The Panzer Dragoon: Remake team has unveiled more concept art, this time giving us a closer look at the enemies from the game’s first episode. This gives us a good occasion to compare the new artwork to the information we have available from the original game’s guidebook.
First off is the concept art labeled “Enemy 06” and “Enemy 06.2”, both also labeled to be from “Level 1”. From that it’s easy to gather that this is the flower-like poisonous plant that’s found on the surface of the water on Episode 1, and “06.2” is the insect that’s found flying above it. The name of the insect isn’t mentioned but the guide labels it as (translated from Japanese) “osumushi”, with “mushi” being Japanese for “insect” or “bug”. This is one area where the team has more creative freedom to elaborate on the minimal design of the original enemies, and the concept art doesn’t fail to impress here. It has a Moebius-like feel to it that fits the Panzer Dragoon universe quite well.
The third concept art is also interesting in that it’s labeled as “Ecto Discus”. This is in fact the name of the enemy in the original game as well (where it was written in the guidebook in Katakana, which is typically used for foreign words). This starfish-like creature is found clinging to walls, but will react to approaching enemies by taking flight and firing amoeba-like projectiles. It’s not clear to me if they still actually cling to walls in the remake, but we have seen that they’re found flying and firing projectiles at the player.
These new images haven’t generated nearly as much discussion as the previous concept art among the Panzer Dragoon community, but as I hope this article shows it’s still quite interesting to compare the new art to the information we already have available.