Panzer Dragoon (2020) Review: A Thing Of The Past

Review based on version 1.4.

Set in a distant future where humans live in small tribes to large nations; an Empire has discovered a black tower with powerful ancient weaponry. A hunter belonging to one of the small tribes, named Keil Fluge, becomes the new rider of a blue "armored" dragon (named Blau in the anime) which sets out to take down a black "prototype" dragon before it can activate the ancient tower.

Panzer Dragoon is best known for its strong world design and color palette which were inspired by the film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Frank Herbert's novel Dune. It's a masterful blend of fantasy and science fiction styled in the unique appearance of Jean Giraud's (Moebius) artwork. While the original designs for the ships and characters remain mostly the same, the color tones on the blue dragon and some of the environments are notably more saturated than they were in the original. I enjoy color, but the muted color palette of the original was a deliberate artistic choice by the developers and not a limitation of the hardware of the time. Altering it not only disrespects the art direction, but also changes the mood and feel of the game world. The "Submerged City" level in particular had distinct dark shadows cast by rough-cut, man-made structures that had been worn down by time and corroded by the sea. In the remake they are carved, intricate structures with hardly a spot grime. Any shadows they cast can hardly be made out in the new water textures.

New sound effects have also been added that diminish, rather than enhance, a scene. In the opening cutscene for example, Keil is chased down a hallway by a machine-like entity. In the original the sound it makes is metallic and heavy. Its footsteps echo through the space, the background music barely audible, and it is frightening. In the remake the creature almost silently shuffles along as the background music dominates the scene, and it fails to leave much of an impact as a result. The animations too are stiff looking when compared to the original. I have never played the original game (it's hard to find), but I didn't have to in order to notice how starkly different these two versions are. I understand remakes are meant to be their own thing, not a replacement of the original work, but here it felt like they didn't even try to respect the original. They made changes for the sake of it, or did whatever they thought would look and sound good without consideration for how it would alter the mood of a scene or emotionally impact the player. I feel the dragon's sad, screeching scream in the original. In the remake it sounds like he belched. Why they felt the need to alter the soundtrack, especially the iconic main theme (Original / Remake) is another mystery to me.

Panzer Dragoon is an on-rails shooter with a pretty simple control scheme. The dragon rider fires single shots with his weapon, or the player can scan and tag groups of enemies using the analog stick, taking them out in a barrage of fire with the Blue dragon's breath weapon.

The dragon can be moved around the screen to dodge enemy fire, but there aren't any options to speed up or slow down, and enemies come from all sides. The left and right trigger buttons are used to manually swivel the camera around the dragon, and a radar in the top-right corner of the screen helps to highlight enemy locations.

Each area is completely unique in appearance: flooded ruins, hive-like desert structures, mist engulfed canyons, claustrophobic sci-fi rooms, jungle, and a smog filled capital. More detail was added to the environments while still clearly trying to capture the look and spirit of the original, such as retaining the drawn out shadows of the flooded ruins. Other-times things looked a little muddy, a deliberate attempt at mimicking the original's terrible draw distance by reducing clarity.

There are seven levels that last about five to ten minutes each, and can be pretty unforgiving. The player is given a limited number of credits (lives) at the start of a new game, earning more by performing well in each level. If the player dies to a boss, the level has to be restarted from the beginning, costing a credit. Once all credits have been exhausted, the session terminates and an entirely new game has to be started.

The remake is a serviceable attempt at adapting a niche title to modern tastes. Questionable and often unnecessary alterations aside, it will give you the Panzer Dragoon experience without the harsh difficulty of the original (unless you opt-in). At roughly one to two hours long, a part of me can't help but wish more had been done with the remake - new levels or a completely new take on the original concept. Another part of me is glad they didn't. Despite feeling bare-bones, it's still a remarkably fun game.

First posted to videogamegeek.com on December 31, 2020.

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