Year of the Saturn: January



2014. 20 Years after the Saturn launched in Japan. The Saturn was, overall probably Sega's least loved system by the general public. But that is a goddamned shame. So each month in 2014 we are going to look at the greatest games on Sega's least successful system, and play them. And discuss them in this thread.



To start the new year with two of the greatest rail shooters ever made.




Listen to this while reading

Panzer Dragoon and Panzer Dragoon Zwei are two of the games that defined the Sega Saturn. In the era of early 3d games that looked quite frankly terrible, Panzer Dragoon was a revelation. Its art syle worked with the limited rendering capabilities of the Saturn and created a Mobius inspired alien future that is still impressive to this day. The resolution might be low, and the framerate might be a little dodgy, but the game is still beautiful. And more importantly is is a blast to play. Panzer Dragoon Zwei came out a year later and is still one of the most impressive games graphically of that era.

The games were developed by Team Andromeda, an offshoot of the Consumer R&D division. Team Adromeda (also called AM6) was pretty much the studio that began what we now know as late era Sega. They only made three games, Panzer Dragoon, Panzer Dragoon Zwei, and Panzer Dragoon Saga, but members eventually moved on to studios like Smilebit (Jet Set Radio) and United Game Artists (Space Channel 5, Rez). Many however consider Panzer Dragoon and its sequels the crowning acheivement of these devs.

Panzer Dragoon



Japanese cover. US one SUCKS.

In the early 90s, rail shooters were still pretty popular. In fact after the release of Star Fox on the SNES, they seemed to be bigger than ever. We had games like Silpheed, Sewer Shark and Total Eclipse. Most of the bigger ones at the time were FMV based, and if they weren't flat shaded polygons were the order of the day. Even the mighty 3DO was using mainly FMV for its titles.

But the day that PD launched we went from this:






to this:





Full polygon graphics, an amazing orchestrated soundtrack, FMV that was reserved for cutscenes, it was mindblowing. Well, for Saturn owners at least. But even those who ignored the Saturn at the time respected the game.

In Panzer Dragoon you play as Keil Fluge, a hunter who witnesses a duel between a blue and black dragon. The rider of the blue dragon is killed, and Kei is tasked with stopping the black dragon before it can reach a mystical tower and bring about untold destruction. In order to do this you will have to fly through several beautiful stages, and kill everything in them.

Development:

From the Wiki:

Panzer Dragoon was created in the early 1990s as the Japanese video game company Sega was getting ready to release its Saturn console. At the time, the Saturn lacked third-party games; because of this, Sega had to internally develop games in every genre, including shoot 'em up.In 1993, Sega asked its developers for new game ideas, and it was then that Yukio Futatsugi, a young developer who had joined Sega only two years before, proposed several new concepts. One of these concepts was accepted and became Panzer Dragoon. Futatsugi, then 23 years old, was put in charge of the project and became the head of Team Andromeda, a development team that Sega assembled for the occasion in early 1994 and was built around the duo formed by Futatsugi and Manabu Kusunoki, art designer on the project.Overall, development lasted almost a year, and 15 people worked on the game.

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From there, they came up with the sci-fi look of the game, making the dragon blue, with bone like armor, and created the world around it to match. The design was creative as hell back then, and still stands out today. And yeah, they came up with the world, dragon and the designs in 3 months, and the rest of the game in less than a year. Crazy.

So how did it play?

Well the basics of Panzer Dragoon are very similar to that of say Total Eclipse or StarFox. With two major differences. First, you're on a dragon. It flies you around and you shoot down enemies with your badass organic future pistol. But the dragon can also attack, by holding down the attack button, the cursor turns into a lock on system. Paint however many enemies as you can, and when you let go of the fire button, your dragon will unleash a horde of homing beams that will hit anything you targeting in a spectacular display of badass. The second change is that unlike previous rail shooters which always focused all the action directly in front of you, Panzer Dragoon let you look around the dragon in 360 degrees. Enemies would flank you, bombers would come from behind, bosses would fly every which way as you frantically tried to keep your view locked on to them. It was a small addition, but it changed the gameplay immensely. You constantly had to keep your eyes on not only what you were shooting, but on your radar, so you didn't get smoked by the guys coming up from behind.

The game, like many of Sega's best comes out of it's arcade design philosophy. The game is an experience in and of itself, but it requires you to learn the stages, replay them to get a feel for enemy patterns, and once you have done so become an ancient harbriger of desturction as you rip through the levels. It's even more satisfying than it sounds.

Add that to the attention to detail the game had. Enemies would fall apart when killed, not just transform into a sprite based explosion. The cinematics were all voiced in a newly created language, and told an actual interesting story. The sound design was also top tier, the dragon cries, the exlposions of the ships, everything was unique.

The game only pales in comparison to its sequels.

Panzer Dragoon Zwei



Already used the Japanese cover up top.

Panzer Dragoon Zwei came out a year after the original. And what a difference a year made. If Panzer Dragoon 1 looked impressive, if a little sparse, Panzer Dragoon Zwei blew it out of the water. The stages felt even more alive, the enemies were bigger in both size and number, and the soundtrack was more alien.

The biggest changes were in the gameplay department. Stages were not a single unchanging path. There were two routes in episodes 2, 3, and 3 and which one you followednot only changed what types of enemies you faced, but how your dragon evolved.

Yes, evolved.

In Panzer Dragoon Zwei you weren't playing as a guy on a dragon that had been kicking ass for centuries, but as a khoriet farmer named Lundy who just couldn't kill a winged mutation as his village custom dictated. It's a good thing you didn't, because that juvenile dragon is what lets you seek revenge on the empire that burned your village to the ground as a result of the massive battle they brought to it.

Depending on how many points you got, your dragon would evolve from a wimpy hatchling, to, if you were good enough at the game, the god-like Solo Wing. Seeing your dragon get better and better as you progressed is one of the coolest things in this game. By far.

That and the stages themselves were just jaw dropping. Panzer Dragoon's stages were pretty, but several of them were largely empty, but stages like the forest in Episode 3,



the attack on your village in Episode 1,



and the attack on the Shelcoof, a sillily-named badass death ship.


Other cool stuff?

Well, there was the kickass cheat system known as Pandora's Box which made a return in Orta. It started here. Basically it let you play any stage with any dragon, and also unlocked a series of survival horde stages that you could play for high score. It is cool as hell, and unlocks as you play through the game.

So how do I play these forgotten masterpieces?





Take your pick.

I don't have a Saturn.



Get one.

Really.

Ok, well there are options. SSF is the best Saturn emulator out there, and it plays PD and PDZ perfectly. Pop the game CDs into your disk drive and enjoy.

There are other options for Panzer Dragoon 1:


The main one is to play the PC port, which is dirt cheap nowadays. The problem with that one is that the gamepad support for the game is pretty horrible, even if it does have actual Saturn Pad support if you have one of those.


The other option is to play it in the Pandora's Box of Panzer Dragoon Orta. However that only works on an OG Xbox.



There was also a PS2 port of the original game as well. I can't speak to its quality however.

PDZ was only on the Saturn. Well, Gametap had it for a bit, but no longer.


But this is year of the Saturn, play them on a Saturn if at all possible. Saturns aren't expensive anyway. So play it together with GAF and enjoy!



Links to PD info and other stuff:

Hardcore Gaming 101 Atricle on the Panzer Dragoon Series
Classic Game Room's Panzer Dragoon Review
Classic Game Room's Panzer Dragoon Zwei Review
The Art of Panzer Dragoon
NeoGAF Sega Saturn Appreciation and Emulation Thread
Panzer Dragoon Main Theme
The ONEUP's Panzer Dragoon Main Theme remix
Panzer Dragoon Intro
Panzer Dragoon Zwei Intro

This got left off: Thanks to IrishNinja for the idea and the I'm let you finish img w logo.

Amazing thread! I think I may participate. I just ran the original Panzer Dragoon like a month ago and finished it on the default difficulty. I may try and give Hard an attempt, but I'll probably pop in Panzer Dragoon Zwei instead since I haven't touched that in ages.

Outstanding OP

Subscribing for later.

The music in Panzer Dragoon remains an incredible score, both stand alone and for how well it compliments the game, right down to being in sync with the mission progression. It, as much as the art and story telling, are what helped me form such a strong early emotional bond with the series.

Awesome. I own both of these, so I'll try to play through them. Last time I tried I had trouble telling what was going on sometimes, particularly in the first game. I got much further in Orta, thanks to the Xbox's higher resolution making things easier to see.

I love this thread so damn much.

It was about time to play Panzer Dragoon again anyway.

Great thread!

I was always such crap at these games, but I still loved them. The art, music, story were way ahead of their times, and the Panzer Dragoon universe is still so unique and wonderfully crafted. My favourite is Panzer Dragoon Saga of course, but that would be difficult for random GAFfers to play, alas.

The first time I saw the Panzer Dragoon intro was possibly my first experience with 32-bit gaming. Seeing that intro and hearing the fully orchestral title screen music just blew my mind.

By the way, Panzer Dragoon Orta does work on a 360, I tried it. I did not try to play the original Panzer Dragoon from its Pandora's Box however. Also, I think you meant to write 20 year anniversary, not 15!

I love a game that just like this on PSX: Gamera 2000.

But Classic Game Room said 2014 was the year of the Dreamcast!

Great thread, i need to dive back into my Saturn collection this year. Maybe as part of the 52 game challenge!

Great OP !
There is a bunch of Saturn games I bought in garage sales and never played, this may be the year to finally do it. Subscribed.

Great topic, although I believe Saturn released in Japan in 1994, making it the 20th anniversary. Got my system at Babbage's at the US launch in May 1995. $400 for the system with Virtua Fighter. Picked up Daytona USA and Panzer Dragoon within a week.

HAPPENING
(I found a PD1+2 bundle on Ebay for cheap when I got my Saturn a few years back and never got around to getting cases for them, which normally I wouldn't stand but I loathe US Saturn cases so I'm kinda okay with it)

Anyways, love these games, but embarrassingly enough, I've never actually beaten any of them! I guess I have as good a reason as ever to go back into them and try to see them through to completion. Should be lots of fun~

Awesome OP, by the way. This year should be rad.

gketter said:

But Classic Game Room said 2014 was the year of the Dreamcast!

Great thread, i need to dive back into my Saturn collection this year. Maybe as part of the 52 game challenge!

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Problem is Sega's systems end up overlapping on the 5 year anniversaries. And SATURN NEEDS LOVE! Everyone loves the DC, as far as Sega systems go it's DC year every year.

Neifirst said:

Great topic, although I believe Saturn released in Japan in 1994, making it the 20th anniversary. Got my system at Babbage's at the US launch in May 1995. $400 for the system with Virtua Fighter. Picked up Daytona USA and Panzer Dragoon within a week.

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Yep, my mistake, thought I had corrected that before posting. Cool you got the Saturn so early, I didn't get mine until November that year with the price cut and VF2's release. SO GOOD.

oh weird, I was strangely in a Saturn kinda mood and actually wanted to play Panzer Dragoon (got them both).

dont forget to hashtag #yearoftheSaturn!

even tho I may not even play these games this month lol.

Great OP! Subbing and was playing Nights, but I shall now give the two PD games their due since I've yet to beat the first and barely touched the 2nd if only to marvel at the upgrades made from the first game's graphics.

#yearofthesaturn

JEKKI said:

dont forget to hashtag #yearoftheSaturn!

even tho I may not even play these games this month lol.

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Hehe, let's start off with a bang!

Ramune said:

Great OP! Subbing and was playing Nights, but I shall now give the two PD games their due since I've yet to beat the first and barely touched the 2nd if only to marvel at the upgrades made from the first game's graphics.

#yearofthesaturn

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Replaying PD1 today I forgot how balls hard it can be sometimes. The lock on laser is definitely less lock-on-y compared to later games. Up to Episode 4 now, amazed there aren't more screenshots of that one up online. It's one of the more visually impressive ones. Episode 3 was no slouch either.

Alright lets get these tags goin. I'm going to find a spot for my OG Xbox Friday for PD1, then Saturn it up for PDZ.


Though i'd really REALLY still like to own the Saturn version of 1.

EDIT: And done: https://twitter.com/Andrew_D28

Oddly enough, I might be using twitter alot more because of this lol.

GhaleonEB said:

Subscribing for later.

The music in Panzer Dragoon remains an incredible score, both stand alone and for how well it compliments the game, right down to being in sync with the mission progression. It, as much as the art and story telling, are what helped me form such a strong early emotional bond with the series.

Click to expand...

Want to agree with this one. The stage music is just amazing, and it fits each stage perfectly. What is interesting about Panzer 1 is that the music style is actually unique compared to its younger brothers. From PDZ on it became a lot more alien sounding, and a lot less orchestral. Hard to say which style I like best, as PDZ fits the world perfectly, but Panzer 1's soundtrack is damn near perfection.

The Bankslammer said:

HAPPENING
(I found a PD1+2 bundle on Ebay for cheap when I got my Saturn a few years back and never got around to getting cases for them, which normally I wouldn't stand but I loathe US Saturn cases so I'm kinda okay with it)

Anyways, love these games, but embarrassingly enough, I've never actually beaten any of them! I guess I have as good a reason as ever to go back into them and try to see them through to completion. Should be lots of fun~

Awesome OP, by the way. This year should be rad.

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so proud of you, sport

I gotta say, I like PD1's soundtrack, but the alien tribal sounds of PDZ and PDO seem to fit the universe much more.

One day i'll play Saga and be able to comment...one day.

oneida said:

so proud of you, sport

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oh yeah you totally found that ebay link for me didn't you

thanks~<3

PDZ has one of the best soundtracks in gaming history. What was actually really cool was that since the game was on rails, the music was choreographed to each moment in the game. PD is one of my favorite game series. I still play PDZ every now and then. Excellent thread op.

Reporting in



It's been a while (oddly I went backwards, bought Saga on day one on a whim, found/appreciated the other two more recently). Still look forward to playing through them every time. The fiction, mostly by way of the art direction, in Panzer Dragoon's world still stands as totally unique.

Bless this fucking thread man! <3 <3 <3

sarcoa said:

Reporting in

It's been a while (oddly I went backwards, bought Saga on day one on a whim, found/appreciated the other two more recently). Still look forward to playing through them every time. The fiction, mostly by way of the art direction, in Panzer Dragoon's world still stands as totally unique.

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My god that US case is ugly. I'm amazed anyone bought the game with that cover art. I used to be sad that my PD1 didn't come with a case. No longer.

Outside of the demo PDZ was my first one in the series, I remember Gamefan raving about it, and had to have it. I found the demo for part 1 later, and beat it on a rental, then beat it again on another rental. Such a good damned series.

Still stuck on EP4 for my replay, gah I suck.

I wonder if we can get yearofthesaturn to trend...

A lot of love for Perfect Dark Zero in here! ;-)

I briefly played the first PD when I rented a Saturn for the night in the mid 90s. Picked up a copy of PDZ about 10 years ago and am yet to play it. But Orta I bought on release on the OG Xbox and I loved it. Sega released have released some awesome games.

Reporting for Duty. Awesome job OP.

I've never owned a Saturn, but have wanted one for quite awhile. I may break down and get one if we do one of these threads every month.

Look at what I found collecting dust in the basement...









and I'm an idiot for not taking care of it because my PDS somehow got wet and 3/4 of the discs had some mold on them. What were literally scratch/spotless discs before now has some crap of them that I can't seem to clean off. Not sure if they even work now since I've misplaced the power cord to the Saturn somewhere and can't find it. The manual is all dried up and the pages are all stuck together, I can't even turn them lol. Really sucks since nothing else in the box got wet. Oh well, gonna look for the power cord later and test the game then. Hopefully, they still work.

Anyway, I had waaaaaay more Saturn games than what is shown here which I sold off in 2000. Had import gems like X-Men Vs Street Fighter, Marvel Vs Street Fighter, Dead or Alive, Ikaruga, Strikers 1945 II, and Radiant Silvergun. I sold each for around $50 (maybe more or less, can't remember) at the time because I needed the money. I don't really regret selling them other than the fact that I probably could've got more money for each.

I also sold off a bulk of US games, maybe 20 or so games for a mere $50. Off the top I can remember getting rid of Virtua Fighter 1, Daytona USA, Toshinden, Night Warriors, Virtua Cop 2, Mr Bones, Fighter's Megamix, Guardian Heroes, Area 51, Dark Savior, Last Bronx, Mortal Kombat 2, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Quake, and a few others that I can't remember. Probably could've gotten more money from some of those individually but again, at the time I needed the money and just threw them together to get paid quickly.

I also owned and sold the US versions of Shining Force III and Burning Rangers. I remember being bummed out for giving up SFIII because I loved the game and played through it many times, but I knew we'd never see scenario II and III in the US, so ultimately ended up selling it off. Got paid a good amount for it, though. As for Burning Rangers, thought the game was a piece of shit and to this day I don't see the appeal. Sure, it does a lot (graphically) on the Saturn that's never been done before, but at the same time it runs like shit and many of the effects still look like turd. Aside from that, the game just wasn't any fun, so I didn't mind letting go of that one at all.

Also as you can see, I own most of the Netlink games and the peripheral itself. Played a lot of Bomberman and Duke Nukem 3D (both of which I still own) over Netlink and can still recall a lot of good times with it. Overall, even if the system did flop I would say it's up there being my favorite right next to XBOX 360.

Wow, what happened to that PDS is tragic... how could you, RyudBoy, how could you?

I saw the front cover and my heart skipped a beat.

This is an incredible thread, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of 2014 celebrating such an interesting system with so, so many games that go overlooked far too often. Dragon Force remains my game of the forever, and I know I'm not alone.

That PDS story is tragic, though. Another one bites the dust.

Morrigan Targaryen said:

Wow, what happened to that PDS is tragic... how could you, RyudBoy, how could you?

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Time goes by... I didn't necessarily forget about it, I just didn't care. Now look what happened to my baby... lol

I've owned the original and Zwei since I was a kid but I actually haven't beaten either.

I'm sort of torn because structurally it would make sense to play these without using continues but they're awfully slow-paced at times (with the frequent serene sweeping peaceful moments and slow boss intros and all that). I love the aesthetics but the too-slow pace has held me back from playing these in recent years.

Maybe I'll give them another shot for the sake of this thread.

So, determined to find out if my precious copy of PDS still works, I desperately searched for the power cord for the Saturn. No luck.

BUT!

I found my PS1 and decided to try it's power cord on the Saturn to see if it'll work and, surprise! It worked!

Good news often comes with bad, and here I am saddened to find this out:



Don't know how or when that happened, but suffice to say it doesn't work anymore. Pretty bummed out, but I'll have to look into getting a new one on ebay some time later.

Anyway, so I pop in disc 1 of PDS and it works. No surprise since it's the one disc that didn't get dirty. I let the opening cinematic play through it's entirety and start up a new game. Everything seems to be A OK. So far, so good. Onto disc 2!

Here, not so good news. I put it in and it just continues to seek, forever, or so it seems, then it finally loads and where it usually has the start application icon in the top left corner, it now has the load CD+G icon, so the disc won't start. It does have 3 music tracks available and they do play. It's just some audio in Japanese that I don't comprehend, but at least the disc seems to be working, right?

At this point, something occured to me. The lithium battery inside the Saturn has been dead for a while now, so I looked for the memory cartridge and was able to find it. Upon loading it I notice that I have a save file for disc 3 and 4 for PDS. No save file for disc 2, unfortunately.

So I pop in disc 3 and it loads after a few seconds. Fast forward through the title screen, I click the option to continue a game. I load one of the save files and after a few, I appear at the camp fire in the game and the music instantly takes me back. Freaking love the music in the Panzer series. Anyway, disc 3 seems to be good.

I do the same for disc 4 and everything seems to work just fine.

Now, I figured the reason disc 2 didn't load was due to not having a save file for the disc. So, I tried removing the memory cart and testing out disc 3 and 4 again. To my surprise, they both worked without the cart. So there is something clearly wrong with my disc 2.

Anyway, after gently wiping the disc (which looks almost brand new now) I try it again. No luck... looks like it's dead, and so am I.

Fuck.

I had some great memories with my Saturn. I sadly made the mistake of selling my modded Saturn to Patrick Klepek many moons ago.

\O/

AmyS said:

\O/

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I want one of those skeleton Saturns soooo bad.

I still regret never having played Panzer Dragoon Saga to this day.

Is there any way to experience this game today? Ya know? Without having to find an old Saturn to play it on?

Are there any differences between the US and JP versions of PD1&2 that warrant a consideration?

Excellent thread, I'm in!

RyudBoy said:

Don't know how or when that happened, but suffice to say it doesn't work anymore. Pretty bummed out, but I'll have to look into getting a new one on ebay some time later.

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At least thanks to the detachable cord you'll effectively have two once you get one off of eBay (since I doubt the cords are easy enough to find separate to justify just that), mine has a stuck C button and the L button just doesn't work.

Awesome write-up. I did come in a little sad when "Year of the Saturn" wasn't an actual thing involving re-releases from Sega, but the content more than made up for that early disappointment.

I'm in for Zwei:
http://i.imgur.com/gPvE5By.jpg

I've got a JP copy of Zwei that I actually busted out for Extra Life last year.
Will hunker down and try to beat it this month.

fantastic OP bish, su'b so hard. this is gonna be awesome!

Zwei actually got here first, just got my copy of 1 the other day...ready!

gketter said:

But Classic Game Room said 2014 was the year of the Dreamcast!

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yeah, like bish said - i love Mark to pieces but really, if you're hardcore, every year is year of the DC; this is actually the 20th anniversary of the Saturn and i'd really noticed (after years of bishop pointing this out) just how unsung the system was. he's gonna get way more followers for his choice, but now that the emulation scene is up to snuff i think Saturn's overdue for it's moment to shine!

Teknoman said:

I wonder if we can get yearofthesaturn to trend...

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who knows, but I'm damn sure gonna try!

RyudBoy said:

Look at what I found collecting dust in the basement...

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this shit was straight up heartbreaking. at least you still got saturn bomberman looking good in there?

Sixfortyfive said:

Are there any differences between the US and JP versions of PD1&2 that warrant a consideration?

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i was told that aside from a few translated cinematics, it was basically price here - then again i looked around and caught both last month for about $20-25 each complete (US) so it can be done!

Zwei is a cool game. Favorite PD title.

GhaleonEB said:

Subscribing for later.

The music in Panzer Dragoon remains an incredible score, both stand alone and for how well it compliments the game, right down to being in sync with the mission progression. It, as much as the art and story telling, are what helped me form such a strong early emotional bond with the series.

Click to expand...

exactly this.

Panzer Zwei was my first game for the saturn (in a bundle with NiGHTs and Sega Rally). Great memories, enjoyed the game so much i could 100% the game in one sitting, easy.