Overview:

What if you took an on-rails shooter and then combined it with a turn based role playing game?  Well, that’s what Panzer Dragoon Saga is and it’s a pretty darn good one at that, too.  The story starts out with your character, Edge, who is a minor for the empire.  While excavating a site and discovering a buried secret, shenanigans happen and basically your traditional revenge story starts to unfold.  Where it differs is that you’ll soon hop on your dragon and traverse the skies looking for the next place to go.  Enemies will be lurking everywhere and, when a battle happens, you’re thrusted into a turn based system.  Depending on how many pips you have on your action meter you’ll be able to do a regular attack or a devastating move.  Location is also paramount as some enemies are unable to attack in certain areas.  They weren’t kidding when the word “Saga” was added onto a Panzer Dragoon game.

Visuals:

The game doesn’t really have much going for it in the visuals as an early 3D game but you have to put it into context.  For an early 3D game, it’s good.  For a Sega Saturn 3D game it’s really good.  For a Sega Saturn fully 3D game running at a smooth framerate, it’s Godlike.  From what I’ve played, the environments have all been different and unique enough where it feels like an open world.  The enemies have also been varied enough that I haven’t seen pallet swapped models.  The pre-rendered cutscenes leave something to be desired but the in-engine ones are really nice and add to the story.

Audio:

I can’t tell if the audio is just lacking in the game or is not even there.  You would think every time a battle would initiate you would get a grand introduction.  Instead you’re met with silence.  The attacks are very reminiscent of Panzer Dragoon so you get the lock on noise but no big pay off when the enemy or you get hit.  The game has been fully voiced in Japanese and, to me, that’s better than nothing.  Hopefully it’ll pick up as the game goes along.

Completion:

I just finished disc 1 after a pretty intense couple of fights.  I wasn’t prepared for what to expect with this game.  Over the years I’ve picked it up a couple of times and played maybe 5 minutes of it just to see if it worked on the emulator.  Giving it it’s fair share, though, and I can say I’m really digging it.  The story, so far, is kind of blah but after what just happened I’m looking forward to disc 2.  The battles have been pretty fun with figuring out where to position yourself while you wreck shop.  I just hope it doesn’t get too too difficult like some RPGs do, but we will see!