Panzer Dragoon
Panzer Dragoon[a] is a series of video games developed by Sega. The first three games (Panzer Dragoon (1995), Panzer Dragoon II Zwei (1996), and Panzer Dragoon Saga (1998)) were produced by Sega's Team Andromeda for the Sega Saturn. The fourth, Panzer Dragoon Orta (2002), was developed by Sega's Smilebit team for the Xbox. Spin-offs include Panzer Dragoon R-Zone (1995) for the portable R-Zone and Panzer Dragoon Mini (1996) for the handheld Game Gear in Japan. A remake of Panzer Dragoon was released in 2020, and a remake of Zwei has been announced.
| Panzer Dragoon | |
|---|---|
| Genre(s) | Rail shooter, role-playing |
| Developer(s) | Team Andromeda Smilebit |
| Publisher(s) | Sega |
| Creator(s) | Yukio Futatsugi |
| Platform(s) | |
| First release | Panzer Dragoon March 10, 1995 |
| Latest release | Panzer Dragoon: Remake March 26, 2020 |
The games are rail shooters, except for Saga, which is a role-playing game. Each game follows a protagonist who rides a flying armored dragon, fighting human and monstrous enemies in a post-apocalyptic world. The Panzer Dragoon games have received consistently positive reviews emphasizing their art design, visuals, sound design, and atmospheric settings; Panzer Dragoon Saga is the most acclaimed Saturn game, and has appeared in several "greatest games of all time" lists.
Story
The Panzer Dragoon series takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in which humans have begun to recover technologies from the Ancient Age, a world-spanning, hyper-advanced civilization destroyed thousands of years before the start of the story. The Ancients used genetic engineering to create living weapons, which were unleashed in a cataclysmic war that nearly destroyed humanity. The mutated descendants of these creatures have merged into wild ecosystems, where they pose a continual threat to human civilization and provide many of the enemies encountered in the games.[1]
Various human factions use recovered Ancient Age technologies, such as ubiquitous floating military airships, to defend against the wild mutants and to wage war against each other. Over the course of the series, a succession of characters ride mysterious armored flying dragons of extraordinary power, fighting to prevent humanity from reactivating the most destructive Ancient Age weapons and, ultimately, to destroy the remaining weapons and facilities of the Ancient Age so that humanity can be freed from the threat they pose.
Games
| 1995 | Panzer Dragoon |
|---|---|
| Panzer Dragoon R-Zone | |
| 1996 | Panzer Dragoon II Zwei |
| Panzer Dragoon Mini | |
| 1997 | |
| 1998 | Panzer Dragoon Saga |
| 1999–2001 | |
| 2002 | Panzer Dragoon Orta |
| 2003–2019 | |
| 2020 | Panzer Dragoon: Remake |
Main titles
Panzer Dragoon (1995)
The first Panzer Dragoon was released on the Sega Saturn in 1995. The protagonist is Keil Fluge, a hunter who stumbles into a battle between two flying dragons, one blue and one black. The rider of the blue dragon is mortally wounded in the fight and entrusts Keil with his dragon and his mission to stop the Dark Dragon from reactivating an Ancient Age ruin of tremendous destructive power.
This game established the core features of the Panzer Dragoon series: rail shooter gameplay, controlled through an on-screen targeting reticle, with a choice of two main attacks (a lock-on homing laser and a rapid-fire gun), and a camera that can be rotated by 90-degree increments to face enemies attacking from all directions.
Panzer Dragoon was one of the few games available at the Sega Saturn's North American launch. The game was ported to Windows,[2] and the port is included as a bonus game in Panzer Dragoon Orta and in Sega's Japanese PlayStation 2 "AGES 2500" series. A remake with enhanced graphics was released in 2020.
Panzer Dragoon II Zwei (1996)
Panzer Dragoon II Zwei was released for the Sega Saturn in 1996. A prequel to Panzer Dragoon, it follows Jean-Jacques Lundi, a villager who defies taboo to raise a mutant pack animal with wings and a green bioluminescent throat, naming him Lagi. After Lundi's village is destroyed by a flying warship from the Ancient Age, he pursues it with Lagi, who grows into an armored flying dragon. Together they destroy the airship and defeat its guardian dragon.
Zwei introduced the "berserk" attack, an intermittently available attack that hits all enemies on screen and gives temporary invulnerability, along with branching paths through many levels, and the progressive growth and metamorphosis of the dragon over the course of the game.
A PC port was planned for release on GameTap, but GameTap closed its North American offices and changed focus to newer PC games, abandoning the project.[3][4] A remake has been announced but not yet released.
Panzer Dragoon Saga (1998)
Panzer Dragoon Saga (titled Azel: Panzer Dragoon RPG in Japan) is a role-playing game (RPG) released for Saturn in 1998. The player controls Edge, a mercenary who encounters a mysterious girl named Azel in an Ancient Age excavation. After being attacked by a rogue military force, he is rescued by an armored flying dragon. Though at first motivated by revenge, Edge becomes embroiled in a conflict over control of Ancient Age weapons, and he ultimately invades and destroys the AI network controlling the various Ancient facilities around the world.
Saga is the only Panzer Dragoon game that is not a rail shooter, combining traditional role-playing elements such as items and random encounters with the setting and motifs of previous games. The combat system mixes real-time and turn-based elements,[5] with the player circling enemies on the dragon to expose weak spots and escape dangerous positions.[6] Saga also introduced the ability to morph the dragon between different forms emphasizing offense, defense, mobility, and other attributes.
According to GameRankings, Panzer Dragoon Saga is the most acclaimed Saturn game, winning praise for its story, graphics, music, and unusual battle system.[7] It has appeared in several "greatest games of all time" lists.[8][9][10] As Sega had shifted its focus to its next console, the Dreamcast, the game had a limited release outside Japan, attracting a cult following. It has not been re-released and is now a rare collector's item. After its release, Sega disbanded Team Andromeda; Futatsugi left Sega and joined Konami,[11] while other staff moved to Sega teams including Smilebit.[5]
Panzer Dragoon Orta (2002)
Panzer Dragoon Orta was released for Xbox in late 2002 in Japan and in early 2003 in America and Europe. It was developed by Smilebit, which had been founded by former members of Team Andromeda. The story follows Orta, a teenage girl held captive until she is rescued by an armored flying dragon during an attack on her town. She is pursued by multiple factions that want to use her connection with the Ancient Age to build weapons. Ultimately, she destroys an army of dragon-like creatures and the Ancient Age facility being used to produce them, along with Ancient android that hopes to wipe out humanity.
A return to the rail shooter genre, Orta introduced several features inspired by mechanics from Saga, such as maneuvering around enemies and shifting the dragon between different forms during combat. The game featured large amounts of unlockable content, including a story encyclopedia, side missions, video cutscenes from previous games, and the entire playable game Panzer Dragoon.
Spin-offs and remakes
Panzer Dragoon R-Zone (1995)
Panzer Dragoon R-Zone was released for the portable Tiger R-Zone system. It was one of the few launch titles licensed by Sega, being released just a few months after the original Panzer Dragoon.[12] It was the first game in the series that was not developed by Team Andromeda. There is no plot, simply a nameless character on an armored dragon attempting to keep a dark dragon from reaching a tower while shooting and dodging robots.
Panzer Dragoon Mini (1996)
Panzer Dragoon Mini is a spin-off released for the Game Gear handheld in Japan in 1996. Due to the technical limitations of the Game Gear, the camera cannot be controlled and instead rotates automatically; also, for the first and — so far — only time in the series' history, the dragon does not have a rider. The game is markedly different from others in the series due to lack of a story and the dragon's super deformed appearance. Most of the levels and enemies are modeled after those of Panzer Dragoon Zwei.
Panzer Dragoon: Remake (2020)
A remake of Panzer Dragoon developed by MegaPixel Studio[13] was released for Nintendo Switch, Stadia, Windows, PlayStation 4, Amazon Luna, and Xbox One in 2020.[14][15][16]
Other media
Soundtrack CDs were released in Japan for all the games, with Panzer Dragoon Orta's being bundled with the game itself. Tokyopop released the Panzer Dragoon Orta soundtrack in the USA. An anime adaptation of the first game was released, with the story being slightly altered to include a female heroine whom Keil ('Kyle' in the anime) is trying to save when she becomes bonded to the Black Dragon. The English version was released by ADV Films.[17] An artbook from the second game, Die Welt Von Panzer Dragoon Zwei (The World of Panzer Dragoon Zwei) was also released.
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed features a racetrack based on Panzer Dragoon. Additionally, the Worlds Unite crossover between the Sonic the Hedgehog and the Mega Man comic lines from Archie Comics features Panzer Dragoon characters and concepts.
References
- ^ Panzer Dragoon North American instruction manual. Sega. 1995. pp. 4–5.
- ^ , IGN.
- ^ Klepek, Patrick (13 April 2007). . 1UP.com. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on August 2, 2012. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
- ^ Sliwinski, Alexander (7 October 2010). . Joystiq. Archived from the original on 22 October 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
- ^ a b . 2005-06-01. Archived from the original on September 22, 2004. Retrieved 2015-12-11.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ "Panzer Dragoon Saga review". Sega Saturn Magazine. April 1998.
- ^ "Panzer Dragoon Saga". GameRankings. Retrieved 19 December 2015.
- ^ . 1Up.com. Archived from the original on 2015-12-22. Retrieved 2015-12-11.
- ^ . IGN.com. Archived from the original on April 14, 2012. Retrieved November 24, 2008.
- ^ Top 100 Games of All Time: No.22, G4.
- ^ "Flying through life: Meet the man behind Panzer Dragoon". Eurogamer.net. 8 April 2013. Retrieved 2015-12-13.
- ^ Panzer Dragoon R-Zone release data, IGN. Retrieved February 12, 2012.
- ^ Barder, Ollie. "The First Two Panzer Dragoon Games Are Getting New Remakes". Forbes. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
- ^ Scullion, Chris (2020-03-27). "Review: Panzer Dragoon: Remake - Doesn't Quite Nail The Landing". Nintendo Life. Retrieved 2020-03-28.
- ^ "Google Stadia Pro games for June are now available". NME Music News, Reviews, Videos, Galleries, Tickets and Blogs | NME.COM. 2020-06-01. Retrieved 2020-06-02.
- ^ "Panzer Dragoon: Remake Is Coming To PS4, Xbox One, And PC". GameSpot. Retrieved 2020-10-12.
- ^ . ADV Films. 1998-06-02. Archived from the original on 7 December 1998. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
Notes
External links
- Panzer Dragoon series at MobyGames
- Panzer Dragoon (OVA) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia