WPCentral have posted their impressions of Crimson Dragon: Side Story. It’s a good read that outlines the basic gameplay and story details of the game. In particular, I like how they’ve compared the gameplay to the Panzer Dragoon games:
Combining with the limited movement system (which hearkens back to past Panzer Dragoon games in which players can only move along two axes instead of three) is a deep weapon and skill system. At the start of a level, players select from three main types of attacks. One of these is the traditional lock-on system, which lets you tap and drag around the screen to lock onto multiple enemies. It’s a great attack method that you don’t see in normal shmups.
It seems that this game is essentially “Panzer Dragoon side-scroller”, at least in terms of the core gameplay. The hand-drawn cut scenes sound nice too, perhaps a minified homage to the Panzer Dragoon series’ FMV-rich story telling. With thirty side missions, it sounds like there’s a lot of content to explore for such a cheap price.
We’ll have more coverage of the game as it becomes available.