The appeal of Panzer Dragoon lies in its gorgeously detailed 3D world, something which can't exactly be replicated in the 8-bit hardware of the Game Gear. But Sega tried anyway with Panzer Dragoon Mini, parts of the "Kids Gear" line-up, which is I guess a specific line-up so children could play portable versions of the same games they watched their older brother playing.
So Panzer Dragoon Mini is a lot like Space Harrier, if Space Harrier were really boring. You control one of three dragons -- no riders -- with a behind-the-back 3D view. You shoot down enemies, then a few more appear a couple seconds later. Repeat.
There's no lock-on laser or Berserk attacks, just your regular gun. Everything is really slow, and the enemy patterns don't change much. On occasion, usually during boss battles, the camera switches to the side of the dragon, mimicing the camera rotation from the console versions. Some of the bosses do little kinda cool for the tiny system, but it's the only real positive aspect of Panzer Dragoon Mini.
There are only four stages, with a password function to skip between them. The whole game is orders of magnitude shorter than the Saturn original. This is one of the rarer Game Gear titles, released late in its life, so it's a bit rare and pricey. Don't let that trick you into thinking it's worthwhile.
Panzer Dragoon got its own anime in 1996, which was translated and brought to the States by ADV Films. It's only a single episode OVA that clocks in at about twenty five minutes.
The opening sequence is pretty much like the intro to the video game, with two friends hunting for scorpions in the desert. Except our hero Kyle (mistranslated from "Keil") has a blind girlfriend named Alita, who is apparently "in tune" with the monsters or something. Anyway, an evil black dragon flies by, kills Kyle's friend, kidnaps Alita by absorbing her into its body, and takes off. Another dragon, whose rider has been killed, takes up Kyle and chases the black dragon, to not only stop it from reaching the tower, but to save Alita.
On the journey, they run into some Empire ships, which the dragon destroys despite Kyle's general anti-violence stance. They land on the ground and set up camp, finding a sole survivor amongst the wreckage. Kyle tries to comfort the Empire soldier, who then ends up turning on them.
After this needless interlude, Kyle and his dragon fly through a couple segments lifted practically straight from the game (from stages one and four -- one of the shots is a pretty clear homage) before getting to the Tower. The dragons fight, and Kyle saves Alita. Then the spirit of the dragon speaks to Kyle and convinces him to "combine forces", which allows him to throw a super hadoken or something and save the day. Then Alita gets her sight back and everyone lives happily ever after.
It's hard to develop attachment for a character in only one episode, but all Kyle seems to do is yell is his dragon for not listening and whine about saving his dear Alita.
The lackluster plot isn't saved by the visuals either. A few of the segments -- notably the intro and any shot with the Empire ships -- are rendered with computer graphics that looks reasonably like the models used in the game cutscenes. For the time, they weren't too bad, but it greatly clashes with the hand drawn characters, so it isn't even all that visually appealing.
This is all really shameful, given the richly detailed world of Panzer Dragoon, which could have been brought to life if more time and talent had been capitalized on. The action scenes aren't that particularly good either. Similarly, the music is lacking -- the main theme seems to borrow a bit from the Saturn game, but most of the soundtrack is rather lousy.
The End of Panzer Dragoon?
Team Andromeda was dismantled after Panzer Dragoon Saga, with its members scattered to different parts of Sega -- and elsewhere, in the case of lead Yukio Futatsugi, who went to Microsoft Game Studios and eventually founded his own studio. Some were reassembled into Smilebit, another internal development team at Sega, for the production of Orta, but Sega ended its teams' autonomy once it merged with Sammy.
It seems unlikely that the world will see another Panzer Dragoon, despite how loudly fans voices cry for a remake or Panzer Dragoon Saga. However, the spirit lives on in other games, such as Sega's own cult classic Rez, which utilizes nearly the same play mechanics as Panzer Dragoon.
While I felt the cliques of panzer dragoon one was justified in some respects somehow I feel you’re far too connected to the workings of today’s gaming world, where sugar filled cut scenes and artificial length is added to games and some other points you have made do not seem to make sense in context making me question have you done your research wrong or did you even experience these games at the time?
The frantic difficulty of the game?
The patterns of the enemies throughout the on-rails games has always been some of the very best examples of video-gaming flow, enemies coming in waves that were created for single strokes of the directional pad and placements which lead from one to another without pushing the player as they’ve come to expect such movements, complaints about lack of analogue support not withstanding, forgetting that the analogue pad wasn’t created yet…
The minor? Improvement in graphics of Panzer Dragoon Zwei?
Even today when I’ve showed this game to people they’ve been stunned, at the scale, design and beauty of enemies and areas you encounter throughout this game, everything from the guardian dragon to the animated transparent textures used throughout level 4 and at points with water/clouds… kept at a smooth and constant frame rate…
While these minor niggles only made me put my back up, more importantly I feel you don’t understand the gaming arena of the mid 90s, we had just come out of the 16 bit era, the arcades were still leading the way in game development, games were made to be arcade experiences, a rush, a ride something that leaves an impression, complaints about the length of the games I feel are totally unjustified, so many games of that era were both shorter and lacked any replay value, being spewed from the arcade generation, along with being born from the arcade orientated 1990s SEGA surely the longevity of the game cannot come into question, games like this, Nights and even Orta are score attack games at heart, the shmup and arcade strive for perfection, the mission to get 100% accuracy winged death rank… The slow unlocking of the contents of Pandra’s Box merely to give the player an area to “play” within, these weren’t standard practices at the time…
No game is perfect and they all do have their flaws, but I feel you may be being needlessly critical on the side of bias e.g saying the FMV in panzer dragoon saga could not compare to the work of square, at this time the only recent FMV square had done was in FFVII which if memory serves couldn’t even match panzer dragoon 1’s FMV in quality…
This article could be your feeling, however more likely I feel its probably an attempt to get a reaction, to put ones-self at a height of editorial elitism to be able (in an uninformed way) criticise such a guarded game series…
I definitely agree with John Adams. This feature article was written too subjectively, and biased towards the author's personal and well unsophisticated tastes. To say that the saturn wasn't mad to be a 3d powerhouse and was unable to display tasteful graphics is just like saying that "NES wasn't good at displaying 2D graphics like the nintendo DS is so it shouldn't have even tried."
The Saturn was a console of its time, the playstation was designed for 3D graphics, but even it's games can be viewed as ugly/pixelated as any saturn game. Even playing the original Metal Gear Solid gets distracting if you focus on all the clipping problems and jagglies.
The game designers used the technology of the period and tried to do as much as they could with it. Nights (for example) is horrendously pixelated and has the vantage point of about 5 feet. Though if you pay attention to the colors its aesthetic is impressionistic, vibrant moving pointalism. Gameplay and music are perfect, though not only very innovative for the time, complimenting aspects to a extremely engaging videogame as a whole.
Though the author does mention the games' commendable art direction, he fails to see that technological limitations are not bad graphics, just graphics of the time and aesthetic strength should overcome the attention given to technical limitations.
To add, I thought panzer dragoon zwei was phenomenal. The first time i played it was when i was 15. After finally completing the game, the ending song played and credits rolled it was my first real conscious experience that i had just took part in something so well conceived, executed and (above all) artful. The music, the landscapes, the flight, and epic grandeur...so immensely affecting. Games don't really achieve that as flawless and masterfully. And maybe the game was short because they cut out all the fat, and all the imperfections.
I'm not gonna even get into Saga, and to say the "problems" or imperfections the author sees in the game as 'nit picky' would be a severe understatement.
Its like saying bread is crappy cause it has crust on the sides and all bread should be crustless everywhere.
pff...just kill this waste of a good subject "article"/overlong ignorant blurb.
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The appeal of Panzer Dragoon lies in its gorgeously detailed 3D world, something which can't exactly be replicated in the 8-bit hardware of the Game Gear. But Sega tried anyway with Panzer Dragoon Mini, parts of the "Kids Gear" line-up, which is I guess a specific line-up so children could play portable versions of the same games they watched their older brother playing.
It's hard to develop attachment for a character in only one episode, but all Kyle seems to do is yell is his dragon for not listening and whine about saving his dear Alita.
The frantic difficulty of the game?
The patterns of the enemies throughout the on-rails games has always been some of the very best examples of video-gaming flow, enemies coming in waves that were created for single strokes of the directional pad and placements which lead from one to another without pushing the player as they’ve come to expect such movements, complaints about lack of analogue support not withstanding, forgetting that the analogue pad wasn’t created yet…
The minor? Improvement in graphics of Panzer Dragoon Zwei?
Even today when I’ve showed this game to people they’ve been stunned, at the scale, design and beauty of enemies and areas you encounter throughout this game, everything from the guardian dragon to the animated transparent textures used throughout level 4 and at points with water/clouds… kept at a smooth and constant frame rate…
While these minor niggles only made me put my back up, more importantly I feel you don’t understand the gaming arena of the mid 90s, we had just come out of the 16 bit era, the arcades were still leading the way in game development, games were made to be arcade experiences, a rush, a ride something that leaves an impression, complaints about the length of the games I feel are totally unjustified, so many games of that era were both shorter and lacked any replay value, being spewed from the arcade generation, along with being born from the arcade orientated 1990s SEGA surely the longevity of the game cannot come into question, games like this, Nights and even Orta are score attack games at heart, the shmup and arcade strive for perfection, the mission to get 100% accuracy winged death rank… The slow unlocking of the contents of Pandra’s Box merely to give the player an area to “play” within, these weren’t standard practices at the time…
No game is perfect and they all do have their flaws, but I feel you may be being needlessly critical on the side of bias e.g saying the FMV in panzer dragoon saga could not compare to the work of square, at this time the only recent FMV square had done was in FFVII which if memory serves couldn’t even match panzer dragoon 1’s FMV in quality…
This article could be your feeling, however more likely I feel its probably an attempt to get a reaction, to put ones-self at a height of editorial elitism to be able (in an uninformed way) criticise such a guarded game series…
Very sorry at 1am i am running on reserve power, there are surely many a typo but now i don't care...
The Saturn was a console of its time, the playstation was designed for 3D graphics, but even it's games can be viewed as ugly/pixelated as any saturn game. Even playing the original Metal Gear Solid gets distracting if you focus on all the clipping problems and jagglies.
The game designers used the technology of the period and tried to do as much as they could with it. Nights (for example) is horrendously pixelated and has the vantage point of about 5 feet. Though if you pay attention to the colors its aesthetic is impressionistic, vibrant moving pointalism. Gameplay and music are perfect, though not only very innovative for the time, complimenting aspects to a extremely engaging videogame as a whole.
Though the author does mention the games' commendable art direction, he fails to see that technological limitations are not bad graphics, just graphics of the time and aesthetic strength should overcome the attention given to technical limitations.
To add, I thought panzer dragoon zwei was phenomenal. The first time i played it was when i was 15. After finally completing the game, the ending song played and credits rolled it was my first real conscious experience that i had just took part in something so well conceived, executed and (above all) artful. The music, the landscapes, the flight, and epic grandeur...so immensely affecting. Games don't really achieve that as flawless and masterfully. And maybe the game was short because they cut out all the fat, and all the imperfections.
I'm not gonna even get into Saga, and to say the "problems" or imperfections the author sees in the game as 'nit picky' would be a severe understatement.
Its like saying bread is crappy cause it has crust on the sides and all bread should be crustless everywhere.
pff...just kill this waste of a good subject "article"/overlong ignorant blurb.