Crimson Dragon

Crimson Dragon is a rail shooter in which players take on the role of a dragon rider, navigating through 26 levels across the planet Draco. Levels are divided into sections lasting a few minutes each, featuring both enemies and environmental hazards. Most levels take place on rails, mixed in with boss encounters in a large open area. Some missions offer alternate paths unlocked on repeat playthroughs.

Missions have a main objective, and optional objectives such as completing a battle within a time limit or not taking damage. Clearing a stage rewards in-game currency and experience points, along with items collected during gameplay such as revival gems and food which can be used to raise the dragon between missions.

Crimson Dragon takes place on Draco, a planet populated by dragons and human colonists; one century prior humans arrived on Draco from an overpopulated Earth, but have since lost contact and now fight a disease called Crimsonscale. The protagonist, a resident of the New Amara colony who can tame and ride dragons after surviving Crimsonscale, is drafted by New Amara's government into their Seeker defence forces. On orders from his superiors Sana and Cadmus, the protagonist pursues a dragon called White Phantom, who is spreading Crimsonscale through lesser dragons known as the White Reavers. During his missions, the protagonist discovers the original and prohibited Amara colony ruins, with Sana shielding him from government retribution and warning him to forget about it. In contrast, Cadmus sends the protagonist on missions surrounding the ruins, including finding an ancient body identified as a still-living Seeker.

Once the protagonist defeats White Phantom, they see a vision through a portal in Amara, revealing that Draco has become part of Earth's Crimsonscale experiments to discover immortality. With each failure of Crimsonscale to produce perfect immortality, Earth's government reset Draco using alien technology discovered on the planet to perform a multiverse transference that wipes out the original population. Before the reset happens again, the protagonist leaves behind a message to seek out Amara and the White Phantom in the hope that the cycle will be broken. A post-credit scene shows Cadmus, who found the message, asking the protagonist to help find Amara.

Crimson Dragon was directed by Yukio Futatsugi, noted for his work on the Panzer Dragoon series and Phantom Dust. He conceived of the project when talking to Microsoft Studios about developing a small-scale game that would use the Kinect peripheral for the Xbox 360. Futatsugi had previously worked at Microsoft, which was struggling to break into the Japanese market with their Xbox console line. The proposal coincidentally came when his company Grounding Inc had spare development capacity to work on multiple projects.

Many Crimson Dragon staff members previously worked on the Panzer Dragoon series. These included Panzer Dragoon II Zwei director Tomohiro Kondo as lead designer, and lead programmer Hitoshi Nakanishi. Concept art was created by Manabu Kusunoki and Phantom Dust art lead Takehiko Yamamoto, the latter joining later in production. The lead artist was Ryoji Nakamura.

Crimson Dragon met with "mixed or average" reception, with review aggregate website Metacritic giving it a score of 55 out of 100 based on 39 reviews. Futatsugi and Garren attributed the mixed reaction from players to its online elements, and use of microtransactions. Several gaming websites outside reviews criticized the use of microtransactions in Crimson Dragon, further noting increasing player backlash against their growing presence in gaming.

Destructoid's Chris Carter liked the gameplay and presentation overall, with his only complaints being occasional camera problems and the microtransactions. The four reviewers for Japanese magazine Famitsu enjoyed the gameplay, but several noted low-quality graphics and control issues, and one said the gameplay became monotonous due to a lack of variety. Martin Robinson of Eurogamer praised the art direction despite its technical quality, while criticizing the game as "a thin and troubled tribute to the original [Panzer Dragoon games], slim on the ambition, vision and art that made its predecessors what they were." Game Informer's Ben Reeves was also critical of the art and graphics, while also criticizing the music, controls, and shallow gameplay.