Panzer Dragoon Remake: 100% Achievement Guide

“Start game”

You’ll get this freebie for opening the game. Couldn’t be more generous.

“Finish level 1”

The first level (or “Episode” as they’re called in-game) is as simple as you would expect. Just be sure to shoot down enemies before they can fire projectiles at you. Oh, and be careful not to impact the architecture. You will take damage if you fly into a pillar.
The boss is a simple enough airship fight, but it consists of several distinct stages with their own damage cap… so if you’re shooting at it and it isn’t taking damage, you need to wait for it to transition to the next stage. After it does the stage where it drops torpedoes and you shoot down all three of them, you can finish it off once it starts moving again.

“Finish level 2”

Episode 2 has a bit more monster-density than the first. It also starts spawning some enemies behind you or to the sides, so you should get used to rotating the camera. Keep note that some of the creatures will fly by pretty quickly, so be sure to catch them with your lock-on attacks if you’re going for high hit percentage.
There is a stage when you enter the cave where you’re stopped temporarily. You can’t dodge here, so keep an eye on your radar and shoot down enemies before they can hit you.
The boss this time has no health stages, so it should die pretty quickly if you’re aggressive.

“Finish level 3”

Episode 3 is my personal favourite in the game. Such cool music! Lots of easy targets. A bunch of stationary targets.
You shouldn’t even begin to have trouble until after circling around the gun-turret ring. A few fliers will come out from behind rocks and may shoot you if you don’t down them first.
The boss has two parts that have their own healthpool. They connect together in two orientations at first, but once you kill one of them you’ll have to take down the other individually, so this boss fight can end in two different ways depending on which you kill first.

“Finish level 4”

This is where the game first starts to get a little tricky for the unwary.
You don’t need to rotate the camera for most of this episode as you will be flying through a narrow system of tunnels full of rapid-moving enemies and you can’t evade easily unless you’re facing forward.
Some enemies will only appear on-screen very briefly so you’re best off using the lock-on to target them quickly and let go after they’ve flashed by. Other enemies like the ones hiding on the floor in the big rooms can be shot down with normal shots before they pop up and shoot at you.
The boss can be awkward if you don’t know you’re supposed to shoot at the armoured parts and NOT the supposedly vulnerable parts between. The two arms and the head are your target, and its attacks vary when you break parts of them.

“Finish level 5”

You’re back out in the open again above a forest.
Keep a close eye on the radar and the view in front of you here as you can be attacked from various directions. Also choose your targets carefully as this game has a few mini-boss type enemies that can take quite a bit of concentrated fire to put down, during which time other enemies may pop up, attack you, then vanish off. One of the later miniboss fights also has energy shots coming at you from somewhere below the forest canopy so be careful.
The boss itself is a complete walkover though. Normal shots are more effective than lock-on shots against the rotating gun-turrets. And the second stage is just effortless.

“Finish level 6”

This was the first stage where I died. You will be dumped right into the thick of it in a coastal city with an old friend circling around you. Don’t bother shooting at him since you can’t kill him here. Just take care of his projectiles and all the other enemies coming at you from both directions (some are camouflaged against the city, while there are ships on the water side).
After the first stage it becomes a bit easier. Just shoot down anything that pops up and be careful not to fly into the bridges.
There is no boss fight for this stage assuming you can take down the heavy aircraft quickly when it first shows up.

“Finish level 7”

This is just the final boss. Prototype Dragon gets an upgrade and starts attacking you over the water. I personally found this a bit underwhelming compared to the Saturn original. There are a lot of projectiles firing at you, but if you’re really aggressive with your attacks you should be able to kill him before he kills you regardless.
Hard Mode has an extra fight at the end here, but nothing particular needs to be said about it.

“Finish level with hp >= 70%”

Easy. Far too easy. Any level will suffice, but you’ll probably get this after Episode 1 without even trying.
Just remember the two basic defensive strategies:
You can shoot down most oncoming projectiles with normal shots… OR… as long as your camera is facing forwards, you can dodge around most attacks by pushing the crosshair to the opposite corners of the screen. Just keep in mind that if you’re being attacked from behind, you can’t dodge while looking back.
And don’t fly into architecture. Really.
My last run through Episode 1 the ONLY damage I took the entire stage, including the boss, was from carelessly hitting a pillar by trying to fly around it on the wrong side.

“Finish level 1 with shoot ratio >= 70%

“Finish level 2 with shoot ratio >= 70%

“Finish level 3 with shoot ratio >= 70%

“Finish level 4 with shoot ratio >= 70%

“Finish level 5 with shoot ratio >= 70%

“Finish level 6 with shoot ratio >= 70%

“Die at least once”

Not getting this achievement is honestly more of an achievement than getting it. BUT odds are you’ll probably screw up somewhere sooner or later. It was Episode 6 in my case.

“Open shadow menu”

Anyone who played Panzer Dragoon Orta will be familiar with the “Pandora’s Box” feature as a cheat-menu unlocked by completing the game.
Anyone who played the original Panzer Dragoon may remember the cloudy scene at the end where it tells you the input code for “Scenic Mode” (invincibility).
THIS game gives you the input code for Pandora’s Box (i.e. the cheat menu… or “shadow menu”) in the cloudy scene after playing through the entire game on Normal or Hard and watching the credits. It then tells you that you can access it in big red words at the top of the title screen afterwards.

In case you weren’t paying attention, the code is: ▲,▲,▼,▼,◄,►,◄,►,B, B

You have to input it VERY QUICKLY on the title screen. I did it with the controller but I believe it works with the keyboard too. If you’ve done it right, the screen will switch to the next menu and the achievement will pop.

“Play level on god mode”

Just go into Pandora’s Box, switch God Mode on (ticked), choose to start not Episode 1 but just the cutscene. Yes really. You can start the cutscene, immediately skip it to return to Pandora’s Box, and this achievement will pop.

“Finish level 7 on hard”

What it means is “Finish the campaign on Hard”. You can’t just go to Episode 7 on Hard in Pandora’s Box to get this. You need to play through the entire game.
Anyway, you’ll already have this if you played through on Hard difficulty in the first place… but it doesn’t take very long to play through the game again, and you will definitely do better the second time than the first since the enemies are always in the same places, so you can memorise the whole thing.
PLUS if you only intended to play through the game once or twice, it wouldn’t be a good use of your money, would it? Well, that and you’ll want to get some extra play-time in now. Just saying…

“Finish campaign on any difficulty without auto aim”

What it means by “auto aim” are the lock-on attacks. The Arrows of Light. It means you can’t use any charge attacks for the entire playthrough, relying on normal attacks to kill everything.

Now you could just go through the game alternating between A and B on the controller (or the Left and Right buttons on the mouse) and manage this… but there is an easier way:
The Alternate Weapons code I mentioned.
With that active, A / Left button will function as normal for a single shot or a charged shot, but B / Right button becomes repurposed into an automatic fire button. Holding it down will just fire a rapid stream of normal shots. Using just that for the entire game qualifies for this achievement too, and is a lot less finger-intensive than hammering the buttons continuously.

“Finish a level without killing a non-boss enemy”

This one is mostly straightforward… but I’d recommend doing it on Episode 2 rather than Episode 1 for one simple reason: Episode 1 has some normal, non-boss enemies spawning IN the boss-fight. Shooting those down disqualifies you for this achievement on that stage.

So get to Episode 2. I did it on Easy difficulty, but it might work from Pandora’s Box. Not sure.
You just have to fly through the stage and not attack anything. Ignore the enemies, dodge whatever they shoot at you. You could even tank a few hits since you’re unlikely to get seriously hurt on Episode 2.
Do NOT shoot the sandworms.
Just stick to evasion until the Prototype Dragon pops up… then annihilate him in seconds.
The achievement should pop after that. Easy.

“Have 100+ hours in game”

… Yes, you read that right.