It’s been a week since Panzer Dragoon Saga turned twenty and fans of the classic Saturn RPG have been celebrating in all sorts of ways. A number of articles about the game and the new re-arranged album “Resurrection” have been posted on various websites.
Ben Lindbergh from The Ringer has written a detailed piece called The Ruinous Road of Gaming’s Missing Masterpiece. He says, “Twenty years after its creation, it also remains nearly impossible to play, a cult classic whose elusiveness mirrors the misery that suffused its development, setting, and story.” The article is in part based on correspondence with Chris Lucich and Matt Underwood, the game’s localisation team from Sega of America. A great read for any fan of Panzer Dragoon Saga wanting to know more about how the game was localised.
There’s also another article discussing Yukio Futatsugi’s ideas for a remake of Panzer Dragoon Saga (purely hypothetical). He imagines an online component, like Dark Souls, but where the content of each player’s game is a different parallel world. Multiple divine visitors influencing each other’s version of the world via Sestren perhaps? He also says that he would make a Panzer Dragoon Saga remake open world and allow the player to make their own choices. “Make a strong correlation between the characters’ responses and behaviors and the player’s actions, so that the characters change depending on the player’s choices,” he says. All this sounds intriguing and it’s a shame that its probably too expensive for any publisher to consider.
There’s also another review of “Resurrection” by Eliot-Ness of Panzer Dragoon World. Be sure to check it out if you want another opinion on the new album besides the review I posted earlier.
Finally, Brave Wave has posted on Twitter thanking everyone who helped make the anniversary album an “astounding success”. There’s more news from Brave Wave too: there will be a Saori Kobayashi concert at Universal Fan Con in Baltimore this year, featuring music from Panzer Dragoon Saga. The game we remember may have ridden off into the sunset on the Saturn twenty years ago, but legacy of Panzer Dragoon Saga is alive and well.