You may have heard that this year marks the 20th anniversary of Panzer Dragoon Saga, though by now, even the European release date has passed. There's nothing quite like the game, especially at the time of its release. It's an RPG born from a rail shooter, is incredibly short, and incredibly ambitious ... to varying degrees of success. The game begins at an imperial excavation site the main character, Edge, is guarding, when a hostile creature attacks from within the site. In the midst of fighting off the creature, Edge notices a strange artifact from within the site, which seems to enshrine a human figure. The distress signal the guards send out is answered by Craymen, who just so happens to be looking for the very artifact that Edge sees. Craymen defects from the empire and attacks the mercenaries guarding the site, including Edge, and steals the artifact. Edge spends most of the game fighting off the empire while chasing Craymen and the girl. Saga is not a long game. You can comfortably beat the game in 12 hours. The first disc is at most 2. But that time is dense, rich, full of battles, and full of cutscenes.
The game is both fully 3D, and fully voiced. Every NPC you approach in the game has a voiced line, and these change over the course of the story. It's full of both cutscenes that make incredible use of the Saturn's capabilities and FMV, which are often somewhat lacking. The Saturn cutscenes are "well shot," and well framed, changing camera angles multiple times over the course of each scene. Whoever was in charge of directing the cutscenes had an eye for these elements, and was clearly incredibly talented. Even when the character modeling wasn't quite there to bring the game to the heights it deserved.
Even the mere entrance to a new location can be exciting.
And battles are often visually remarkable as well.
The very beginning of the game features a lengthy CG, with impressive character models for the time. This is the best Edge and Azel will look in the game:
The rest of the CG feature some of the worst character models you'll see from a higher budget JRPG from the late 90s; Edge's character model is more or less a better version of his Saturn model and animates as such. He looks okay, but Azel looks strange, and scenes featuring her don't quite give the sense of the enigmatic character the game so desperately wants to portray, regardless of the incredible work of the voice actress. Using FMV to better portray the more intimate scenes between individual characters sounds like a good idea on paper, and that's why scenes with Azel often end up CG. The (Japanese) game is named after her, after all. But in the end, they probably would have been better off with just voice acting and Saturn models for these.
Even then, some of the rougher FMV do have some striking visuals.
But despite how rough it all is, something about it works. The music is some of the best, most memorable, and unique in the genre you'll hear. And the voices elevate the game to another level. This is a bit of an oxymoron, given the game's rough CG visuals, but something about Edge's voice actor makes me feel like I'm playing through a Ghibli film. (There's also the fact that it's almost assuredly influenced by Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, but almost all Japanese games from the era are probably inspired by some Ghibli film). And there is a film like quality to the game. It's not just cutscenes, and camera angles. The game's short length is a sign of the game's plot moving at a very deliberate pace. Perhaps it forces it to. The game features a great story, and it's still worth going back to.
Though maybe not 500 USD great. Maybe you're interested in this game, but don't want to pirate it and don't want to play it in Japanese. This year I decided to record the entire game, edit it, and translate the whole thing. Something tells me the original translation is perfectly fine, and I'm not sure my amateur translation measures up, but I decided to do it for fun. I've played through the whole game, have edited more than half what I've recorded, and have translated the beginning of the game. I'll be uploading a video once a week or so (hopefully more than one), for the next few. For those who are interested in the game, here's a heavily edited version of it.
Enjoy.
Captured from hardware.
Parts 2 & 3
Update!
Parts 4, 5, & 6
The game is both fully 3D, and fully voiced. Every NPC you approach in the game has a voiced line, and these change over the course of the story. It's full of both cutscenes that make incredible use of the Saturn's capabilities and FMV, which are often somewhat lacking. The Saturn cutscenes are "well shot," and well framed, changing camera angles multiple times over the course of each scene. Whoever was in charge of directing the cutscenes had an eye for these elements, and was clearly incredibly talented. Even when the character modeling wasn't quite there to bring the game to the heights it deserved.
Even the mere entrance to a new location can be exciting.
And battles are often visually remarkable as well.
The very beginning of the game features a lengthy CG, with impressive character models for the time. This is the best Edge and Azel will look in the game:
The rest of the CG feature some of the worst character models you'll see from a higher budget JRPG from the late 90s; Edge's character model is more or less a better version of his Saturn model and animates as such. He looks okay, but Azel looks strange, and scenes featuring her don't quite give the sense of the enigmatic character the game so desperately wants to portray, regardless of the incredible work of the voice actress. Using FMV to better portray the more intimate scenes between individual characters sounds like a good idea on paper, and that's why scenes with Azel often end up CG. The (Japanese) game is named after her, after all. But in the end, they probably would have been better off with just voice acting and Saturn models for these.
Even then, some of the rougher FMV do have some striking visuals.
But despite how rough it all is, something about it works. The music is some of the best, most memorable, and unique in the genre you'll hear. And the voices elevate the game to another level. This is a bit of an oxymoron, given the game's rough CG visuals, but something about Edge's voice actor makes me feel like I'm playing through a Ghibli film. (There's also the fact that it's almost assuredly influenced by Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, but almost all Japanese games from the era are probably inspired by some Ghibli film). And there is a film like quality to the game. It's not just cutscenes, and camera angles. The game's short length is a sign of the game's plot moving at a very deliberate pace. Perhaps it forces it to. The game features a great story, and it's still worth going back to.
Though maybe not 500 USD great. Maybe you're interested in this game, but don't want to pirate it and don't want to play it in Japanese. This year I decided to record the entire game, edit it, and translate the whole thing. Something tells me the original translation is perfectly fine, and I'm not sure my amateur translation measures up, but I decided to do it for fun. I've played through the whole game, have edited more than half what I've recorded, and have translated the beginning of the game. I'll be uploading a video once a week or so (hopefully more than one), for the next few. For those who are interested in the game, here's a heavily edited version of it.
Enjoy.
Captured from hardware.
Parts 2 & 3
Update!
Parts 4, 5, & 6
- It's not a literal translation. I take a lot of liberties.
- That being said, there are a few parts that are probably still too literal, including one that I forgot to go back and change. Oops. The "of a higher pedigree" line is another one of them. Literally says it has the certificate to go with it.
- Speaking of "Machral," I decided to use the game's language to translate what's "attack life form" in Japanese. I thought of "Hostile Life Form" or just "Hostile Form," but nothing sounded right.
- I thought I had combed through all of it, but noticed a typo later on. There might be a few.
One of the character names doesn't fully match the Japanese romanization in the manual, because I forgot to go back and check. It took me over an hour to render it, so I'll have to fix these things another time.
- That being said, there are a few parts that are probably still too literal, including one that I forgot to go back and change. Oops. The "of a higher pedigree" line is another one of them. Literally says it has the certificate to go with it.
- Speaking of "Machral," I decided to use the game's language to translate what's "attack life form" in Japanese. I thought of "Hostile Life Form" or just "Hostile Form," but nothing sounded right.
- I thought I had combed through all of it, but noticed a typo later on. There might be a few.
One of the character names doesn't fully match the Japanese romanization in the manual, because I forgot to go back and check. It took me over an hour to render it, so I'll have to fix these things another time.
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