Paul Acevedo of WPCentral has posted a full written review of Crimson Dragon: Side Story. The review reflects my own impressions of the game so far, especially the part about the controls:
Much as I enjoy Side Story, it controls like Grounding has little to no experience with mobile development. First, instead of dragging up and down anywhere on the left side of the screen to move, you have to tap a tiny virtual stick in the bottom-left corner and then slide your finger up and to the right a bit in order to fully move up or down. Sliding to the right is necessary because the buttons for subweapons and action skills are located above the virtual stick, exactly where they shouldn’t be.
As much as I hate to say it, I agree with Paul that Crimson Dragon: Side Story’s controls really hurt the overall game. Overall though, it appears that he recommends the game:
Crimson Dragon Side Story is flat-out one of the best Xbox games on Windows Phone. It’s beautiful, has an interesting world, and the Mission Mode and skill system instill tons of replay value. Those things plus the low price and two free avatar awards make Side Story a tremendous bargain compared to most other titles. I wish the controls were better, and the game deleted all of my progress once, so not all is perfect in this world of dragons. But Side Story’s overall level of quality bodes very well for Crimson Dragon on XBLA. I can’t wait to try it out on the big screen.
Lets hope the full Crimson Dragon doesn’t suffer from the same control issues as its side story. Being a Kinect game there’s certainly the potential for control issues, but I think it’s better not to become pessimistic at this point.