Crimson Dragon

[EvilBoris]

Quite fancied this for a long time, was pretty pleased to see they have made it for controllers now.


I did 2 missions and these are my initial notes

Reminds me of Star Fox 64
Lovely Japanese game soundtrack with lots of choirs and synth
Levels seemed pretty short , less than 10 minutes
Plenty of rankings and medals to achieve
Half the game seems to be levelling up and evolving your dragon, this reminded me of the Chao garden or of the Mags from Phantasy star online. I could imagine there being lots of evolution paths.
Giant Worm boss.
Pretty, but yet again a Japanese developer has gone to prove they can't use Unreal Engine as well as everyone else
Seems to be a little story in there, it's all voice acted.

The game does remind me of free to play games on iphone, it looks as if it's designed to be played in short bursts daily, it gave me a daily bonus for playing.
The 2nd mission I did was very basic and was just me shooting down enemies over an ocean and then fighting a reskinned boss from the 1st mission.
I'll have to see if this impacts on the play later on down the line.

[chipsgravy]

I have just been playing this, and maybe my expectations were low due to recent internet reviews, but I really enjoyed it. I agree its all a bit Star Fox mixed with Panzer Dragoon.

[Neon Ignition]

I'm going to read this thread with interest as I couldn't bring myself to buy this today. If you're still enjoying it later in the game I'll pull the trigger

[EvilBoris]

Played some more, still my initial impressions are that it's just as grindy as other Japanese games, it really does feel like something from the PS2 era.

I just went into a mission and got absolutely murdered, having to use my only 3 revival gems. I've not had to buy anything with my in game currency yet, I'm hoping these are available from the in store shop.

I'm still really suspicious, but I genuinely don't think the game is any different to any other game that has in game items and currency.

[sj33]

Is it essentially a Panzer Dragoon sequel in all but name?

[EvilBoris]

Well it's designed by it's creator, has the same composer, kinda plays like it. So yes.

[Dogg Thang]

How is the music? I haven't hugely been into what I have read about the game and that doesn't hugely matter as I don't have a [insert whatever console this is on] but I would be well tempted to get the OST at some point if the music is close to being in the same league as the PD games. EB, you describe the music as beautiful - same style as classic PD?

[EvilBoris]

I'm not a big enough fan of the series to be honest so I'm not the best person to ask, but someone has kindly (illegally?) put the soundtrack up on youtube.

Reminds me of old dreamcast era games.

[Dogg Thang]

Thanks Boris. Definite familiar Panzer Dragoon instrumentation there but the samples I have heard don't quite seem to have it melodically but that's just on first listen. One of the composers is Saori Kobayashi who was a co-composer on Saga and (I think) Orta so I guess she sort of inherited the PD sound rather than creating it although that's not really a criticism as I reckon Zwei really solidified the PD sound and that had different composers to the first game. The Crimson Dragon album is on iTunes. If I end up with some iTunes credit over Christmas, I might go for it.

[yesteryeargames]

What would you rate it out of 10 ? I'm tempted

[EvilBoris]

I'm still thinking about that, the game is designed to have you play little/often, most levels are less than 5 minutes long I'd say.
I'm still waiting to see how it pans out once I'm past everything being a tutorial. I've just started to unlock new dragons and I seem to be levelling faster on the later levels I've unlocked.


I've yet to do any of the free flying levels so I must still have stuff to do.

[Goemon]

Surprised there aren’t more people playing this game…Have the reviews put people off?

I’ve probably put about 6-7 hours in now and I’m really enjoying it!

The game is ideal for quick blasts of play with missions taking no more than 4-5 mins to complete.
I love this style as it’s something you think you can have a quick shot on and the next thing you know you’ve spent an hour trying to perfect a couple of missions.

Missions are broken down into sections, which you are graded a D - S rank for. These ranks are combined at the end to give you an overall rank for the mission.
There are 3 types of section; killing a high percentage of enemies, killing enemies as fast as possible and beacon collecting (missions vary the amount of sections and what they involve)

Further to this, each mission has 3 potential medals to gain – things like ‘No Damage’ ‘Killed 90% of all enemies’ etc.

Enemy + Beacon layout is the same every time so a few goes of a mission and you start to get an understanding of it and improve your scores (which are all tracked on online leaderboards).

When you finish a mission you gain credits (cash) and items

Dragons and enemies…

So for me this is a little bit like Pokemon, as in dragons and moves are a type and each type has a counter.

Fire beats Wind, Wind beats Light, Light beats Fire
There is also a fourth class ‘Void’ which is neutral to everything

Before you start a mission you are given details of the enemies that will be in the level and the type they are. Depending on your dragon and the moves it has they will be effective, neutral or not effective to beat the enemies of the level. This changes quite a bit how well you can deal with enemies.

Further to this you can also perform the following if you have collected certain artifacts through playing the game

Teach Dragons new moves
Change the type of dragon you have (From a fire to a wind for example)
Evolve your dragon (become a stronger version of the same type)

It is possible to teach fire dragons wind moves for example so you can decide if you would prefer a complete fire dragon or a dragon that has varying attacks.

Also a few missions in you get told about ‘Wingmen’
This is a 2nd Dragon rider which you hire for a certain amount of credits. The cool thing about this as the Wingmen you hire are people from your friends list who have the game or other ramdom people who bought it. Their dragon also reflects the dragon they are currently using within their game so if they have beefed their dragon a lot it’s more costly to hire!

This adds another dimension to the game as if your dragon is weak to the enemies of a stage you can hire a wingman who is strong, or you can double up with similar types and enter a level with weak enemies and totally smash the level.

There are other things I could mention but I think this is the main meat right here.
I haven’t ready any reviews but the harsh scores it’s getting are unjustified IMO

If you like arcadey quick blast games you should definitely take a look and if you like Panzer Dragoon you NEED, no, MUST get it.

[charlesr]

Anyone playing this now that it's free for Gold (until the end of this month)?
I've downloaded but haven't fired it up yet.

[k0pp0]

Free for good isn't it?

[EvilBoris]

It's free for good if you download it by the end of the month