loonyblog.

1UP has posted a wonderful multi-part feature devoted to my all-time favorite gaming franchise, Panzer Dragoon. It goes game-by-game, presenting a mini-review (showing both the original score and what they would give it today), followed by an interview with people associated with the game. Most of those are with Yukio Futatsugi, the Creative Director and general driving force of the Saturn games.

Like I said, it’s a wonderful feature. Futatsugi is remarkably open about most topics, commenting on everything from the rumors of one of the Saga team members committing suicide because of the sales of the game (not true, although there was a death on the team), his feelings about the Smilebit-developed Panzer Dragoon Orta, and whether or not we’ll ever see a new game or a remake of Saga.

That last one is apparently very difficult, as the source code has been lost. That’s not as uncommon as you’d think. When we did Civ Chronicles last year, we had to deal with the lack of source code, and I’ve also had to deal with that same issue with the X-COM 2 re-release on Steam (so if you have issues, don’t ask me for a fix…we can’t fix ‘em!). I do think there’s some hope now that GameTap seems to be successfully emulating Saturn games (including Panzer Dragoon Zwei).

Naturally I already own the whole series (well, except for Mini, but even Futatsugi admits to not owning that), but I’d love (read: LOVE) to see Saga re-released in some form. Whether that’s on Virtual Console (currently impossible, due to the lack of storage space — it was a four CD game) or PSP or whatever. It is one of the best games ever made and a landmark work of interactive art, so it deserves to be given the exposure it never got (particularly in this country, where only 20,000 copies were ever made). If Rez can be born again on Xbox Live Arcade, surely there’s a home for Panzer Dragoon somewhere.

In addition to covering the full Panzer series, the article also touches on Phantom Dust, the card-based game Futatsugi headed up for Microsoft Japan. 1UP seems to love the game, but I just couldn’t get into it. I liked the game world and general premise, but the gameplay did nothing for me. I might have to give it another shot. It’s on the backwards compatible list, although my personal experiences with backwards compatibility have differed wildly from title-to-title.

Anyway, even if you’ve never heard of the series, check out the feature on 1UP. It’s a great read, and has this line from Futatsugi in it, “if my wish were to come true, I would be allowed to create a sequel to Panzer Dragoon before I die.” He later goes into detail on how he’d like to make a shooting version of Panzer Dragoon Saga, or possibly an all-new game for PSP. I say let the man do both. The world created in these games has room for so much growth. Hopefully someday it will be allowed to continue.

(Thanks to LAGI for the artwork).