Panzer Dragoon is an excellent rail shooter, which introduces the player to a mystical high fantasy world. Most of it's central conflict is left unsaid, the game is relying on very little exposition but by doing so it let's the imagination of the player take over and fill in alot of the blanks.
It's a quite cinematic game during it's short duration, everything is framed like an epic, a journey you and your newly befriended dragon go to.
I was impressed by how well these two aspects come together to form one the most unique rail shooters out there, perfectly supported by a playful, dramatic score.

However the remake of this classic leaves alot to be desired. It doesn't look particular pretty and while it has better tech i feel the atmosphere and feeling of a journey is much better conveyed in the original. The way it shifts from day to nighttime in the desert between episode 2 and 3 is one example of this but there are also gameplaywise some readibility issues.
The boss in Episode 4 in the original had red glowing cracks indicating weakspots for you to shoot at, the Remake version just glows red almost everywhere making it hard to figure out what to shoot exactly if you don't know it beforehand.

Enemy projectiles also often merged together with the background making them sometimes much harder to read.
The visuals themselves take away alot from the mystical atmosphere and instead make you feel like you interact with toys. It looks sterile but also visually busy with too much bloom and an unpleasent filter on top.

I still enjoyed my time with this but the remake itself is rather a downgrade in most aspects and i would have wished for an option to play with the original visuals instead.