Shoot-em-up that sees you riding on the back of a dragon. Similar to St Dragon in many ways, you can even use the dragon's tail as a shield as only the rider is vulnerable.
What did Bob Pape do after the miraculous R-Type conversion? Another horizontal space shoot'em up conversion of a Irem coin-op: Dragon Breed. Not spectacular as R-Type but still a high level effort. Damn hard though.
