As with Destructoid’s preview, Mike Lowe at Pocket-lint takes issue with Crimson Dragon’s visuals and particularly the game’s controls:
There’s an undeniably similar look between the Crimson Dragon and Panzer Dragoon games. But look isn’t feel - and the version of Crimson that we played felt too rigid and had too soft a control system to really engage in the same way as the Sega classic.
Mike goes on to praise the game’s concept, however:
If anything can save it, it’s the games slightly bonkers concept and set piece - from the fish-dog-like boss enemy through to the po-faced lava worm in the middle of the level we played - that drives much of the appeal. No other game has a feel quite like this, and when dragons are aligned more with futuristic cool than the more typical medieval swagger we want to be impressed. But we’re not quite blown away yet.
Crimson Dragon’s uniqueness is definitely what sets the game apart from the mass of generic mud-brown realistic military shooters for me. Grounding has something quite special here. Now they just need to improve the other aspects of the game, adding some well-rounded polish to make Crimson Dragon worthy of the Panzer Dragoon legacy.