I find that some of the games I enjoy the most are those that I know very little of, by the time I check them out. Panzer Dragoon Saga is one of them. All I had seen of it, which was enough to spark my interest, was this bit of cutscene, devoid of context. There's something already pretty unique, in there. Most games back then- hell, a lot of JRPGs today, don't have that kind of animation. In just about every scene (and these aren't the "big" ones- those are FMVs) characters act and interact with each other, move around, they don't just stand there and stare at each other while they talk. Today this isn't groundbreaking, but I genuinely cannot think of a single game in Saga's era that did anything like this. Only Vagrant Story, maybe, and that one's a few years newer. It's fully voice acted, too, down to every single unimportant NPC line (Only in Japanese, though. This is probably better nowadays, but it does feel like they just didn't care to dub it, it would certainly have turned people off at the time. Given how few copies were even sold overseas, this isn't surprising. It's nice that the translation itself is pretty alright, though, minus some oddities). This is all already very admirable in a vacuum, but I think that when Panzer Dragoon Saga is looked at as a sequel to its rail shooter predecessors, it all makes even more sense. In my thoughts on the original Panzer Dragoon, I noted that the game felt extremely cinematic in a grandiose way, and Saga is a natural evolution of that. It's impressive just how much it achieves in terms of presentation, and while the story is simpler than the genre's usual fare, that very much does not harm it, in the long run.
Speaking of adapting Panzer Dragoon to the RPG canon, the gameplay is an even clearer and more brilliant example of that, which is no small feat. How do you even adapt a rail shooter into turn-based combat? Simple, you put all of the focus on the positioning of the player and enemies in regards to one another, and turn every fight into a super cinematic little puzzle. It's not the deepest thing out there, though more than satisfying enough: You can move around the foes, ducking in and out of danger and safe zones, positioning yourself so you can hit weak points, but the ability to act recharges in real time, and moving halts it briefly, so you have to be tactical. This is all capped off quite cleverly by a simple ratings system at the end of every fight. Beat it quickly and without taking many hits, and you'll be awarded with more exp and a chance for an item. The game is quite easy, and you'll never really need to play strategically, so it's nice to always have something to push you towards optimal play. Outside of battle, levels are explored entirely on dragonback, flying through caves, ruins, forests and the like, which is a nice spectacle and quite cooler than the usual on-foot dungeon crawling, though ultimately not too mechanically different. Again, Team Andromeda's penchant for the cinematic shines- style over substance is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when there's more than enough of the latter. Speaking of that, you can transform your dragon, and the way it freely warps between any combination of its forms is quite the technological marvel.
When you will be walking on foot, it will be because you're exploring the game's few towns and such. They're small, but populated with fairly memorable NPCs. I think all of them have unique models, and plenty have side-quests associated with them, sometimes small, sometimes not. Good stuff. I don't think you'll be missing out by going in fully blind, but I actually did enjoy checking the wiki's list of "secrets" and poking around at various side stories as I went through the game. As for the main story, I've mentioned already that it's fairly simple, but that doesn't mean it's bad, just more understated than expected. Mercenary Edge's group gets slaughtered by rebel Craymen, who is following some mysterious goals, and he sets out to get his revenge on him, with the help of a dragon that mysteriously bonded with him. Character development is very organic, sometimes subtle and usually not lampshaded, and PDS doesn't mind hitting you with some nasty gut punches, or hiding some pretty vital information from you entirely. It can feel slightly underwhelming at times, but it does fit the setting and tone, and I do appreciate the commitment to the original games' surreal aura.
I do have some genuine criticisms, though. While the game is mostly pretty fun, a few of the dungeons are pretty unbearable. The worst offender is the Ruins of Uru, a massive labyrinth you can only explore with a shitty little landspeeder, populated with pathetically weak encounters that offer no challenge and a lot of wasted time. I actually quite like what it does story-wise but man is it a slog to go through. Generally, the last disc of the game tends to have some of its worst dungeons, with reskinned enemies and lots of flying about with little to do. The final dungeon is a stealth one, and it completely fails as a climactic conclusion of the story and gameplay. Your offensive "berserk" powers, aka your spells, look cool but feel kind of useless a lot of the time, because they require twice as many actions as your attacks and rarely do even just twice as much damage, at least in the late game. They're useful to break past defenses but usually there's some way around them that lets you strike a weak point for great damage, which you can only do with your standard attacks.
It's a damn shame that this game was relegated to the last throes of a console doomed to fail from day one. It is absolutely one of the finest JRPGs I've played and just bursts at the seams with love for its world and for pushing the envelope on what games could be. I absolutely recommend playing it, it's quite tighter and lighter in length than your usual JRPG, has some really awesome things I haven't even mentioned, like the OST, and while Saturn emulation isn't great it is worth dealing with. Do keep in mind that it is highly recommended to be familiar with Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei before playing this- knowing the original PD is nice, knowing Zwei is quite important. So, with that, I guess that's it for Panzer Dragoon and me. I want to play Orta, but I don't know if I want to enough to figure out Xbox emulation, and I'm sure as hell not playing the Game Gear one. All I've said about this game applies to the whole series, these are some really evocative, artful games that did some extremely interesting stuff with the medium, and it's really a shame that they were stuck on a console nobody bought, because if they were on the PS1 or N64 I guarantee to you that Panzer Dragoon would be a household name today.
Speaking of adapting Panzer Dragoon to the RPG canon, the gameplay is an even clearer and more brilliant example of that, which is no small feat. How do you even adapt a rail shooter into turn-based combat? Simple, you put all of the focus on the positioning of the player and enemies in regards to one another, and turn every fight into a super cinematic little puzzle. It's not the deepest thing out there, though more than satisfying enough: You can move around the foes, ducking in and out of danger and safe zones, positioning yourself so you can hit weak points, but the ability to act recharges in real time, and moving halts it briefly, so you have to be tactical. This is all capped off quite cleverly by a simple ratings system at the end of every fight. Beat it quickly and without taking many hits, and you'll be awarded with more exp and a chance for an item. The game is quite easy, and you'll never really need to play strategically, so it's nice to always have something to push you towards optimal play. Outside of battle, levels are explored entirely on dragonback, flying through caves, ruins, forests and the like, which is a nice spectacle and quite cooler than the usual on-foot dungeon crawling, though ultimately not too mechanically different. Again, Team Andromeda's penchant for the cinematic shines- style over substance is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when there's more than enough of the latter. Speaking of that, you can transform your dragon, and the way it freely warps between any combination of its forms is quite the technological marvel.
When you will be walking on foot, it will be because you're exploring the game's few towns and such. They're small, but populated with fairly memorable NPCs. I think all of them have unique models, and plenty have side-quests associated with them, sometimes small, sometimes not. Good stuff. I don't think you'll be missing out by going in fully blind, but I actually did enjoy checking the wiki's list of "secrets" and poking around at various side stories as I went through the game. As for the main story, I've mentioned already that it's fairly simple, but that doesn't mean it's bad, just more understated than expected. Mercenary Edge's group gets slaughtered by rebel Craymen, who is following some mysterious goals, and he sets out to get his revenge on him, with the help of a dragon that mysteriously bonded with him. Character development is very organic, sometimes subtle and usually not lampshaded, and PDS doesn't mind hitting you with some nasty gut punches, or hiding some pretty vital information from you entirely. It can feel slightly underwhelming at times, but it does fit the setting and tone, and I do appreciate the commitment to the original games' surreal aura.
I do have some genuine criticisms, though. While the game is mostly pretty fun, a few of the dungeons are pretty unbearable. The worst offender is the Ruins of Uru, a massive labyrinth you can only explore with a shitty little landspeeder, populated with pathetically weak encounters that offer no challenge and a lot of wasted time. I actually quite like what it does story-wise but man is it a slog to go through. Generally, the last disc of the game tends to have some of its worst dungeons, with reskinned enemies and lots of flying about with little to do. The final dungeon is a stealth one, and it completely fails as a climactic conclusion of the story and gameplay. Your offensive "berserk" powers, aka your spells, look cool but feel kind of useless a lot of the time, because they require twice as many actions as your attacks and rarely do even just twice as much damage, at least in the late game. They're useful to break past defenses but usually there's some way around them that lets you strike a weak point for great damage, which you can only do with your standard attacks.
It's a damn shame that this game was relegated to the last throes of a console doomed to fail from day one. It is absolutely one of the finest JRPGs I've played and just bursts at the seams with love for its world and for pushing the envelope on what games could be. I absolutely recommend playing it, it's quite tighter and lighter in length than your usual JRPG, has some really awesome things I haven't even mentioned, like the OST, and while Saturn emulation isn't great it is worth dealing with. Do keep in mind that it is highly recommended to be familiar with Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei before playing this- knowing the original PD is nice, knowing Zwei is quite important. So, with that, I guess that's it for Panzer Dragoon and me. I want to play Orta, but I don't know if I want to enough to figure out Xbox emulation, and I'm sure as hell not playing the Game Gear one. All I've said about this game applies to the whole series, these are some really evocative, artful games that did some extremely interesting stuff with the medium, and it's really a shame that they were stuck on a console nobody bought, because if they were on the PS1 or N64 I guarantee to you that Panzer Dragoon would be a household name today.