Crimson Dragon Reviews

“Crimson Dragon looks and feels like an Xbox 360 game that's been spit-shined to fatten up the Xbox One's launch lineup of games.”

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Crimson Dragon had the potential to be a AAA digital title for the Xbox One. Instead, it fails to deliver solid gameplay and it's also riddled with technical issues that drag the experience further down.

Crimson Dragon was a pleasant surprise. As a massive fan of the Panzer series, I was worried that this wouldn’t quite honor it, but there’s plenty here for gamers who have been longing for an entry since 2003’s Orta. There are some mechanical problems, but any old-school rail shooter fan will be able to handle them.

Crimson Dragon works well enough as a straight arcade shooter, and there’s plenty of challenge in it. There’s some nostalgic value, too, but it’s weak graphics and frustrating free-flight boss fights make it tough to enjoy the stroll down memory lane.

Crimson Dragon makes a terrible first impression. The opening sequence is a series of largely static screens with a dodgily delivered, terribly written voiceover attempting to convey a convoluted, poorly-told story. It’s an early indication that this may not be the game we’ve been looking forward to for the past couple of years. Unfortunately, the following six or seven hours only confirm this. Crimson Dragon is a disappointment.

Death from above.

But I could forgive all of these missteps, the weird microtransactions, the underwhelming graphics, the off-kilter systems, if, on a very basic level, it was fun. It’s not. Crimson Dragon manages to take riding on a sweet flying dragon and make it a bland, frustrating slog. In my book, that’s about as unforgivable as sins come.