Review - As you can see from the box, Panzer Dragoon Mini (PDM)was released as part of the Kid's Gear software line up which basically was a re-branded GameGear (with various color casing) aimed at appealing to a younger audience.

Interestingly, the box is larger than typical Japanese releases as it's about the same size as western GameGear games.

In PDM, you are given the choice to control among 3 different super-deformed dragons (or baby dragons), all with their peculiar characteristics. Having said that, it would be wrong to dismiss PDM as a kid's game because it really is not.

Looks can be deceiving and once you start the game, you will realize that PDM is fairly challenging. It basically plays like a Space Harrier clone set in a fantasy universe. The view is most of the time from the back of your dragon although during boss fights, the game often switches to a more traditional side view. There are 5 levels to get through and they are fairly interesting to see.

Gameplay feels a bit simplistic before getting to boss fights. You have to get rid of various enemy formations that materialize in the horizon. The easiest way to do that is to lock onto them (keep the button pressed for a few seconds) and then release the fire button. But what is way more interesting are boss fights since you'll actually see some of the finest graphics the GameGear has to offer. Bosses are huge, nicely detailed and very well drawn. They fire 2 types of projectiles: one kind that you can shoot at and the other that you need to avoid so this makes for some interesting fights.

Being a very late GG release (I think that only 2 other games were released after this one before the system was officially abandoned), PDM has among the best audio-visuals ever seen on Sega's little 8bit portable. Graphics are very well done and take the GG graphical capabilities to new heights. Dragons are drawn using rendered graphics just like in Donkey Kong Country on SNES and the game scrolls by fast and without flickering or slowdown.

The music features catchy little tunes that are greatly reproduced by the GG sound chips so the overall quality of this game is pretty high. Sure, it bares only a resemblance to the Panzer Dragoon series for various reasons like hardware limitations (you can't expect to have the same graphical detail of the Saturn or the Xbox games), the fact that it's the only game of the series where the dragon doesn't have a rider or the fact that this game has no story whatsoever.

In fact, once you complete PDM you won't even see an ending sequence or even the credits roll. Who needs that fancy suff anyway? Instead, the visionary and nameless programmers of this game decided to award the brave players who finished PDM with a single static screenshot with one mysterious, misspelled word on it: CONGRATURATIONS lol

To conclude, Panzer Dragoon Mini is one of the last releases for the GameGear in Japan and although the programmers obviously squeezed the system to deliver the ultimate possible audio-visuals on the (by then obsolete) GG hardware, it is very noticeable that the game was rushed to the market as with a little more polish, it would have probably achieved cult status. As things stand, PDM is just a good little game.

About PDM Rarity: PDM is the rarest Panzer Dragoon game and one of the rarest games on GameGear. It had a pretty low production run as the GameGear was to get out of the market within months after PDM release. Is it worth all the hussle? If you are looking for something a bit different to add to your GG collection, I would say that it is definitely worth the detour, but bare in mind that this is more of a collector item than anything else. You can happily live your life without it :)

Bottom line: a nice little spin-off which I would consider playing only if you are a fan of the series...7/10

See also:

>> Panzer Dragoon

>> Panzer Dragoon Zwei

>> Panzer Dragoon Saga

>> Panzer Dragoon Orta