We’ve added two new theories to the site provided by fans who never seem to lose their enthusiasm. Firstly, the founder of the site himself has carefully pieced together a theory speculating that the ruins found in Episode 6 of Panzer Dragoon Orta may have in fact been one of the mythical Towers, only sunken beneath the planet. We know from the Saturn games that not all the Towers were identical in design (or necessarily function for that matter), so this is open for debate much like the rest of the series’ storyline which is as debatable as ever.
Secondly, Jeremy Prusak has examined the differences between the various coolias found throughout the various games in the series, theorising that coolias may have actually adapted to different environments in different ways in order to survive the harsh weather conditions peculiar to them. Is what we see evolution at work, or inconsistent modelling? You decide.
A new contributor has sent us the first two and a half chapters of a new ongoing piece of fan fiction entitled The Ancient Chronicles. The author, Chupacabra, plans to write more chapters over time, and recommends listening to certain music at certain points in time to put you in the moment.
I’ve updated the links section with a link to the Panzer Dragoon Saga Video Project, which is a recently new noble endeavour to capture/record all the in-game cutscenes from Panzer Dragoon Saga itself for everyone’s viewing pleasure. This is a project that could certainly use our encouragement.
As some of you already know, the Sega Saturn was by far my favourite console of all time. It pained me to see such an untapped console be turned into a punching bag by a biased mass media eager to usher in a new era of corporate Sony dominance where true gamers took a back seat to the direction in which the industry was heading as if it would be some kind of welcome change. Assembly-driven dual processors frightened away all but the most veteran of programmers, leaving the Saturn with little in the way of mass market support (which wasn’t helped by Sony bribing everyone), but being branded as a console incapable of rendering good 3D graphics when games like Exhumed/Powerslave proved everyone wrong, and when Dead Or Alive walked all over the later Playstation incarnation, did the most damage and only exposes this biasness for all to see.
So, in memory of our beloved Saturn I’ve added another link to Game Pilgrimage, which covers the Saturn in quite some detail. Check out the comparison shots, between Dead or Alive for the Saturn and Playstation, and special effects found in some of the more graphically demanding games optimised specifically for the Saturn hardware including the real time light sourcing seen in Exhumed and reflective river effects seen in Sonic R. Any doubters can see some of the full screen light sourcing effects found in Panzer Dragoon Saga with their own two eyes here to put those doubts to rest, too. Not very impressive now, of course, but at the time, these were effects the Saturn was apparently incapable of producing. I only wish all of the Saturn’s greatest games reached our shores. I personally think that Grandia played to the Saturn’s greatest strength by merging isometric 2D sprites with colourful 3D environments. For a corporation that tried to ban 2D graphics, I wonder why Grandia was suddenly good enough for a Playstation localisation when the Saturn was taken out of the picture?
We’ll have more updates for our readers soon.