Might be on purpose indeed, since Legend of Dragoon was Sony's answer to Final Fantasy VIII.
I can tell you that that dragon isn't the only thing that resembles something FF8-related ;)
Still one of the favorites in my collection though.
Here's a small vid of the Red Eye Dragon summoning:
Red Eye Dragon Summoning - YouTube (
http://youtu.be/R9t4WSIYfs4)
Nice vid... definitely better than the pic comparison.