After playing the first three titles I decided to give the OVA a watch since it'd be nice to complement my playthrough with some sweet 90's OVA action and while I didn't really expect much from the OVA I didn't come out feeling as hurt as the ratings seem to give off.

The OVA loosely followed the story of the first game with an added love interest and some more scenes with the empire. As someone who knows the story of the Panzer Dragoon games I wasn't confused by what was happening but I know others would be. I can't really fault the OVA for this because the game itself doesn't really explain its story either so who knows what the production team was using for reference when they were making this.

To summarize, the main character, Kyle, along with his blind love interest, Alita and his friend (who dies mere minutes into it so who even cares who he was) are hunting a small animal before being attacked by a large dragon. The large dragon then fuses with Alita in the confusion, kills Kyle's friend and flies away. Kyle eventually comes across a Dragon and chases after the other Dragon to save Alita. After meeting with the empire, having an incredibly small conflict with his own dragon where he felt he didn't need him, and someone from the empire trying to warn Kyle about a mysterious tower (along with attempting to kill him), Kyle and his dragon team up again and to reach the Tower and stop whatever the other dragon is attempting to do.

After arriving at the Tower, they find the other dragon about to enter it and begin to fight. Kyle tells his dragon to stop attacking for fear of hurting Alita but he doesn't listen, eventually ending with both crashing into the bottom of the Tower with Kyle's dragon biting the neck of the other Dragon while Alita is knocked out. Kyle rushes atop the other Dragon, pulls Alita out of him and gets knocked off the dragon with Alita in his arms. Alita, who is still linked to the Dragon seems like she is dead and Kyle cries a single tear over the fact (which cures her from her link and saves her). Relieved, Kyle tells her to rest while he and his Dragon team up to take out the other Dragon. After a pretty lackluster fight, the other Dragon is dead and they've saved the day. (Oh, and the Dragon can talk telepathically to Kyle and is called Blau.)

It all ends with Kyle and Blau going back to save Alita before the Tower is destroyed, and while Kyle runs to Alita, Blau uses his magic dragon powers to lift Kyle and Alita to safety in a big magic bubble while sacrificing himself in the process. Kyle wakes up washed up on a beach next to Alita who now has her vision back for no apparent reason.

For a series that has a surprisingly rich lore none of it is really explored in the OVA. It leads me to believe that the OVA must've been made for some kind of compliment to the two games already out in Japan with nothing else being used as reference. It's a bit disappointing to see since there was a lot they could've explored here, the background of the Tower, why the two dragons even exist in this world, the reason Alita was fused with the other Dragon, the reason Kyle can telepathically talk to his Dragon, who the Empire are and what they want with the tower etc.

It just feels like something that should've had around 30-40 more minutes to its runtime to explain most, if not all, of the above and add more scenes of fighting. When the final fight scene is around 30 seconds long it just feels like everything building up to it (if there even was a build up) feels worthless. It just leaves too many unanswered questions as well as not even STARTING to answer the questions in the anime itself. At least in the original game you were sort of told it was your destiny to stop the other Dragon, this doesn't even try.

As for the other aspects of the OVA. It looks like your average 90's anime so take that as you will, the music is mostly taken from the first game (which has good music anyhow, so it's nice to see it), for a game that has some beautiful environments we don't really see that many of them (in fact, only one location really makes it into the OVA not counting the intro). The characters have no real development but for a 30 minute OVA I can let that pass. It's nice to see some environments animated like it was and have small explanation as to why the main character can control the dragon, but that's about all the praise I can really give it.

Overall, it's something you watch if you're a fan of Panzer Dragoon and that's about it. It doesn't really serve any other purpose. It's not a good alternative to playing the game and it barely counts as a supplement to it either. It's just disappointing since it could've been much better than what we got, but what we got wasn't terrible, just a subpar adaption of a good game.

5/10