And I looked, and beheld a blue dragon: and his name that sat on him was Keil Fluge, and Rez followed with him.
Panzer Dragoon feels like a prototype of a lot of different games that came later, which I find to usually be the case for these landmark titles. This is far from an inherently bad thing, though; Panzer Dragoon predates Star Fox 64, and I imagine that the former will have more than a few unfair comparisons drawn to it by the latter by people who aren't aware of the date disparity. I know older, more foundational games tend to attract people who bring up that old Seinfeld Is Unfunny TVTropes page to talk about how a game has "aged", which is an incorrect assumption. That's because Seinfeld never stopped being funny. Yes, a lot of sitcoms drew from Seinfeld, but there's nothing they've done that has retroactively made Seinfeld look bad. Seinfeld is still funny. There was never a period where Seinfeld wasn't funny. And Panzer Dragoon, like Seinfeld, has always been good. I don't think there was ever a period where Panzer Dragoon was incredible, but the facets that it gets right haven't been rendered wrong by anything that's released in the intervening years.
What's here is a simple but entertaining game, leaning heavily on its arcade inspirations. As much of Panzer Dragoon's blueprints were used later by other games, it doesn't exist in a vacuum; Space Harrier and After Burner were both massive Sega titles that predated it, and it isn't difficult to spot the strands of their DNA sticking out from this. It's mechanically solid because it's mechanically simple. There's very little you can do to engage with the game beyond moving your reticle around and pressing the fire button. Again, though, it benefits from this simplicity; this is a game carried hard by its vibes, and it gets those across near-flawlessly. There are hints at a much bigger world than the small slice we see in the game proper, and the thumping music and crunchy models do an impressive job in carving out an aesthetic.
I find it difficult to write at length about Panzer Dragoon, because it’s a remarkably brief experience. I want to call it “thin”, but I think that carries a bit of a negative connotation. “Breezy” might be the better word. It’s over and done with in about forty-five minutes, and there’s very little to actually sink your teeth into; the narrative extends as far as “the bad guy is going to a tower, stop him”, and the gameplay itself is little more than a rudimentary shooting gallery where you blast away at whatever’s on screen at a given moment. The ability to shift perspectives and rotate the camera around yourself at least ensures that there’s never a moment where you’re doing nothing, but I struggle to imagine a world where these camera shifts happen automatically and it changes anything of real significance. These mechanics underlying the core gameplay of shooting and dodging (overwhelmingly more in favor of shooting than dodging) feel a bit underdeveloped. It would have been nice to see the perspective switching matter far more than just Stage 4, where you just swap to the closest view and never leave it for the duration of the level.
Katsuhiko Yamada was credited as one of two stage designers for this, and it’s completely unsurprising that he would later go on to be the sole game designer for Rez. The two games run in parallel to one another: both are short-form, third-person rail shooters; both have a “hold the button to unleash a lock-on barrage” mechanic; both feature a heavy focus on aesthetics over most else. Where Rez ultimately comes out on top, I feel, is in its execution. It runs better, it has a style I’m more partial to, and it seems significantly more realized as a holistic experience. Still, though, Rez has got the benefit of having released six years later and with Panzer Dragoon to build off of, and that makes me appreciate this more. Anyone who’s a friend of Rez is a friend of mine.
Hitting all of the face buttons at the same time just straight up kills you and I think that's funny.
Panzer Dragoon feels like a prototype of a lot of different games that came later, which I find to usually be the case for these landmark titles. This is far from an inherently bad thing, though; Panzer Dragoon predates Star Fox 64, and I imagine that the former will have more than a few unfair comparisons drawn to it by the latter by people who aren't aware of the date disparity. I know older, more foundational games tend to attract people who bring up that old Seinfeld Is Unfunny TVTropes page to talk about how a game has "aged", which is an incorrect assumption. That's because Seinfeld never stopped being funny. Yes, a lot of sitcoms drew from Seinfeld, but there's nothing they've done that has retroactively made Seinfeld look bad. Seinfeld is still funny. There was never a period where Seinfeld wasn't funny. And Panzer Dragoon, like Seinfeld, has always been good. I don't think there was ever a period where Panzer Dragoon was incredible, but the facets that it gets right haven't been rendered wrong by anything that's released in the intervening years.
What's here is a simple but entertaining game, leaning heavily on its arcade inspirations. As much of Panzer Dragoon's blueprints were used later by other games, it doesn't exist in a vacuum; Space Harrier and After Burner were both massive Sega titles that predated it, and it isn't difficult to spot the strands of their DNA sticking out from this. It's mechanically solid because it's mechanically simple. There's very little you can do to engage with the game beyond moving your reticle around and pressing the fire button. Again, though, it benefits from this simplicity; this is a game carried hard by its vibes, and it gets those across near-flawlessly. There are hints at a much bigger world than the small slice we see in the game proper, and the thumping music and crunchy models do an impressive job in carving out an aesthetic.
I find it difficult to write at length about Panzer Dragoon, because it’s a remarkably brief experience. I want to call it “thin”, but I think that carries a bit of a negative connotation. “Breezy” might be the better word. It’s over and done with in about forty-five minutes, and there’s very little to actually sink your teeth into; the narrative extends as far as “the bad guy is going to a tower, stop him”, and the gameplay itself is little more than a rudimentary shooting gallery where you blast away at whatever’s on screen at a given moment. The ability to shift perspectives and rotate the camera around yourself at least ensures that there’s never a moment where you’re doing nothing, but I struggle to imagine a world where these camera shifts happen automatically and it changes anything of real significance. These mechanics underlying the core gameplay of shooting and dodging (overwhelmingly more in favor of shooting than dodging) feel a bit underdeveloped. It would have been nice to see the perspective switching matter far more than just Stage 4, where you just swap to the closest view and never leave it for the duration of the level.
Katsuhiko Yamada was credited as one of two stage designers for this, and it’s completely unsurprising that he would later go on to be the sole game designer for Rez. The two games run in parallel to one another: both are short-form, third-person rail shooters; both have a “hold the button to unleash a lock-on barrage” mechanic; both feature a heavy focus on aesthetics over most else. Where Rez ultimately comes out on top, I feel, is in its execution. It runs better, it has a style I’m more partial to, and it seems significantly more realized as a holistic experience. Still, though, Rez has got the benefit of having released six years later and with Panzer Dragoon to build off of, and that makes me appreciate this more. Anyone who’s a friend of Rez is a friend of mine.
Hitting all of the face buttons at the same time just straight up kills you and I think that's funny.