great game, but as a big fan of the og games i feel like it could have done more. as the spiritual successor to jsrf it picks up where it left off and improves on it quite a lot. tricks have more substance to them (exp multipliers and more than one trick button), game feels a lot more fluid and easier to control, and they even added combat (and some bosses). unfortunately all these mechanics seem pretty surface level (multiple skates to use with no differences, combat being shallow af and the disappointing bosses), and as a modern game it's kinda sad that they didnt expand on this stuff to be even bigger than its spiritual predecessor.

but this is a godsend comparing it to jsrf. weak combat is miles better than however you fought the police in jsrf, you can actually control your camera in this game, slides and manuals to keep your combo streak going is amazing, and the game actually has a decent story that feels finished! they absolutely killed it with the character designs and world, along with the music too. on top of the many references, the entire game feels like a modern day jet set radio, and it's definitely worth it

gameplay wise this is easily a 10/10, it improves the already solid foundation of the original's gameplay tenfold with drive forms, and overall making the game flow really smooth. there was a huge difficulty spike that fucked me up at the end but storywise it felt really slow and boring at the beginning, thankfully it picked up near the end but a lot of the worlds didnt feel as immersive as they did in the first game, and were a lot less interesting aside from the boss battles. everything else is perfect tho

gameplay wise, this is easily the perfect rgg studio game. im glad the team learned from their mistakes and gave the dragon engine the treatment it deserves, albeit 4 games late.
wish i could say the game itself was perfect. it's got killer substories (thanks to the school kids) and does a lot to spice up the formula, however the story is a lot more disappointing this time around. it starts off pretty strong, with interesting mysteries tackling some pretty deep themes, but at the end the plot just gets too confusing for its own good, and ultimately isn't as good as the first game.

apart from that? yeah this might be the greatest game ever made

Absolutely beautiful - a game that manages to push the Saturn to its absolute limits, boasting a lot of things for a game on a console which was very complex to work with, and was inferior to its competition.
It's just so shocking how wonderfully crafted everything in this game is - from the fully voiced cutscenes with motion capture, to the unique worlds with a blend of fantasy and sci-fi, and a wonderful hybrid combat system managing to combine the on-rail shooting from the previous games and a real-time JRPG system similar to Final Fantasy VI - it's clear the devs wanted to end the Saturn with a bang, and they definitely did.

Everything in this game is full of life - there's never a dull moment in the world of Panzer Dragoon, and nothing feels forced in or out of place, everything serves some purpose, whether its the main characters that are integral to the plot, or travelers you pass by, every character, even the fully detailed monsters that add to the post-apocalyptic setting, it all just comes together wonderfully and creates a completely unique experience - there is nothing else like it, and there will never be anything else like it.

It's just a damn shame that this game never sold any copies. Critics praised pretty much every aspect of this game when it came out, and initial copies of the game has all sold out in just two days of the game releasing in North America, so for Sega to completely ditch this game and bury it with the already dying Saturn is pretty tragic, should have gotten a re-release or a remaster but apparently the source code has been lost to time as well. At least we have emulation i guess.

this is probably the perfect sequel for any game ever. it's smooth as butter, has a ton of great cinematics and gameplay improvements (they fixed the controls🙏) and has a pretty solid story as well. as a saturn game, it feels wayyy too ahead of its time. definitely a must-have for owners of the console.
the only real complaint i have is that the berserk meter would randomly go off, and always at the worst times. having the X button set to nothing fixes this issue, but it's so weird how something that bad got past all of the devs.

it's alright. the music is good and the enviroments are really nice for a saturn game, in its launch year even. though the game has this really weird control scheme, if you use the 3D control pad you can only move in a small square around the screen, and the cursor snaps into the center if you let it go, but with the normal D-Pad controller, you can move the cursor wherever across the screen. what's up with that?
it's bearable for the first 3 stages, but the difficulty goes crazy in the last 4, and it makes for a pretty painful experience in the end. it's a shame, because the game has a lot going for it, hopefully the sequel is way better

peak fiction. I didn't think RE4 was deserving of a remake because of its excessive amount of ports but damn was i proven wrong. this game somehow improves on the original in almost every way, revamping the story and giving more backstory to certain characters that felt a little shallow in the original.

combat wise it's got a whole different feel from the original, i don't know which one i prefer because they both have their ups and downs. the technicality is pretty cool, (parrying is something i never knew i needed in a game like this) but the fact that knives can wear out is pretty annoying still
leon's movement feels way too heavy and loose compared to the stiff movement in the original, i hated it at first but it grew on me.

apart from ashley's redesign i don't really have any other problems with the game, they did a damn good job with it