Obscure Games You May Not Have Heard Of - Episode 2, Panzer Dragoon Saga

“But Liz,” you may say, reading my title, “Panzer Dragoon Saga is one of the most acclaimed and loved games on the Sega Saturn!”

To which I will reply… how many people do you know who owned a Sega Saturn

Proud of you for knowin’ this game though, it’s very very good.

So in January of 1997, a company called Square released a little game called Final Fantasy 7 for the Sony Playstation. You may have heard of it. It sold like gangbusters and boosted Playstation sales like no other. Now, at this time, the Saturn was doing, shall we say, not too good. So Sega went to one of their best teams, Team Andromeda, and said “please make us one of these”

They needed a killer RPG game for the Saturn, or the console was done for. Frankly, the Saturn was done for anyway, especially outside of Japan. But if one team was gonna save the console, it was the team that brought the console to the dance in the first place. You may not have played a Panzer Dragoon game because, again, the Saturn sold like garbage outside of Japan, but it’s what made the console not look like a joke. It was an incredible on rails shooter, and while the team was working on their ground breaking follow up, Panzer Dragoon Zwei, they were asked to make an RPG as well.

Now, none of Team Andromeda had any actual experience making an RPG… and they weren’t really the kind to look at what’s popular and make that again. So what did they do? They made a bold art piece, something that still fit in the Panzer Dragoon world of a position-based shooter, something unique and flashy, a magnum opus. And it booooombed. This thing only BARELY got a Western release, and the translation is just subs. No dubs, it was made as cheaply as possible. It was early 1998 at that point, and the writing was on the wall for the Saturn. But how is the actual game? Well…

It’s basically the best RPG ever made. Only Chrono Trigger can step up to it, in my eyes.

Let’s talk aesthetics. The Panzer Dragoon series is already really striking, with a unique art style and aesthetic concept that basically nothing else has touched. It’s kind of the aesthetic of the saturn, in a way. Lots of chitin and rocks and dust in a post apocalyptic mutated wasteland, beautiful artwork, weird monsters, and a bizarre story that’s hard to follow. The Saturn was a console made for 2D, but somehow they made it look like it was always meant for 3D. And that artwork. Whoof. I sometimes pull out my copy just to look at the manual. Then I put it away, because it is really expensive.

So what’s the actual game like, then? Well, it’s an RPG. Story is, you’re a dude named Edge, or as the voice over keeps calling him, Edgy. He’s a guard for the Empire, guarding an archaeological digging site, looking for tech from the Ancients. They find a woman in the ruins, but then are betrayed and left for dead by a rebel faction in the empire, Craymen, who’s men leave Edge for dead. He’s thrown down into the caverns of the ruins, but is somehow unharmed, where he is intercepted by a flying dragon. They communicate on a deep level somehow, and together, the two of them decide to take revenge on Craymen and find out what the secret is to that girl that Craymen kidnapped.

It’s a good set up for the game, and the story is pretty good, but my main selling point here is the gameplay. Look, I’m… not the BIGGEST fan of RPGs. They usually have great stories and worlds and characters, but the gameplay is you mash a button and walk around a bunch. It can get samey and boring. This game kept me awake for all four CDs. You fly around on your dragon, exploring the world for items and puzzles like any usual RPG, and when you encounter a random battle, it moves into this high action combat system.

You have four directions you can be, north south east and west. Enemies will have patterns based on what they are, and where you are. You have a little compass at the bottom telling you areas that are safe, dangerous, or neutral. You gotta quickly duck around the battlefield, circling around the enemy, while your battle gauge fills. The Gauge is kinda like the ATB system of Final Fantasy, but you have three gauges, and some abilities and magic take multiple gauges. You also have two basic attacks, one focused gun attack and your dragon’s lasers, which hit everyone on screen. Depending on what you’re fighting, and where you’re facing, you have to mix up your attacks. You can’t just mash. You gotta stay focused. And it’s FUN, so it’s not annoying or overwhelming.

I seriously cannot stress how much I love this battle system. Every battle is unique, especially with the bosses. The game isn’t very super HARD necessarily, but you may have to rethink your strategies a lot on the fly. And you can do that by changing your dragon! Your dragon has four stats, Attack, Defense, Spirit, and Agility (spirit is kinda like your magic attacks). You can focus your stats into one or two stats to make a super specialized dragon. I often use Agility, but that’s cause I speedrun this game and its the fastest way, there’s no correct way to play.

Look, I know this post is gonna be a hard sell. It’s harder to sell someone an RPG than basically any other genre of game. ESPECIALLY one on the Saturn that costs… lemme check… Ebay has one listed right now at $1,300. Look, Saturn emulation is getting better than ever, and the game can run on computers now. It’s never been re-released, it was an absolute flop, but it didn’t deserve that. It’s a cult classic for a reason, and if you’re looking for an RPG to check out sometime, you seriously cannot go wrong with it.

And for my Chrono Trigger comparison earlier, I’ll say, I DO think CT is better than this game but if a game had CT’s characters and stories, and PDS’s combat system, I think it would probably be the best game ever made.

Also if you speak Japanese, I got my JP copy for like 60 bucks! That’s WAY more manageable than 1300~ but seriously, just emulate it. You won’t regret it.