There's something really unique, in how the final fight's theme is not a bombastic piece of orchestra, like 90% of J-RPGs. It's just eerie and chaotic, as if to illustrate that you are fighting something otherworldly. Sestren is also the only boss I know that literaly hurls the corpse of previous bosses as his main way of attacking. That's just damn good. I really hope that, someday, there will be a remake of this game, since a remaster is unfortunately impossible.
Thank you for covering this! Never had a Saturn growing up and heard nothing but fantastic things about Panzer Dragoon Saga - definitely a worthwhile watch.
Just watched your playthrough completely from start to finish for the second time. When I can afford it I will buy this game myself but until then, yet again thank you for showing this beautiful world to the world. This world has drastically influenced my own imagination and alot of personal recollections I owe to it as well. It is sad it has come to a close again but such an incredible game lives on through its influence.
Joseph Carrasco Hey Joseph, thanks so much for this lovely comment. I’m honoured that people like yourself are still coming to my videos to get back into the extraordinary world of PDS; there must be better players (and capture cards!) out there, but it was fortunate that I had the time to meander through this game and capture as much of it as possible. I’ve fond memories of playing it late into the evening, processing the video overnight, uploading to TH-cam in the morning and starting the cycle all over again! It almost killed my laptop but the sacrifice was more than worth it. I hope you can get hold of a copy of the game sometime soon, and start the adventure all over again.
@@RaincloudGaming Now now, don't discredit your playing style. You explored the world to its fullest and figured things out as you went. That is the beauty of a game world. Figuring things out. It adds to the appeal because sometime you yourself watching don't know what's next and figure it out with you as you play.
This has got to be one of the (if not) the most powerful metacomments not only in gaming history, but in fiction in general. Such a shame this game was played only by a few in its time.
Just to let you know, bro, I've been using your playthroughs for years to playthrough on my Japanese copy on my Saturn (American version goes for over $200 on eBay). I have so many memories of sitting with my laptop on one side and TV on the other going back and forth between watching a few minutes of your playthrough, pausing, and then repeating the same thing on my TV because I would get lost too many times cuz obviously I can't read Japanese :)
In the interest of understanding the Panzer Dragoon universe more (I was introduced to it via Panzer Dragoon Orta and the visual design of the world always drew me in, and recently I started digging really deeply into it for... reasons!), I watched your *entire* playthrough. It was very enlightening and I'm *very* glad you went everywhere you could! :) Thank you so much for uploading the whole thing! Since you're asking for opinions on the ending, for completion's sake - I find the Edge part of it underwhelming, but I'm generally not a fan of broken fourth walls. I suppose I'd have preferred to see more of the effect of the Towers' deactivation. Seeing Azel's quest to find Edge, however, was wonderful - deeply touching. I find the setting of Panzer Dragoon absolutely breathtakingly fantastic - and like many hope we can see another game much like Saga sometime in future. Saga's a gorgeous game that I'm definitely going to recommend to anyone that can get their hands on it. Thanks again for your marvellous playthrough!
pinkgothic Thank you so much for your generous comment! This series was a real labour of love, but knowing that even one person got into it the way that you did makes it completely worthwhile to me. I didn't imagine that anyone would watch the entire thing, and I'm especially happy that you found some value in my obsessive mapping of each area. I also find the ending a little forgettable (at least, in the context of such a memorable game), with the massive exception of Azel's story. Truly heartbreaking. One of my favourite moments of the series, perhaps third only to the taking-flight scene and the final boss battle in PD Zwei. Reading your comment has inspired me to pick up Orta again, and perhaps try to upload all of the Pandora's Box missions (which I seem to recall were even harder than the main game). Thank you again, so much, for taking the time to watch the playthrough and leave your thoughts - I hope your PD journey is long and fruitful, and that we get to find out a little more about Edge and the gang later down the road!
***** I'd love to see you play through the Pandora's Box missions! Stupidly, I never played them - to my shame, I just didn't understand the setting enough to appreciate what was going on there, so I stopped after the first mission. But I've been quite tempted to get out my X-Box, myself, just so I can get at all that encyclopaedia content, so hopefully I'll catch up to the missions as well while I'm at it. I'm surprised there isn't a list of Panzer Dragoon creatures with pictures somewhere - even the Will Of The Ancients website doesn't seem to list all of them (or I keep looking in the wrong places). I might end up compiling my own - there does seem to be a Panzer Dragoon wiki... it beckons. I feel like I owe you a brief heads-up why I'm digging in this deeply, since I was so cryptic before - it's a rather nerdy past-time that brought me here, I do freeform RPing on IRC, and Panzer Dragoon was (sub)setting I chose recently for our campaign. Notably, I chose it before I started watching your playthrough or knowing much more than what Panzer Dragoon Orta had told me. Now that I've uncovered just how impossibly rich and well-designed this setting is (and how much it caters to my Eldritch play-style, no less, to tell the truth), I don't want to leave. That being said, I fear we won't do it any justice, alas - but not for lack of trying.
@ourlad1337 Spoilers incoming. As far as I can gather from Orta, Azel never did find Edge but found his DNA sequence in sestrens backup that was in Orta. Although she never found him she was able to create Orta by combining her DNA with Edges. In a way it was her final step to becoming more human and for the PD universe it was the first coming together of the ancient world and the new world of panzer dragoon offer some hope of the future.
The ending really had an emotional impact on me. There was just something so depressing about it helped by how brilliant the characters Edge and in particular Azel developed over the game. It's left ambiguous but I do like how panzer dragoon orta tied up the whole series with a wonderful bitter sweet conclusion but left a glimmer of hope as well.
Alright, so...as someone who waltzed into this series backwards from Panzer Dragoon Orta, even though I was alive during the start of it all, I bring comments. No point in spoiler alerts, as it's been out for years, of course. Edge did not succeed in shutting down Sestren, and the 8th Empire bred Dragonmares, thanks to Abadd. Whether Azel found Edge or not, it was clear that Orta was born not just with the hope of all that lives in the future, but to shape its destiny. She becomes caretaker of the world, since Sestren apparently can't be destroyed. Because Lagi appeared in PDO, he was definitely in on this, having adapted his situation. And of course, he's still rebirthing himself again and again. Since the human empire keeps raiding Ancient facilities to gain power, he effectively becomes their new guardian. No word, of course, on whether or not any of the other dragons still function. Ultimately, the game is a wonderful adventure and a great story. It's just that the mystery is taken out of it a bit when you consider Orta. One can also assume that Azel is a human-relations drone while Abadd is clearly a full combat drone. Their mentalities bear this out completely, along with their behavior. It is curious that a true dragon was not made for Abadd, though, since he had to create his own Mare in the Cradle. This is, of course, assuming the facility shutdowns - which DID occur, though Sestren survies - that killed the Ancients in stasis didn't also switch off all the other proper dragons. The one thing that bugs me, though: Why did they store Azel in a position that looks like she's broken her neck?
Hi, do you mind if I use your playthrough for making a review of this game? I'll credit your channel ofc. I don't own a capture card and I've never been able to get Saturn emulation to work, so my only other option for capturing footage would be to film the TV screen while I'm playing.
***** Thanks a lot :) I've got other videos on my backlog I need to get out of the way first, but I'll try to get to it as soon as I can. It's kind of a weird game for being so notorious amongst collectors&Sega fanboys, yet very unheard of outside of that. I hope I can show people that aren't as familiar with JRPGs that they can be very diverse and cool games when they're willing to experiement a little, even if I do have some things to criticize (like the sewer level).
90sgamer92Eng That sounds great. Agreed that it's certainly not a perfect game (god, that sewer level), and I probably prefer PD Zwei overall, but such an interesting twist in the series and an incredible achievement for the Saturn. I'm all in favour of anything you can do to spread the word about this game and genre, and if you can offer the balanced perspective that a rabid fanboy like me would be completely incapable of then that's all the better.
***** The review is up, hope you like it! It's been a while since I played PDS and I based most of the script on an review I wrote back in 2013, so if anything's missing/inaccurate (or you want to praise some aspect of the game I overlooked), feel free to leave a comment! One aspect of the game that I noticed/rediscovered while editing the footage is how massive the game world is. I mean in the sense how Anor Londo in Dark Souls feels like a city built for literal giants, not that the game world is huge in square kilometers. Even though you're on top of a dragon, the surrounding architechture completely dwarfs you. Tough the limited draw distances limit this effect in the outdoor areas, you can see it in many of the indoor areas. Even though the video quality isn't optimal and I dont praise the art direction that much, I think the video footage itself will sell this game to those who watch the review. It's such an unique looking game and some of the areas have quite cool design. I really wish they had done another game like Saga with the Orta engine.
90sgamer92Eng Howdy - I've already watched and commented on the vid (thanks for the heads-up!), but just wanted to respond here too - totally agree about the scale of the landscape, and with it the feeling of exploring a land that is much older and greater than even the crazy stuff you encounter in the actual story. I thought the review was very balanced and insightful, and I would highly recommend it to any PD fans or newcomers out there! And totally agree about a Saga/Orta game - with Shenmue 3 alive and kicking we can only dream :)
So in the Panzer dragoon the impurity was born as it says to puruse it. And in Zewil it was born thus, why that flying fortress appeared and started to destroy things/life? Is Edge on the same dragoon that's been born in all of the Panzer games?
Essentially yeah, Edge's dragon is the same dragon you ride in Orta at least, I know that for sure. That's why/how Orta is saved by the dragon at the beginning of PD: Orta
@RaincloudGaming Well Orta wasn't really a happy ending either, very bittersweet. However it represented hope for the universe of panzer dragoon. Can't fit this all in one post so on to the next one!
Essentially showing the player that Edge's dragon is the same one you have been riding on for all three games. And also in Orta but that isn't explained in Saga for obvious reasons haha
One of the finest Video Games ever created.
It's downright sad that so few people know about this masterpiece.
There's something really unique, in how the final fight's theme is not a bombastic piece of orchestra, like 90% of J-RPGs. It's just eerie and chaotic, as if to illustrate that you are fighting something otherworldly. Sestren is also the only boss I know that literaly hurls the corpse of previous bosses as his main way of attacking. That's just damn good.
I really hope that, someday, there will be a remake of this game, since a remaster is unfortunately impossible.
Berserker Rage is just insane!
Probably one of the best game attacks of all time.
+TheLegendMakeR11 It's awesome!
Thank you for covering this! Never had a Saturn growing up and heard nothing but fantastic things about Panzer Dragoon Saga - definitely a worthwhile watch.
Just watched your playthrough completely from start to finish for the second time. When I can afford it I will buy this game myself but until then, yet again thank you for showing this beautiful world to the world. This world has drastically influenced my own imagination and alot of personal recollections I owe to it as well. It is sad it has come to a close again but such an incredible game lives on through its influence.
Joseph Carrasco Hey Joseph, thanks so much for this lovely comment. I’m honoured that people like yourself are still coming to my videos to get back into the extraordinary world of PDS; there must be better players (and capture cards!) out there, but it was fortunate that I had the time to meander through this game and capture as much of it as possible. I’ve fond memories of playing it late into the evening, processing the video overnight, uploading to TH-cam in the morning and starting the cycle all over again! It almost killed my laptop but the sacrifice was more than worth it. I hope you can get hold of a copy of the game sometime soon, and start the adventure all over again.
@@RaincloudGaming Now now, don't discredit your playing style. You explored the world to its fullest and figured things out as you went. That is the beauty of a game world. Figuring things out. It adds to the appeal because sometime you yourself watching don't know what's next and figure it out with you as you play.
This has got to be one of the (if not) the most powerful metacomments not only in gaming history, but in fiction in general.
Such a shame this game was played only by a few in its time.
Just to let you know, bro, I've been using your playthroughs for years to playthrough on my Japanese copy on my Saturn (American version goes for over $200 on eBay). I have so many memories of sitting with my laptop on one side and TV on the other going back and forth between watching a few minutes of your playthrough, pausing, and then repeating the same thing on my TV because I would get lost too many times cuz obviously I can't read Japanese :)
In the interest of understanding the Panzer Dragoon universe more (I was introduced to it via Panzer Dragoon Orta and the visual design of the world always drew me in, and recently I started digging really deeply into it for... reasons!), I watched your *entire* playthrough. It was very enlightening and I'm *very* glad you went everywhere you could! :) Thank you so much for uploading the whole thing!
Since you're asking for opinions on the ending, for completion's sake - I find the Edge part of it underwhelming, but I'm generally not a fan of broken fourth walls. I suppose I'd have preferred to see more of the effect of the Towers' deactivation. Seeing Azel's quest to find Edge, however, was wonderful - deeply touching.
I find the setting of Panzer Dragoon absolutely breathtakingly fantastic - and like many hope we can see another game much like Saga sometime in future. Saga's a gorgeous game that I'm definitely going to recommend to anyone that can get their hands on it.
Thanks again for your marvellous playthrough!
pinkgothic Thank you so much for your generous comment! This series was a real labour of love, but knowing that even one person got into it the way that you did makes it completely worthwhile to me. I didn't imagine that anyone would watch the entire thing, and I'm especially happy that you found some value in my obsessive mapping of each area.
I also find the ending a little forgettable (at least, in the context of such a memorable game), with the massive exception of Azel's story. Truly heartbreaking. One of my favourite moments of the series, perhaps third only to the taking-flight scene and the final boss battle in PD Zwei.
Reading your comment has inspired me to pick up Orta again, and perhaps try to upload all of the Pandora's Box missions (which I seem to recall were even harder than the main game). Thank you again, so much, for taking the time to watch the playthrough and leave your thoughts - I hope your PD journey is long and fruitful, and that we get to find out a little more about Edge and the gang later down the road!
***** I'd love to see you play through the Pandora's Box missions! Stupidly, I never played them - to my shame, I just didn't understand the setting enough to appreciate what was going on there, so I stopped after the first mission.
But I've been quite tempted to get out my X-Box, myself, just so I can get at all that encyclopaedia content, so hopefully I'll catch up to the missions as well while I'm at it. I'm surprised there isn't a list of Panzer Dragoon creatures with pictures somewhere - even the Will Of The Ancients website doesn't seem to list all of them (or I keep looking in the wrong places). I might end up compiling my own - there does seem to be a Panzer Dragoon wiki... it beckons.
I feel like I owe you a brief heads-up why I'm digging in this deeply, since I was so cryptic before - it's a rather nerdy past-time that brought me here, I do freeform RPing on IRC, and Panzer Dragoon was (sub)setting I chose recently for our campaign. Notably, I chose it before I started watching your playthrough or knowing much more than what Panzer Dragoon Orta had told me. Now that I've uncovered just how impossibly rich and well-designed this setting is (and how much it caters to my Eldritch play-style, no less, to tell the truth), I don't want to leave. That being said, I fear we won't do it any justice, alas - but not for lack of trying.
@ourlad1337 Spoilers incoming. As far as I can gather from Orta, Azel never did find Edge but found his DNA sequence in sestrens backup that was in Orta. Although she never found him she was able to create Orta by combining her DNA with Edges. In a way it was her final step to becoming more human and for the PD universe it was the first coming together of the ancient world and the new world of panzer dragoon offer some hope of the future.
The ending really had an emotional impact on me. There was just something so depressing about it helped by how brilliant the characters Edge and in particular Azel developed over the game. It's left ambiguous but I do like how panzer dragoon orta tied up the whole series with a wonderful bitter sweet conclusion but left a glimmer of hope as well.
I'm using the SSF emulator and it gets stuck in the 21:00 part. Does anybody know why this occurs? I can't play the end part of the game.
I'm not sure, it worked for me on SSF v0.12 Beta R3. I've left the compatibility settings well alone!
Alright, so...as someone who waltzed into this series backwards from Panzer Dragoon Orta, even though I was alive during the start of it all, I bring comments. No point in spoiler alerts, as it's been out for years, of course.
Edge did not succeed in shutting down Sestren, and the 8th Empire bred Dragonmares, thanks to Abadd. Whether Azel found Edge or not, it was clear that Orta was born not just with the hope of all that lives in the future, but to shape its destiny. She becomes caretaker of the world, since Sestren apparently can't be destroyed.
Because Lagi appeared in PDO, he was definitely in on this, having adapted his situation. And of course, he's still rebirthing himself again and again. Since the human empire keeps raiding Ancient facilities to gain power, he effectively becomes their new guardian. No word, of course, on whether or not any of the other dragons still function.
Ultimately, the game is a wonderful adventure and a great story. It's just that the mystery is taken out of it a bit when you consider Orta. One can also assume that Azel is a human-relations drone while Abadd is clearly a full combat drone. Their mentalities bear this out completely, along with their behavior. It is curious that a true dragon was not made for Abadd, though, since he had to create his own Mare in the Cradle. This is, of course, assuming the facility shutdowns - which DID occur, though Sestren survies - that killed the Ancients in stasis didn't also switch off all the other proper dragons.
The one thing that bugs me, though: Why did they store Azel in a position that looks like she's broken her neck?
I love the series but don't consider Orta to be canon. It played differently, it felt differently, it wasn't made by the same people.
Wish the soundtrack were out there somewhere. Too much good music in Saga.
Hi, do you mind if I use your playthrough for making a review of this game? I'll credit your channel ofc. I don't own a capture card and I've never been able to get Saturn emulation to work, so my only other option for capturing footage would be to film the TV screen while I'm playing.
90sgamer92Eng Sure, go ahead! Looking forward to seeing your review :)
*****
Thanks a lot :) I've got other videos on my backlog I need to get out of the way first, but I'll try to get to it as soon as I can.
It's kind of a weird game for being so notorious amongst collectors&Sega fanboys, yet very unheard of outside of that. I hope I can show people that aren't as familiar with JRPGs that they can be very diverse and cool games when they're willing to experiement a little, even if I do have some things to criticize (like the sewer level).
90sgamer92Eng That sounds great. Agreed that it's certainly not a perfect game (god, that sewer level), and I probably prefer PD Zwei overall, but such an interesting twist in the series and an incredible achievement for the Saturn. I'm all in favour of anything you can do to spread the word about this game and genre, and if you can offer the balanced perspective that a rabid fanboy like me would be completely incapable of then that's all the better.
*****
The review is up, hope you like it! It's been a while since I played PDS and I based most of the script on an review I wrote back in 2013, so if anything's missing/inaccurate (or you want to praise some aspect of the game I overlooked), feel free to leave a comment!
One aspect of the game that I noticed/rediscovered while editing the footage is how massive the game world is. I mean in the sense how Anor Londo in Dark Souls feels like a city built for literal giants, not that the game world is huge in square kilometers. Even though you're on top of a dragon, the surrounding architechture completely dwarfs you. Tough the limited draw distances limit this effect in the outdoor areas, you can see it in many of the indoor areas.
Even though the video quality isn't optimal and I dont praise the art direction that much, I think the video footage itself will sell this game to those who watch the review. It's such an unique looking game and some of the areas have quite cool design. I really wish they had done another game like Saga with the Orta engine.
90sgamer92Eng Howdy - I've already watched and commented on the vid (thanks for the heads-up!), but just wanted to respond here too - totally agree about the scale of the landscape, and with it the feeling of exploring a land that is much older and greater than even the crazy stuff you encounter in the actual story. I thought the review was very balanced and insightful, and I would highly recommend it to any PD fans or newcomers out there! And totally agree about a Saga/Orta game - with Shenmue 3 alive and kicking we can only dream :)
So in the Panzer dragoon the impurity was born as it says to puruse it. And in Zewil it was born thus, why that flying fortress appeared and started to destroy things/life? Is Edge on the same dragoon that's been born in all of the Panzer games?
Essentially yeah, Edge's dragon is the same dragon you ride in Orta at least, I know that for sure. That's why/how Orta is saved by the dragon at the beginning of PD: Orta
Watched it again. We need a remake.
Like, really. Please Sega/FE.
@RaincloudGaming Well Orta wasn't really a happy ending either, very bittersweet. However it represented hope for the universe of panzer dragoon. Can't fit this all in one post so on to the next one!
I love that the dragon in Orta is essentially Edge's dragon, that's why it saves Orta at the beginning of the game
What are those spheres around Sestren? Memories?
Essentially showing the player that Edge's dragon is the same one you have been riding on for all three games. And also in Orta but that isn't explained in Saga for obvious reasons haha
You didn't got the Star Dragon power?
dont you mean Dragon Phoenix?
I dont get the ending... so lost in this universe...