn't be able to (well before you can actually damage them).

-The lock on mechanic in general is poorly handled and I feel the developers didn't put enough time into actually understanding how the feel of the original mechanic was so important and refined. In the 1.0 Switch release locking on was terribly slow and inconsistent. In a later update they have actually made it overly sensitive but it is still sometimes inconsistent. Another weird thing is that some enemies have more lock on points.This isn’t necessarily bad but it makes certain pacing of enemies unbalanced, such as in the beginning of episode 5 where the large ships have more lock on points and get slaughtered when usually you would use your gun for these. The overall flow of locking on to enemies and then releasing your lasers just isn't as good from a control and "feel good" stand point. Also, the reticule is weirdly huge in the remake.

-The final boss is slow and poorly recreated. In the original its animations portrayed a dangerous final enemy with frightening attacks and constantly feeling like you are going to slip up and fail. In the remake many of its attacks are slower or happen less frequently. Both phases have the same problem where they do barely any of the wave attack. The tail lashing around in the first part of the fight is poorly telegraphed in its animations and is no real danger in the remake as it will probably never hit you.

-As of the 1.4 Steam release there is a major bug with how controls are mapped to PS4 controllers (unsure if this is happening with other controllers). Currently the camera rotates when you press square and circle and shoots at the same time when these should just be used to shoot. Also there are issues with certain menus only allowing directional input or analog stick input to navigate. The action buttons don’t really make sense with which are accept or back navigation in the menus. There are some in-game issues as well such as the camera distance options being tied to the left analog stick directions?? It's all really confusing how controller input got so badly botched.

Visuals & Audio
-I have so many issues with the dragon animations. In the 1.0 Switch release the dragon had a lot of bounce and they reduced it in the a future update, which is fine but the way they did it... just utterly trashed the flying animation. Because not all parts of the animation were adjusted properly, the dragon’s wings and legs grossly clip into each other with every flap. The tail also no longer moves as naturally as it did and just looks bad. When the original game put so much work into its dragon model and animations this just disgusts me. This is the most important model in the whole game and now you have to look at this broken animation for your whole playthrough. The dragon's head also flips upside-down during some parts of episode 4. Going along with this point is the lack of animations that the remake dragon has. The original actually has different versions of the base flying animation depending on your screen position and for when your dragon is low on health. The remake just doesn't have this extra attention to detail.

-Some episodes are fine, a couple are good, and one is particularly bad. One of the things I actually like in this remake is the blue-colored glowing light effect throughout episode 4; it's one of the few things I actually feel improved upon the original. The worst by far is episode 5. This level has absolutely gross lighting, you can see tons of floating trees, the river you fly over is not properly worked into the environment and is either floating above where it's supposed to be or not scaled properly as you can see under the edge of the exposed water plane. It has little contrast between the enemies and the surroundings so the entire level is very one-tone. It just looks damn ugly. The other episodes are relatively fine, but the lighting is also kinda sickly looking in episode 3. I really commend episode 4 and 6 as these are the most faithful episodes and are actually pretty fun, though not perfect.

-Kind of touched on this above but again the final boss animations are kinda bad. It looks like it's flying through molasses and isn't nearly as full of personality as the original.

-Overall the audio and sound effects are fine. It's a good thing they just reused the original's soundtrack and actually got the original artist to remake the soundtrack. My biggest gripe along with many others are the dragon sound effects mainly. They are uninspired, "insert random bird cry 24 found this cool free sound library on this random audio website" quality sounds which is honestly such a missed opportunity. (I love the tire screech dragon roar of the original, but man the dragon sounds are a great area they could have improved on).

-The cutscenes are just bad. Lifeless, laggy, and as of right now the volume of them is not tied to either of the volume options so your ears get blasted when each one plays.

Other Things
-Super Dragon is a really dumb name and not canon.

-The achievement names and their requirements are really stupid. The names of them have nothing to do with the game and all the conditions for them are laughable. The 100 hours achievement is one of the worst things I have ever seen.

-The “Expect next game of ‘MPS Team’” message really didn’t belong in the congratulations cutscene for beating the game on hard. Really kinda cringy with the weird english.

I really wanted to like this remake. I went ahead and replayed the original just to ensure that my comparisons were true and accurate. It is expected that so many people are saying this game is true to the original when they haven’t played it in over 20 years (and I really wish it was), but sadly it’s just not. It’s similar enough where the average person who has played the franchise back in the day is gonna get their nostalgia trip and say the game is good. I am glad there are other people who are not as invested that are able to enjoy this game. But for the more niche circle of Panzer Dragoon enthusiasts (though I am only speaking for myself here), I was surely expecting much more.

Functional remake. There's no tutorial, so review the controls.

Pros:
Enjoyable rail shooter, a rare genre today
Nostalgia
Various classic/modern settings
Challenging levels
Mouse support
Strengthens your hand

Cons:
Fairly short
Exposition dump followed by nonexistent story
Seemingly no way to remap keys for keyboard
Retail price slightly high
100 hour achievement

If you're fond of the original and/or it's on sale I would recommend this game.

The original Panzer Dragoon was an incredible and unique experience. On paper a remake sounds exciting to me, but so much charm of the original game is lost here and the controls do not feel anywhere near as solid.

The most positive thing I can say about this remake is it has the original soundtrack and a remix album. I love that you can swap between these and think they are about equal in quality overall, which feels like something that never happens in remakes.

Being able to compare all versions of the game I can say with confidence that this is not an ideal remake. Much of the game is faithful, but the controls, camera and hitboxes are incredibly inconsistent and make the game more irritating to play than any other version. Beyond that the new art direction is oftentimes quite poor and makes some objects very hard to see, especially if you are colorblind. I do think the forest level looks better in here than the original game though... even if some of the trees are not connected to the ground. On top of all of this the PC version is quite cheap feeling and has tons of issues with graphics and controller settings. I also could not fix some awful screen tearing no matter what I did.

Part of me appreciates that they did not want to introduce any gameplay mechanics from sequels into this remake, but that could have been a major saving grace here. What is left is the worst feeling/playing version of the original game with slightly less outdated graphics.

Anyone interested in this I would suggest buying Panzer Dragoon Orta instead, which is playable on every Xbox console and includes the PC version of the first game in the series as an unlockable. If you want to stick to PC I would suggest Rez Infinite instead.

I thought this would feel and look old and outdated, but it's actually pretty decent. Man, playing this takes me back to the good old days. We'd go to Shakey's to eat and play. They had the best pizza in town, and it smelled so good every time you walked in the door. They had a big screen movie room to eat in. They'd give a cup full of tokens if you brought in a good report card, and we could play for hours from that. The arcade games in those days all required only 1 token to play. As I mentioned, those were the good old days, the golden age of arcades.

Anyway, this is a rail gunner game that is pretty much a mindless shootemup. You're flying around on a dragon on a set path and you just shoot everything. It's short, and it's fun. Great for somebody like me who has a short attention span and who doesn't want to think too much to solve puzzles and stuff (because there are none!).

I got this at 75% off and I think it's worth trying out for that price. If you don't like it, then get a refund. No big deal.

Actually well done remake, kudos.
Now please release 2 and saga.

One of my favorite Sega Saturn games. I would love to see Zwei, and Saga remade for PC as well.

When Panzer Dragoon: Remake launched on Nintendo Switch over a year ago, the game wasn’t in the best shape. Numerous technical issues plagued the game, along with missing features, leading to Forever Entertainment releasing a series of patches throughout 2020. Now that the game has stabilised, we’re in a better position to look at how Panzer Dragoon: Remake holds up as a finished game.


MegaPixel Studio, who developed the game, is a relatively small studio and used the Unity engine to develop the game. The result is a game that looks good, but isn’t AAA quality, it’s something between an AAA and indie game. But if you keep your expectations with the mindset that this is smaller budget game, you can expect to play and be impressed by a modern looking version of the original Panzer Dragoon.

Panzer Dragoon: Remake has been visually recreated from the ground up, and as a result the cut scenes are now designed with in-game graphics rather than distinct pre-rendered full motion video sequences. The full game feels more cohesive without the significant change in visual quality between full motion video and in-game graphics that was present in the Saturn original.


The gameplay of Panzer Dragoon: Remake is very faithful to the original. Essentially, the standard Panzer Dragoon rail shooter gameplay and level design has been replicated almost 1:1. A year later, most of the inconsistencies have been ironed out. The result is a smooth experience that mirrors the gameplay mechanics of the original.

This time around, the difficulty level feels more even too. The original Saturn game took its difficulty from the Arcade games of its time. It’s now possible for less experienced players to play through the whole game on Easy mode, whereas the original version brought you back to the title screen at the end of Episode 4.

Overall, I’m happy how the gameplay has been implemented after its post-launch patches and refinements, but in aiming for an exact recreation, its perhaps too faithful to the original. Since the game is a remake, there was an opportunity to refine the original concept. Ultimately, it is a missed opportunity.


The game launched with the late Yoshitaka Azuma’s original orchestral score as the only option, but soon after launch a new soundtrack by Panzer Dragoon Saga composer Saori Kobayashi was added alongside the original. Yoshitaka Azuma’s iconic soundtrack is hard to surpass, but the orchestral nature of the score makes it feel apart from the rest of the series; the addition of the second score by Saori Kobayashi brings the audio in line with later games in the series. The new soundtrack fits really well, so my view is that it was a wise choice to bring Saori Kobayashi back on board. Some of the tracks, such as “The Empire: Episode 3”, even surpass the original.

The sound effects have been changed, an unfortunately these don’t make quite the same impact as the original in places, particularly the sound of the dragon’s roar. But the original voice acting is all present, along the fictional “Panzerese” language, and I appreciate this being layered on top of real time scenes.


The art direction of Panzer Dragoon: Remake is one area in which the game departs from the source material. Most noticeably, the colour palette is a lot brighter in many places than the Saturn original. If you look at the concept artwork for Panzer Dragoon, which is found in the original game’s complementary guidebook, the same earthly tones found in the 1995 game were deliberately used in the art, matching the desolation of the story’s post-apocalyptic setting. In Panzer Dragoon: Remake, the change in colours was a deliberate design choice. To Panzer Dragoon: Remake’s credit, the colours have been significantly toned down from the almost florescent dragon wings we saw in the E3 demo, and we do see some later stages where the colours feel more in-line with the original (particularly Episode 3), but from the sunny water ruins of Episode 1 to the bright orange of Episode 2’s desert, this is an area where the remake feels like a step back.

The background details of the levels have been updated too, with additional elements added to fill up the space found in the more empty Saturn levels. While the limitations of the Saturn no doubt accounted for the emptiness to some degree, the sparseness of the original level designs also added to the game world’s desolate feeling. There’s a minimalism that you’ll see in modern games such as Shadow of the Colossus and Nier Automata, but that emptiness has been deliberately overridden here, and the game loses something because of that.


Panzer Dragoon: Remake is a short game, and you can expect to beat all seven episodes in about half an hour. This length is expanded somewhat with the addition of Pandora’s Box, a hidden menu that allows players to customise the game, along with an extra “Episode 0”, but there’s only so much extra longevity that these options will provide.

However, Panzer Dragoon wasn’t remembered due to having a lengthy feature set. It’s a minimalist experience that you can expect to pick up every now and again for a quick blast through between longer games. At its core, Panzer Dragoon: Remake is a rail shooter that is about steadily improving your shot down ratio with each play through, with the goal of achieving 100% shot down ratio on every episode. There’s a nice set of achievements that will add some additional replay value too, although we could have done without the “Lifeless” achievement which requires 100 hours of gameplay from the player.


Although it had a rough launch, Panzer Dragoon: Remake has become a conservative, but solid remake of the 1995 Sega Saturn game, while taking some liberties with the art direction that fans of the classic Panzer Dragoon games may find questionable. My hope is that Forever Entertainment will take on board the criticisms regarding the art direction in the upcoming Panzer Dragoon II Zwei: Remake. But although it’s not perfect, I’m glad that Panzer Dragoon is finally back after all these years. The core of what made this series noteworthy is here; Panzer Dragoon: Remake is an experience that both new and old fans alike will be able to appreciate.

Note: this is an abridged version of my review on Panzer Dragoon Legacy[www.panzerdragoonlegacy.com].

Compared to the original the game is stupid easy. The bosses are mannequins waiting for you to shot 'em down, and have such ridiculous lifebars that they don't even have enough time to execute their full moveset. Shooting and dragon placing feel off. There's a general lack of refinement and polish.
The original is way better.
I bought this remake for 2,09€ at a discount out of curiosity, I recommend to buy it only for cheap and if you're super interested.
But if you play this game don't think it is an accurate representation of the original, it just isn't.

If you played the original, then this is a sure buy - just use controller.
visuals are nice, levels are faithful, and you can hammer on two firing buttons, just like the old days!
the mouse and keyboard controls didn't gel with me.

everything else is fine.