The arcade version of Dragon Spirit was met with positive reviews from critics for standing out amongst other shooter games, being praised for its Paleozoic setting, graphics and soundtrack.

Amur can sometimes find special orbs throughout the game that can grant him additional abilities, such as a homing shot, a multi-shot, and the power to shrink down in size to evade bullets.

The game's opening cutscene shows Amur atop a mountain raising his sword in the air, with lightning striking it and transforming him into his dragon form.

The dragon then retransforms into human form and embraces Alicia, and an end scene is shown where the people of the kingdom are celebrating peace and prosperity now that Zawell's reign of terror is over.

[4] Graphics were created by Tatsuya Ishikawa, who had previously produced character artwork for Rolling Thunder — after taking interest in the game's enemy designs, the team assigned him as the lead artist.

After the first set of arcade boards were released, Hosoe remade the game's music in hopes it could be reused for a re-issue of the hardware, but his idea was scrapped by Namco due to high production costs.

[4] In North America and Europe, Dragon Spirit was ported to several home consoles and computers, including the Atari ST, Commodore 64, Amiga, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC.

[15] Dragon Spirit was met with a positive response from critics, who praised its graphics, music and Paleozoic setting, and for standing out among other similar games during the time.

[5] Reviewing the TurboGrafx-16 conversion, IGN praised the game's vibrant graphics, unique setting and challenge, recommending the title to fans of Xevious and other similar vertical-scrolling shooters,[10] while Eurogamer liked its lack of a one-hit player kill and colorful visuals.

[8] Nintendo Life was the most critical of the conversion, disliking its sudden difficulty spike towards the end and inferior quality compared to the arcade version.

Taking place several years after the events of the original, it adds many of the levels from the arcade version alongside new stages, enemies, boss fights and cinematic cutscenes, as well as a brand-new storyline.

Amur appears as a playable character in the WonderSwan Color role-playing game Namco Super Wars, alongside Princess Alicia.

[17] Illustrated by artist Steve Cummings, the comic was a tongue-in-cheek parody of the "damsel in distress" storyline used in fiction, featuring characters and settings taken from the arcade game.