panzer dragoon by james mielke

8/10/2019 Panzer Dragoon by James Mielke

1/31


2/31

PANZER DRAGOON COVER STORY

No, there isn't a newPanzer Dragoon game in the works. It could happen, though, if seriescreator Yukio Futatsugi and Orta producer Takayuki Kawagoe can unite on a vision anddirection for the franchise. The reason for this unique cover story is to take a look back at this

underappreciated, underbought, near-legendary series that climaxed with the release of 1998'sPanzer Dragoon Saga,a game that is unlikely to ever see a port to any system, ever. Takingthe DNA of Sega stablemateSpace Harrierand welding it to an Empire Strikes Back-styleplot, developer Team Andromeda created an epic, picturesque showdown between good andevil that would send lasting shockwaves through the fledgling 32-bit era. In this expos, we gobehind the scenes of the Panzer series and talk with Futatsugi (also the director ofPhantomDust) and Kawagoe about one of Sega's most beloved properties. Futatsugi, especially, hasplenty of surprises to share about the development of the franchise, so dive right in andrediscover the world of Panzer Dragoon.

-James Mielke,Executive Editor

Making the Most of What You've Got. The Sega Saturn's launch was by all accounts alogistical disaster. Sony's upstart PlayStation would quickly seize the spotlight from theoverpriced, underpowered machine, and would set the tone for total gaming dominance for the

next decade. Not all was lost on Sega's homefront, though, at least not in terms of moralvictories and artistic triumphs. With the release of Panzer Dragoon, Sega's Team Andromedawas one of the first developers to truly understand what the CD format could do, and takeadvantage of it they did.

Panzer DragoonSystem:Sega Saturn | Publisher:Sega | Developer:Team Andromeda | Release Date:1995

An eye-opening taste of the 32-bit era's potential. Beautifuland impressive.

In hindsight, the first Panzer is really just a stylishlyproduced tech demo for the Saturn.

To fully understand the impact of the originalPanzer Dragoon,one must first consider the timein which it debuted. The 16-bit era was coming to a close, and the cartridge format and all itslimitations would soon become (despite the Nintendo 64) obsolete. Videogaming was moving tothe CD-ROM format, which offered increased storage space, video playback, and superior RedBook audio (meaning: CD-quality digital audio). Although Sega gave the CD-ROM format a shot

with the Sega CD console, it wasn't until the release of the Sega Saturn in 1995 (and later thatyear, of course, the Sony PlayStation) that CD-ROMs became the industry's media standard.Unfortunately, the Saturn's early titles -- games likeVirtua Fighter,Street Fighter: The Movie,
http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132448http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132448http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132448http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2005922http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2005922http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132450http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132450http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017953http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017953http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017953http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017791http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017791http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017791http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017791http://milkman.1up.com/http://milkman.1up.com/http://milkman.1up.com/http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132448http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132448http://www.panzer-dragoon.com/eng/index.htmlhttp://www.panzer-dragoon.com/eng/index.htmlhttp://www.panzer-dragoon.com/eng/index.htmlhttp://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132535http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132535http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132535http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132516http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132516http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132516http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132516http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132535http://www.panzer-dragoon.com/eng/index.htmlhttp://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132448http://milkman.1up.com/http://milkman.1up.com/http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017791http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017791http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017953http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132450http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2005922http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132448


3/31

Myst,andRobotica -- did little to showcase the system's abilities, fueling anticipation for Sony'simpending PlayStation release. Instead, it was a little game called Panzer Dragoon that finallyshowed what Sega's beleaguered Saturn could do.

While Panzer Dragoon was, in the strictest sense, "on rails," the game provided a greater senseof freedom than, say, your average light-gun shooter, with limited freedom of movement within a

confined 3D space as well as a simple four-way camera-angle/radar system that allowed theplayer to see enemies coming from any direction. More importantly, Panzer Dragoon tookadvantage of everything the CD format offered: full-motion video, Red Book audio, increasedstorage capacity at a fraction of the cost of RAM-based cartridges. Those who played Panzerknow why it's so magnificent, if not in function then in form. From the opening cinemas of ahunting party on patrol and the unexpectedly dramatic scenes of a dragon-riding warrior doingbattle in the skies to the eventual transfer of dragon ownership to the game's hero and the firstsigns of the empire's forces marshaling to capture the dragon, no one had ever seen anythinglike this in a videogame before.Final Fantasy VII was still nearly two years away from becomingreality, leaving the field wide open for fledgling developer Team Andromeda to make its mark. Itwasn't just the near-wordless CG cinemas that defined Panzer Dragoon, nor the distinctrealization of the game world's organic technology--It was the music.

One of the finest game soundtracks ever produced, Panzer Dragoon's orchestral score stillsounds tremendous. While the soundtrack was released in extremely limited quantities in Japan(it's now long out of print), the game disc itself (coded in Red Book audio) functions as a discplayable in any CD audio player. The stirring opening theme, wrapped in swirling synthesizedstrings and horns, remains a landmark in videogame soundtracks that, alongside the openingtheme toNiGHTS Into DreamsandGrandia,forms an unintentional trio of brilliantly composed,underappreciated game music that, subjectively speaking, a decade's worth of subsequentsoundtracks has yet to match.

The game itself, however, staggers a bit under the glaring light of a critical rereview. On railsand lacking the multiple paths (and pretty much any of the advancements) of its eventualsuccessor,Panzer Dragoon Zwei, the first Panzer is little more thanSpace Harrierwith a 3Dcamera and cut-scenes. Possessed of three different, but mostly ineffectual, cameraperspectives, Panzer Dragoon was a bare-bones first crack at establishing the game world'smythology. Overly difficult and somewhat brief, the game was known more for its atmospherethan for its mechanics. That said, it's still impressive to witness the giant sandworms erupt fromthe desert stage, hot on the heels of the rider's dragon. Up until this time, most game enemieswere tiny, 16-bit 2D sprites outfitted with two or three frames of animation, not enormous,malevolent, red-eyed armored worms that recalled the furious Ohmu from Hayao Miyazaki'sNausicaa of the Valley of Wind .And even if the lock-on-or-blast-away shooter mechanics ofPanzer didn't amaze, the lightning-quick forays into the onrushing foreground usually did, withenemies coming in from all sides to harass your dragon.

The bittersweet self-sacrifice of your dragon (who telekinetically transports you to safety) stillremains one of the 32-bit era's most touching moments, right alongside Aerith Gainsborough's

death in Final Fantasy VII (although the latter event is by far the more famous). With little tounlock save for a smattering of visual codes (Space Harrier mode, dragon-only mode, andsuch), the replay value of the first Panzer is scant, although it's worth it if only to see theevocative cut-scenes that precede each stage. In hindsight, Panzer Dragoon may not bememorable for the lasting appeal of its gameplay, but its impact as one of the first games towholly embrace the CD format is undeniable.

Random Statistics:Panzer Dragoon's development team was comprised of 15 people, and the game took one yearto develop. The artists used Softimage as the main 3D tool.
http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132424http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132424http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132473http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132473http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2016960http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2016960http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3158265http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3158265http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3158265http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132376http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132376http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132376http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132449http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132449http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132449http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017953http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017953http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017953http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausica%C3%A4_of_the_Valley_of_the_Windhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausica%C3%A4_of_the_Valley_of_the_Windhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausica%C3%A4_of_the_Valley_of_the_Windhttp://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017953http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132449http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132376http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3158265http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2016960http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132473http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132424


4/31

The Panzer Dragoon series has a very loyal following, and for good reasons, it was evocative,had a unique storytelling style, played well, played simply, and made Saturn owners feel likethey owned the system for a reason. But behind every great gaming story lies a creative force,and to discover all the things we didn't know about Panzer Dragoon, we spoke with originalcreative director, Yukio Futatsugi about how Panzer Dragoon was born.

YF: Panzer Dragoon wasn't accepted that much in Japan, but that's maybe because it was onSaturn. Do you know the camera collision as system in Shenmue was taken from PanzerDragoon? A few of the Azel (Panzer Saga) staff went to the Shenmue team, and whensomeone asked them how they made the camera system, they said "Oh, we just copied it fromPanzer."

1UP: As of the 32-bit era most of the Sega internal development teams had names, likeSega AM2, Sonic Team, etc. How did Team Andromeda form, and did you form before

Panzer Dragoon's development, or did you name yourselves that after you created thefirst Panzer?

YF: Each Sega Saturn project was named after a star, and it went in alphabetical order, sosince we were the first game in development, our team was called 'Andromeda.' Inside Segathere was the arcade division and the consumer division, and there were people who came overfrom the arcade side to the consumer division, like Mr. [Yoji] Ishii, who is the president of AQInteractive, who created Outrun. And Mr. [Manabu] Kusunoki, who's did the art for the first twoPanzer Dragoon games, who works at Artoon now. 'Team Andromeda' was the code name forthe project, but then it became the name for the team. So, Team Andromeda existed fromPanzer Dragoon to Panzer Dragoon Saga, which is when we disbanded, and that's when I quitSega.

1UP: It must have been very difficult for you to create games on the Sega Saturn, sincethe hardware was originally designed to be the ultimate 2D graphics machine, and thenhad an extra processor added at the last minute to combat the PlayStation's 3D-specificdesign. What was the challenge when you set out t o make Panzer Dragoon. Did you wantto make a 3D game, did you want to do something that took advantage of the CD-ROMformat, what was the spark that turned into Panzer Dragoon?

YF: The specs for the Saturn was supposed to be much higher in the beginning. So then Segasaid they wanted us to create a high-spec 3D shooting game, so that's where our directioncame from.

1UP: It's amazing, because I played through the first Panzer Dragoon a couple weeks ago,

with my editor friend from Famitsu, and the soundtrack is so awesome, it sounds like


5/31

something John Williams would compose for a video game. I think the only other gametheme that's as exhil arating is the theme to Grandia, or NiGHTS.

YF: If you look at movies, they create music around what's going on on the screen, and that'swhat I wanted to do with Panzer Dragoon. And with other types of games it's difficult to do that,but with Panzer since it's a relatively simple shooting game, the music can be context sensitive.

Let's take Starfox for example, after starting the game and going into the cave, you don't knowwhere the player's going to be after the first minute. Some people are going to be in the cave,some people might outside of the cave. But with Panzer Dragoon, since it's on rails, we knowexactly where the player's going to be after one minute, he's going to be at this point, after twominutes he's going to be at thispoint. We could score the music to apply to exactly what washappening on screen at all times. So how we orderedthe music was we first created the game,then we commissioned the music. We'd show a videoof the specific areas to the composers and say "You'llbe going into this area now, so I want the music topump up here." So that's how we made such aneffective soundtrack. So if we changed any parts ofthe game, we'd ask the composers to adjust the music as well.

1UP: Was the musi c done internally or by an external music ian?

YF: It wasn't internal, it was outsourced. We ordered it from this guy who composes music forspecial TV programs for NHK (Nihon Hoso Kyokai, aka Japanese Broadcasting Corporation).

1UP: It was great because Panzer Dragoon was able to do so many things that gamesnever did before, like have CD-quality audio, full-motion video, huge 3D levels andenemies. And the concept is so classic, like a boy and his dog, except this time it was adragon, versus the world. It did everything, and had a new type of camera system. Manygames up unti l then may have done one of t hese things, but Panzer did them all at once.

Are you aware of what you real ly accompl ished wi th the fi rs t Panzer Dragoon?

YF: Yeah Panzer Dragoon is a title that had everything in it, but because of that it was a titlethat was very tough on the staff who worked on it, of whom there were 15 members. Lookingback, it's something we were able to do because we were young and energetic. You're able tobe a little selfish when you're young, you can say "I want to do this. I want this thing, I'm notgoing to change it." I was also lucky to have very good people around me, like the soundcoordinator, and a couple great programmers, like Mr. Takeshita that works at AQ Interactive.Because of these guys, we were able to make Panzer. There were 15 people on the team, so Istill hook up with some of them and catch up and we remain friends.

1UP: One of the most distinctive things about Panzer Dragoon was the 'organictechnology' style, and the Germanic theme, from the word 'Panzer' and the sequel named'Zwei' (German fo r two).

YF: I was the creative director, but it was my first year in the company, so I didn't haveexperience watching over a whole title by myself. So we had this guy named Hondo-san, whohelped me keep the project on track. He was responsible for a game called 'Switch,' he was thedirector on that game.

1UP: I think your newness to the industry helped keep the Panzer concept very pure. Ithad these stark, minimal CG cutscenes, a ship would fly on screen, a couple lines offictional dialogue would be said, and the subtitle would say "We must find that dragon atall costs" or something, and that was it. I get goosebumps just thinking about it . We wereso used to stuff on the SNES or Sega Genesis at that point, that Panzer's cutscenes weremind-blowing. It created an instantly believable world. You bought in to it immediately.

"Do you know the cameracollision as system inShenmue was taken fromPanzer Dragoon?"


6/31

YF: I agree that my pureness came from it being my first year, which meant my ideas were veryclear, and I thought I could do a lot of things, like this and that and that. But really, what I wasable to do was only simple things, but I had a clear vision and the ability to do these simplethings, so the balance of everything was there, so that's how Panzer turned out this way. WhenI create a game this is what I value a lot, which is "Don't talk too much." Don't explain too much,don't talk too much, don't show too much...

1UP: Like Final Fantasy ...

YF: [Laughs] Don't say the name! [Laughs] I value having to use your imagination and thinking.Also, back then if you zoomed into the face, the expressions weren't beautiful or anythingbecause of the technology, so the conclusion I came to was since things wouldn't look so greatclose up, let's put the dragon at a farther view, and that's the best way I thought I could expresswhat I wanted in the game, by borrowing the player's imagination. I don't like in-game cutscenesthat much. So with Azel, when we created the demo, I kept saying "Let's create the demo withthe actual game-engine, and not CG movies or decoration," because to do that, to use theactual game-engine, users would understand the actual game from the start and would be ableto use more of their imagination, rather than get some preconceived notions of the game basedon what they saw in CG scenes. So back when I was creating Panzer Dragoon, I didn't think

that games were in line with movies. I thought that games were more in line with books.Nowadays with PS3 specs and Xbox 360 specs, the way I think now may be a little outdated,that's how I think and that's what I value.

1UP: One of the things I like about Panzer Dragoon is the actual designof the dragons.They're not like the typical American Dungeons and Dragons dragons. Panzer's dragonis blue, it has bone armor, and the enemies are equally distinct. Enemy airships and thesuch are a big departure from the spaceships you'd see in Gradius o r a game like that.

YF: First, when I was talking with Kusunoki-san, the art designer, we were thinking about whatthe main character should ride. Should it be a helicopter? A plane? Maybe a dragon? We

thought a dragon would be fun. Then we thought how should we design the dragon? We didn'twant it to be a normal dragon, that's very boring. Neither Kusunoki-san or I like normal things,we don't like average things. So that's how we went in this direction. And inside the game, wewanted to distinguish 'old' technology from the 'new' technology. The dragon comes from the oldtimes, so we wrapped him in white shielding, the same with the enemy airships, which are allcovered in white.

1UP: How did you get Moebius to do the cover art? I met him one time at a convention,and had him sign a book of his, but instead he drew his famous character Arzach ridingon his winged companion who looks like a pelican for me. So for Moebius to draw thecover of Panzer was really cool, I thought. A french comic artist doing the cover for aJapanese game.

YF: Internally we decided to have somebody famous do the cover design, so we wondered whoshould we ask. But Kusunoki-san is a big fan of Moebius, and said "I want him to do the


7/31

package." But the team thought "There's no way he's going to do it for us." But then Moebiussaid "OK," and everyone said "Is he really going to do the package for us?" But a lot of peopleout there thought he'd done the cover art for us first, but that's not how it went. We had ourdesigns and we gave them to Moebius and we asked "Can you do something like this?" Andthat's not how you usually do things like that, to give a big artist like him orders like that, butthat's how we did it, even though we wondered "Is this

OK to ask like this?"

1UP: That's how we work with Yoshitaka Amano. Ifwe commission a painting from him for a cover forEGM, he asks us what we want, we tell him, hedoes it, he paints it. But after Moebius did theillustration for you, who got the drawing?

YF: We didn't receive the original, we only got the high-resolution film cel, which we used for thepackage and advertisement, but Moebius has the original art.

1UP: What did you think o f the art when you saw it?

YF: I was very happy, and I was touched. Actually there are some characters in the cover artthat don't appear in the game, but we were like "Forget about it, it's a Moebius drawing. Whocares?" We felt like we were being spoiled, because Moebius was drawing the atmosphere werequested. Actually there's a piece of art that Moebius did that we never used. It was a drawingof the main character by himself, but I have no idea what happened to that. It mightbe in the[Japan-only] Sega Ages edition of Panzer Dragoon [Sega Ages Vol. 27: Panzer Dragoon], butI'm not positive if it is or not. In the Sega Ages Panzer Dragoon commentary both myself andKondo-san [Who works at Land-Ho!] and Kusunoki-san [Who works at Artoon], we'recommenting about how "this part was difficult and that part was difficult." Like how I explainedbefore how the original Panzer game and the music are synched, well our commentary issynched with each section of the Sega Ages version as well. [Laughs]

1UP: One of the most pivotal moments I've ever seen in video gaming was when the sandworms erupt from the ground in the second level of Panzer Dragoon. I don't think anyonehad ever seen anything like that at that time. Remember, this was 1995, so this wassomething special. [Pointing to the Japanese cover of Panzer Dragoon] This screenshothere shows the showdown between the dragon you're controlling and the boss at theend of the sand worm level, another dragon, who you duel with. Can you tell me a littlebit about this boss fight?

YF: This is one of the first two stages we created. The second stage and the fifth stage were thefirst two we created. You'll notice there are no objects in either of these two stages, it's all sandeffects and stuff. The fifth stage is just forest. We were learning the hardware and we weren'tsure what we could do, and it had the dual processors, so we wondered if the hardware weregoing to be able to do what we wanted. So we thought "What should we do? It's too plain," butwe had to consider the CPU specs, but wanted it to look cool. So we figured a tornado wouldlook cool but not demand too much from the CPU.

"Back when I wascreating Panzer Dragoon,I didn't think that gameswere in line with movies. Ithought that games weremore in line with books."
http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3143834http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3143834http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3143834http://www.landho.co.jp/http://www.landho.co.jp/http://www.landho.co.jp/http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3143834


8/31


9/31

"medium" camera view that was more or less ideal. Also added was a "Berserk" meter, whichfilled incrementally with each enemy shot out of the sky. A full Berserk meter could be activatedat any time, unleashing a fusillade of homing lasers that cut a destructive path through the sky.Plus, just like using a bomb in any classic 2D shooter, activating Berserk mode made yourdragon temporarily invincible, which helped a lot in tight scrapes or during particularly closeboss battles. Arguably the most significant of the advancements made to Zwei were the multiple,

user-selected paths. Basically, at various crossroads throughout the game, the player was giventhe choice to either go left or right. One path was usually a little more difficult than the other(usually by throwing additional enemies at you), but beyond the sightseeing elementsintroduced by the varying paths, your path selection also had an effect on the eventualtransformation of your dragon.

Since the game begins with you riding "dragonback" on your dragonling, an immature wyvernunable to fly, you spend most of your time blasting enemies out of the sky (as well as on theground). As you progress, passing by overhead battleships and the like, you eventually comeupon optional path selections. If you were to do nothing, the game automatically sends youdown one path, but if you were to veer left at the diverging point, your choice would havemultiple, residual effects. Different patterns of enemies would attack you, of course, but yoursubsequent battle would take place in the sky, as opposed to the default path's ground battles.

If you did take the more difficult path (and eventually everyone does), the first time you see theground disappear from beneath your dragonling's feet as it takes flight is nothing short ofbreathtaking. Surrounded by nothing but white space and the mere whisper of the wind as yourdragon's wings spread for the first time, the full potential of the series -- and the 32-bit, 3D era tosome extent -- was finally realized in real time. The subsequent boss battles that would takeplace shortly thereafter were but icing on the cake. The real payoff to all the route-taking anddiscovery was the eventual dragon-morphing that would punctuate each level. Depending onthe routes taken, your dragon would gain proficiency in specific areas, making it a morepowerful attacker, a dragon with higher defense, or a sleeker, more agile dragon. As it grew, itwould change appearance, affected solely by your combination of route selections. It was thissort of new game design that electrified Saturn owners as they played and replayed Zwei timeand time again to see what sort of effects different path combinations would have on theirdragons. For something so simple as an on-rails shooter, Panzer Dragoon II Zwei achieved

something few other games of its ilk have ever accomplished: a bond between player andcharacter.

On top of all the replay value added by the multiple-path mechanic, Team Andromeda includeda little bonus option called "Pandora's Box" ("Pandra's Box" in the Japanese version) that wasfilled with some of the most generous omake (Japanese for "extras") ever assembled in avideogame. Unlockables like different dragons (including enemy dragons), special types of gun"shots," the original Panzer radar style, a speed mode, Space Harrier mode, and more wereamong the items die-hard fans could continue to enjoy long after they'd initially beaten the game.The soundtrack, as in the first game, was meticulously orchestrated, if not quite as memorable.To call Zwei twice the game as the first is to shortchange it, and while the core game mechanicsare as simple as they come (the equally name-dropped Rez is little more than Zwei in cyber-clothing), the presentation and expansion of the original concept makes this one of the mostfantastic, evocative shooters ever made.

Panzer Dragoon Zwei is adored by just about everyone who played it, because it defiedexpectations and gave Saturn owners hope. It was also one of the only original IPs for Saturnthat spawned a sequel (besides the long-forgotten Clockwork Knight). And what was up withthat insanely great water effect? Futatsugi tells us how it was done.

1UP: What's great about Panzer Dragoon Zwei is that it takes all the game mechanics

from the first game, but builds on it. From the branching paths, to the dragon evolutions,to the improved graphics and water effects. In fact, I love the fact that you start out r idinga dragon baby that can't even fly. You feel so protective of it, like a mother. Every time it


10/31

gets shot it makes a cry of pain, and you're like "Oh no! They hurt my baby!" This seriesis full of great moments in gaming, especially when you take flight on your dragon for thefirst time. Its feet leave the ground and you're surrounded by whiteness and silence. It'samazing.

YF: You know, we actually started Azel [aka Panzer Dragoon Saga] and Zwei at the same time.As you know Azel is an RPG, and it takes a long time to create an RPG, so that's why westarted at the same time, by prepping for Azel. Since we knew the next game after Zwei wasgoing to be an RPG, so that's why we added the factor of taking different paths and evolvingyour dragon.

1UP: What made you guys decide on the German naming convention, using "Panzer"and "Zwei"?

YF: It was pretty simple, actually. When we first had the game concept in mind, it was called"Kiko-ryu," meaning "armored dragon." But "armored dragon" is boring, so we looked up whatthat would mean in German, which was "Panzer Dragoon." I'm not a huge fan of German war

equipment, but I liked the word "Panzer."

1UP: Even the word "dragoon" has a cool feel. It's not "dragon," but a little more specialsounding than that. You know, after Zwei came out, [Softbank's] Sega Saturn Weeklymagazine had a pull-out suggestion card in it that asked the reader to fill in what you'dlike to see in a sequel to Zwei. I sent mine in saying "I'd like to earn my dragon by doingsome kind of quest or exploration on foot before actually inheriting my dragon." Andthen later in the year, in that same magazine I saw the first screenshots of Azel. It's likeyou guys answered my wish.

Besides the branching paths of Zwei, or the dragon evolution system, one of the thingseveryone loved about Zwei was the water effects. It looked so amazing at the time, I'mguessing you used special 2D layering to get that effect.

YF: [Laughs] The Saturn was much better for expressing water than PlayStation, becauseSaturn was a machine that was designed for 2D, and we were able to use scrolling bitmaps.You couldn't do that on PlayStation because it was built to use polygons specifically. But withSaturn we could use scrolling and sprites. The Sega Saturn couldn't do true 3D, but the scrollfunctions was good for drawing water. Do you know raster scrolling? We'd draw raster scrollingand layers, and it looked like water.

1UP: Another cool thing was the rankings and statistics you got after the end of everylevel. That brought out the crazy gamer in me. If, at the end of the game, I only had 99.8%completion, I'd replay the game over and over until I was able to kill that one enemy thatalways got away on the third level or something. Besides that, you'd unlock more and

more stuff in Pandora's Box, the bonus option. That game had so many Easter Eggs,more than I'd ever seen at the time. Where did all that come from?


11/31

YF: Regarding Pandora's Box, a programmer just made it himself and said "Why don't we putsomething like this into the game." And that's how it ended up in the game. It wasn't in theoriginal game concept. The completion percentages and stuff were already in the game, butthen the programmer created this idea himself and asked what we all thought. Then everybodyliked it, and thought it was cool so we put it in the game.

1UP: Did he come up with all the unlockables himself? Because there's a lot of stuff inthere.

YF: Yeah, after he came up with the Pandora's Box idea, everybody chipped in theircontributions and ideas.

1UP: What was your contr ibution?

YF: [Laughs] Hmm, I don't remember whether I put in an idea ornot.

1UP: Are there any specific memories you have of the

development period of Panzer Dragoon Zwei that you thinkare interesting?

YF: You know Yamada-san who made the concept for Rez? He used to be at UGA, then he quit,then went to Microsoft, then quit and went over to FeelPlus, but maybe he'll go over to QEntertainment now. Anyway, he was the main guy on Zwei. It's difficult, because the twoprojects were going on simultaneously, so it was hard for me to look over both. So Yamada-sanwas concentrating on Zwei while I was concentrating on Azel. In the beginning I was lookingover both, but towards crunch time at the end of Saga development, Yamada-san was focusingon Zwei.

1UP: This is going to sound like a funny question, but when your dragon would get hit bya shot, it would let out a scream. Was that designed to evoke an emotional reaction fromthe player?

YF: In Panzer 1 the dragon is strong and helps you, but in Zwei we wanted to make the dragona baby in the beginning, so we made it a little weak. That's why we made it sound weak as well,which made you feel more attached to the dragon so you'd want to take care of it. The mainconcept of the story of Zwei is that you're able to raise this baby dragon until it's strong enoughfor it to eventually leave you and fight the empire by itself. There's the departure of the dragon,and that's the main concept of Zwei.

1UP: It's interesting that at the end of the first two games that the dragon leaves you tosacrifice itself, although it's always a little foggy as to exactly what happens. What wasreally going on at the end?

YF: I had this main 'line' going through all three projects. That's why Zwei ended with thedeparture of the dragon, what I wanted to express there was the connections. In the first game,the story had already been going on for decades, and characters that had come before areeither dead or don't exist any more, but still there's a relationship and connection going throughthe whole series. And in Saga, the connections with the characters and dragons that didn't existin the first game were given life in Saga. Do you follow?

" I'm not a huge fanof German warequipment, but Iliked the word

'Panzer.' "


12/31

Zwei was the second title in the series, but it was the first story in the series (it was a prequel).So I didn't want to end episode 1 (Panzer Dragoon) with a happy ending, because I wanted it tobleed into the second episode. That's why I cut the story off there to make you wonder whatwas going to happen next, or what happened to the dragon, or why was there a departure? Thesoul of the dragon got carried over to episode 2 (Panzer Dragoon), meets a different character

and they connect, which is what I wanted to express.

1UP: In regards to the ship design and technology, were the ships in Zwei consciouslydesigned to appear 'older,' since you explained that older technology was covered inwhite, bone-colored armor.

YF: The white shielding is from way before the storyline, like thousands of years old. Thecontinuity of the story is Zwei, the Panzer Dragoon, then the events of Panzer Dragoon Saga.The whole story arc takes place over the course of a few decades at most.

A Decade Later , St il l The Excalibur of RPGs.The game is already legendary, but few know ofthe tragedies that touched the development process of Panzer Dragoon Saga. One of the fewgames worth the exorbitant rates it commands on auction sites around the world, Saga's valuewill only increase as people realize that -- unlike the seemingly endless ports of every FinalFantasy that Square cranks out every month -- the chances of playing anything but the originalSaga grow dimmer by the day.


13/31

Panzer Dragoon SagaSystem:Sega Saturn | Publisher:Sega | Developer:Team Andromeda | Release Date:1998

A startlingly fresh RPG from a development team on fire.

The wrinkles and creases of time only serve to enrich andimprove this game's character.

There is only one Panzer Dragoon Saga, and unless Sega makes a serious effort to emulate it,that's how it will remain, since it's rumored that the original code no longer exists, makinganything but a raw data dump and emulation ( la Princess Crown to PSP) possible. Sure, Sega

could re-create the game from scratch, but there's little indication that they would ever do such athing. For people wondering what all the fuss is about, let's put things into perspective. In thenearly 10 years since Panzer Dragoon Saga's original North American release, how many timeshas Square Enix ported any number of the first six Final Fantasy games to various handheldsand consoles? Too many times to count. On the other hand, unless you have a Sega Saturnand one of the rare copies printed in the U.S. (under 20,000 were made), chances are slim thatyou'll get to experience Saga's unique spin on the role-playing format.

Instead of putting the player right in the dragon's saddle from the get-go, Saga took a moreorganic approach to things by expanding the game world with a fleshed-out plot and on-footexploration of towns, campsites, and dungeons. One of the main criticisms leveled at Saga atthe time was that there were too few characters and NPCs populating the game, compared to amore traditional RPG, one loaded with excess, likeChrono Cross.But in Saga, the characters

that were presented were the ones who mattered. In an age of jumping plumbers andbandicoots, where gaming grew more sophisticated by the week, for a 3D shooter to suddenlymake the unexpected jump from shooter to RPG so gracefully was a major accomplishment.This was, after all, the saga of a young man named Edge, the few friends he'd acquire along theway, and the enemy who would eventually become ally. That enemy was Azel, a female droneunearthed during an excavation, who would at first try to defeat Edge before grudgingly turningto him for help. A game like this needed no superfluous characters with little to contribute but acouple trite lines of text. That's not to say Saga didn't have some random NPCs to fill the spacewith idle chatter, but at least most of the characters in this game counted.

For players weaned on the ever-growing ambition of the Panzer series' first two games, Sagawas an epiphany, offering a full 3D world to go along with the shooting -- and shooting therewas aplenty. Saga's battle system was similar enough to that of other RPGs, using an Active

Time Battle-style of timed combat not dissimilar to that of Final Fantasy. During battle, threeaction gauges would fill up, and each full gauge would allow the player access to a number ofattacks or items. Attacks would typically come in either a focused burst of gunfire from Edge'sgun for more power or as a series of homing lasers erupting from the dragon (who you couldgive a personalized name to, for once) that would target multiple enemies, but with the strengthof the lasers divided by the number of total targets. The more bars that filled, the greater thenumber of options that became available, making battles a real-time tactical decision, as waitingfor any amount of time left the player vulnerable to attack. Players also had access to a numberof Berserk points -- an evolution of the Berserk gauge added in Panzer Dragoon Zwei -- thatoffered the equivalent of magic spells, ranging from healing moves to powerful attacks.

Movement was also a tactical consideration. Players could move the dragon out of the line of

fire at times (if an enemy's attack was unidirectional, for example, moving the dragon to the sideof the enemy would help it stay out of range), but doing so froze the action gauges until thedragon settled into place. And with some enemies having a specific weak point (vulnerable to
http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132450http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132450http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2016834http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2016834http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2016834http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2016834http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3132450


14/31

attack from the rear, for example), keeping the dragon mobile was often a necessary tactic.Even dressed up in RPG raiment, Saga still provided incentive for nimble fingers and sharpminds. At the end of each battle, statistics would fill the screen, indicating how well the playerperformed in numerous categories while awarding an overall rank.

Random Statistics:Panzer Dragoon Saga took twice the amount of people as Zwei to develop (40 people total),and twice the time (two years to develop), using -- again -- Softimage as the 3D software ofchoice.

Another Panzer staple, an element initiated in a previous game -- namely dragon evolutionfrom Zwei -- was brought back for Saga, but this time around it could be done on the fly,enabling players to adjust their dragon to suit the needs of the battle at hand. If you neededextra defense you could morph into the wing type that dramatically (or incrementally, for thatmatter) increased defense, usually at the expense of mobility and evasion. If added speed wasneeded, you could morph into a speedier model with lower defense and HP, and so on and soforth. While this feature seemed a little unnatural at times, it was still fun, and added a lot of

strategic depth to the game.

But for all the unique gameplay elements, the real appeal of Saga came from the cyberneticallure of the game's principal antagonist, Azel. While Edge was the typical Japanese everyman-style hero, Azel was unique, from the first moment you saw her unearthed from an excavationsite encased in stone, to the first head-to-head encounter against her as she rode the skies atopa giant enemy dragon. Free of the typical, overly-mawkish, "orphan hero saves the world"Japanese RPG plotline, Saga's barren, postapocalyptic world (not to mention the fictional gamelanguage created specifically for Panzer Dragoon) formed an especially stark backdrop againstwhich Azel and Edge would duel and eventually become partners, forging through four discsworth of discovery and action.

While much has been made of Sega's decision to print an excruciatingly limited number ofcopes in the U.S. -- a necessity created by retail reluctance to stock any new Saturn titles inlight of the PlayStation's dominance -- far too little attention has been paid to the sacrifices andlosses the development team took in creating this game. While fans attempt to score near-mintcopies of Panzer Dragoon Saga on eBay and RPG lovers bicker over the relevance of Saga inthe harsh light of hindsight, few people know the trials Team Andromeda went through inbringing Saga to market. Resting comfortably in the top five most anticipated games list inJapan's Sega Saturn Weekly for what must have been approximately two years, it wasunderstandable that Sega would have high expectations for the title. Of course, all things beingrelative, the Saturn's rapidly dwindling market share and comparatively miniscule (compared tothat of the PlayStation) installed base should have tempered the excitement stirred up by thehardcore Saturn users who voted weekly. Still, despite the glowing reviews and high hopes,sales of Panzer Dragoon Saga (called Azel : Panzer Dragoon RPG in Japan) in its homecountry and North America were underwhelming at best. The fallout, as urban legend wouldhave it, was that one of the lead designers of Saga, who had poured absolutely everything he


15/31

could into making it the best game possible, took his own life as a result. So distraught were thesurviving members of the development team that they apparently all visited a Buddhist templeto help cleanse themselves of the sorrowful vibrations caused by the suicide.

In speaking with original Saga member and Team Andromeda leader Yukio Futatsugi, wediscovered that the events, while tragic, were slightly different. In actuality, two members of the

development team died during Saga's gestation period, one from an actual suicide that occurredduring development (and not afterward, as rumor had it), and another from an automotiveaccident, also during the release of the game. It's worth pointing out that, for all the analysis weput on games and for all the petty, callous personal demands we make of game developers andtheir efforts, there are real people with real-life problems going to work every day on the gameswe play. Not enough focus is applied to the long hours and sleepless nights, for weeks andmonths at a time, that Japanese developers often endure to meet a game's ship date. Of course,working conditions being what they are there (they're downright inhumane in many cases) this isprobably a bigger-picture issue, but we thought it should be noted that the somber overtones ofPanzer Dragoon Saga's four-disc epic and the tragic events that befell the development teamare probably not unrelated.

But, as anyone who played (and finished) the game knows, things don't all turn out badly.

Panzer Dragoon Saga was, and is, one of the most unique and memorable role-playing gamesever devised -- original, fresh, and never duplicated. It would be hard to suggest that thetragedies the development team suffered were worth it, but the end result of this exceptionalgame is certainly beautiful. As we mentioned earlier, outside of Sega re-creating the game fromscratch or emulating it from existing North American code, we're unlikely to ever see a port ofSaga, as the original code (which would allow programmers to go in and adjust text files and thelike) is apparently no more. Still, for anyone hoping for some sort of continuation of the series,there's always the relatively obtainable Panzer Dragoon Orta, that -- at the end -- hints at whathappened between Edge and Azel at Saga's conclusion, and the revelation from YukioFutatsugi that, were he able to make any wish in the world, he would like to create one morePanzer Dragoon game before he dies.

The fact is, Panzer Dragoon Saga is the greatest RPG you've never played. It may not be thebest RPG of all time, but it's definitely one of the most unique. After all, you can buyapproximately 40 different versions of Final Fantasy IV if you wanted to, but you need a SegaSaturn to play Saga. We speak with Futatsugi not only about the wild shift in direction regardingSaga's RPG gameplay (versus the shooter mechanics of the first two game), but also about thenever-discussed deaths that occurred in the Team Andromeda family. Read on and readjustyour preconceptions about the world of video game development.

1UP: The dialogue in the first two games, the dialogue was kept to a minimum. But withAzel /Saga, there was a lot of dialogue and interact ion wi th characters. Do you feel that ittook away some of the mystique that the first two games established, or do you think itwas a logical, creative extension of what had come before it?

YF: There were a lot of opinions from the gamers that they wanted to know about the gameuniverse, so we felt we needed to explain more about it and added more cutscenes. But I kept arule that the main character would not speak, and I kept that one firm. Well, in the opening, hespeaks, but after you move into the game itself he doesn't say much.

1UP: Some people criticized the game for not having a lot of characters, like ChronoCross or something. But I felt the characters in Saga were more integral to what wasgoing on. It felt lonely, and that's what made it powerful.

YF: I did that on purpose because I didn't want to make a game where you go out and talk tothe world, and make a 'save the world' kind of game. I wanted to concentrate on real people


16/31

who you are really close to. How can you say something to this person sitting next to you,before you end up talking to another person, and another person, and then of course you haveto go save the world. I wanted you to be able to concentrate on the person in front of you andhave it mean something.

1UP: One obvious difference between the first two games and Saga is that the firstcouple games are on-rails shooters. In Saga, you could switch between differentformations on the fly. In Zwei you had to take specific paths, but Saga let you transformat any time. What made you come to th is design decision?

YF: In normal RPGs there are many abilities to the characters, where you can summonmonsters, use magic, all kinds of stuff. But in Saga, there's the main character and the dragon,so we thought, "What should we do with this?" During battle, we knew it would be necessary tochange abilities, so that's why we came up with this. In most RPGs you have a team, where youcan use another character, but with only the rider and the dragon, we knew we had to increasethe amount of things they could do during battle.

The key person who made this system happen is Satoshi Sakai, who is now the director ofPhantasy Star Universe. He was the modeling artist of the dragon, and the reason why this wasvery difficult is because in one form, the dragon would extend to one point, but if it transformedto a different form, that point would change. To make that happen Sakai would have to creategeometry for all possible points, whether the dragon was in that form or not. That type ofmodeling was very, very difficult at the time. We'd have to basically make four different dragonswith all the same points, existing at the same time, even though you could only see one at atime. It was a crazy order. [Laughs]

1UP: How did artist Katsumi Yokoto [now at Q Entertainment] affect the creation of Saga?

YF: Kusunoki-san, who was in charge of art up until Azel, doesn't enjoy character art that much,so he picked Yokota-san out of Sega's designers to handle the character designs. That's whyYokota-san was brought in as a designer. He's a very, very good artist. The fragility of thecharacter Azel exists because of Yokota-san.

1UP: Can you talk a little bit about the character, Azel. When you first see her, she'salmost Christ-like, encased in this stone she's found in during an excavation. Then thenext time you meet her is when you fight her dragon-to-dragon, at which point she'spretty intense. Then Edge and her ultimately become allies. Can you tell us about thatdynamic?

YF: The main character of the game is really yourself. So when I create a game I don't want thestory to be centered on the main character, because it's no longer yourself, it's a fictional avatar.I want you, as the main character, to watch someone else's story. In Saga, you're watching

Azel's story, and she advances the plot. At first she's your enemy, then she becomes your allyand you watch her story by accompanying her. Did you play Phantom Dust?


17/31

1UP: Of course.

YF: Phantom Dust too, the character you play isn't the center of the story. Edgar is the focus,and you're watching his destiny play out.

1UP: Ah, I see now. You like this type of storytelling device. What's ironic is that at the

end of the first two games, it's the dragon that disappears. But at the end of Azel, it's thecharacter you play as, Edge, that disappears. Then after the credits roll, and you're all"What happened?", a hooded figure appears saying something like "I'm going to findhim," and you realize that it' s Azel in the hood. It's like

the director's cut of Blade Runner, where people want to know if Deckard is really areplicant or not. Tell us what really happens, in your eyes, to Azel and Edge.

YF: In the beginning, I was going to make it so that Azel and Edge wouldn't meet at all, but inPanzer Dragoon Orta they meet up, it's almost miraculous. But then they have a baby, Orta. Butmy original intention was for them never to see eachother again.

1UP: Do you feel as if Smilebit, who developedPanzer Dragoon Orta after Team Andromedadisbanded, sort of betrayed the legacy, byrewriting the storyline like that?

YF: I don't feel betrayed. There are a lot of gamers outthere who wrote their own fiction about what theythought happened, using their own imaginations. So with Smilebit, I view it in the same way, likethey wrote something new using their imaginations.

1UP: Are you sad that after doing all that work, that by the time it came out in America,that the Saturn was basically dead, and Sega only made a few thousand copies and thatso few people were able to buy it?

YF: Of course, back in the day I thought "If this was on PlayStation, so many more people wouldhave been able to see this story."

1UP: That's interesting. Do you think Saga could have actually been done on thePlayStation hardware?

YF: I think it was impossible to bring out this kind of quality on the PlayStation. PlayStation andSaturn, the way the machines expresses color are very different. On PlayStation the colors aremore bright, and on Saturn the colors are cloudier. So to express the atmosphere of Panzer, itwas necessary to have the color palette of the Saturn.

1UP: That's one interesting point between the orig inal Panzer series and Panzer DragoonOrta on Xbox. You went from having an overachieving game running on anunderpowered system. It's kind of like when you see a true 3D game, like Mario Kart,running on Nintendo DS. It might not be as powerfu l a 3D machine -- specs-wise -- as thePSP, so when you see something that looks as good as Mario Kart or Metroid PrimeHunters running on the DS, you're extra excited about it because you didn't think a 3Dgame that good looking could run on it. By that token, Orta was running on the mostpowerful hardware at the time, so maybe it lost a littl e of that underdog charm.

YF: That's probably because most of the team members had changed. To create a project thatgoes one step beyond a regular game, that project has to have someone who plays the bad guy

role, someone who acts a little selfish, acts a little forceful to the team to achieve specific goals.I think that may have been the difference with Orta. Perhaps the Orta team didn't have thatdynamic. The Saturn series had that dynamic. The Orta team probably needed that little push to

"I want you, as the maincharacter, to watchsomeone else's story. InSaga, you're watchingAzel 's story, and sheadvances the plot."


18/31

make the game transcend. Having team members that will support that kind of bad cop isnecessary, and if they don't exist then you can't get those kind of results.

A Death In The Family

1UP: Speaking of the development of Azel, there's something I want to ask about but I

know it's a pretty touchy subject, but I think it's a story that needs to be shared. Mostkids these days get into some ridiculous arguments, meaningless arguments onmessage boards everywhere, arguing about system superiority, or perceived salesfigures, making uninformed rants about anything i nvolving gaming, criticizing th ings likethey could do any better. But one of the most famous, little known stories about PanzerDragoon Saga is about the Team Andromeda member who killed himself. Urban legendsays that the developer thought he had created the best game he possibly could have,but in the light of Saga's minimal impact saleswise, took his own life as a result. Thestory goes on that the surviving members of Team Andromeda were so distraught thatyou all went to a Buddhist temple to cleanse yourselves of the negative spirits. Wouldyou be willing to tell us what really happened?

YF: I think the person you were talking about during the development of Azel, he didn't killhimself. He actually got into a motorcycle accident. Back then, of course, I was thinking tomyself "You shouldn't ride a motorcycle at a time like this." But the team member kept drivinghis motorcycle anyway, but I don't think his head was in the right place. Game development isstressful, for some people it's too stressful. You do hear a lot of stories about a lot of people notbeing able to take the stress. For people who have that trait, who can handle the stress, this isthe perfect job for them. That person might not be able to work in another type of company, butthis is the place for them. But there are people who don't fit in this kind of role.

Whenever I have a team, I tell people "If this is too tough for you, you can quit, or go to anotherteam, and I won't hold it against you." People need to find the right match. The people who canhandle this, we're going to work great together. There was another person above me who killedhimself, actually. My feeling on that is if you end your own life, that's obviously the end of

everything right there. That's it. I don't think you should

do that. Even if things are hard, if you keep going,good things can still come from it, you can alwayscontinue to do things. In the industry we often hearabout people becoming mentally ill by working in thegame industry. Are there people like that in America?Do they snap from the stress?

1UP: I'm sure there are, but there haven't been any particular instances where I've heardof someone having a total breakdown. Sometimes people are overworked, sure, but notto a point quite like what is rumored to have happened on Team Andromeda.

YF: After working at Microsoft this is something I discovered. I had a chance to see howdevelopers in the U.S. work, and what I discovered is that people in the U.S. are more likemanufacturers, people have their own roles, and they're experts in their own roles. And ifsomething goes wrong outside of your role, it's not your problem, it's the other person'sresponsibility. The roles are split very clearly, and everyone knows their responsibilities veryclearly. But Japanese people are a little bit different than that. I mean, we do things likeengraving a small piece of art on a grain of rice. You know what I mean? We don't have thoseclearly defined areas about what we do. The lines blur, so if someone is lacking in a certainarea, someone working next to him feels obligated to pick up the slack, or feel obligated to domore, and is more stressed by the overall burden. That's probably why Japan is probablybehind in creating really next-gen software. But that's probably why we're good at creatingsomething for Nintendo DS. We're not the best at adapting to the newest technology, perhaps,

but we're able to create something of depth.

"Game development isstressful, for somepeople it's too st ressful."


19/31

1UP: Just so I get my story straight, the person who committed suicide on TeamAndromeda who was above you, was th is related to the response to Panzer DragoonSaga, or was it just related to the stress of making a game?

YF: It's not because of the sales of Azel or anything. Azel was a project that took a year and ahalf, so it was a tough project. So during the project, his parents got sick, and he had to fly back

to Kansai every weekend, and he was getting tired, so that may have contributed to whathappened.

1UP: OK, thank you for sharing that with us. I'm glad to get clarification on this subject,as I want people to know how hard video game development can be. I wish it werepossib le for people to p lay Panzer Dragoon Saga, since so few people got to experienceit.

YF: I think it would be difficult for Azel to see a port. There are reasons for it, but the specificsshould remain secret. We had to squeeze everything out of the Saturn in order to make Saga,so porting it would be very difficult. You know the Sega Ages port of Panzer Dragoon to PS2?We thought it would be easy to just emulate on PS2, but it took a lot longer than we budgetedand it was a huge effort. And in Panzer Dragoon Orta, the port that was unlockable in the gamewas the PC version, because it was too much work to port the original code. So, I'm I can't sayfor sure, but it would be very unlikely that Saga is ever ported to another console.

[Futatsugi then told us the politics behind Saga's disappearance, which we can't reveal, but thegist of it has to do with the original code having been lost, making a port -- in case you'rewondering -- all but unlikely.]

1UP: I feel stronger about Smilebit and Kawagoe bringing Panzer back for Orta. It's likethey wanted to keep the franchise alive. That's nice.

YF: The director of Orta was in charge of the battle system in Panzer Dragoon Saga.

1UP: That's good. Orta feels more genuine now that you've said that. How do you feelabout Orta overall?

YF: I think they tried very hard to make a good Panzer game. Maybe they shouldn't have tried tomake a Panzer game as they thought Team Andromeda would have, and instead gone morewith their own instincts. It's a tough call, but I think it would have been OK too if they'd followedtheir own creative instincts rather than try to stick with what happened in the past. Myimpression was that people might have been trying too hard. The creative spark might haveappeared if they came to the development table with a free mind. But if they came to the projectwith the idea "What is Panzer?" they already limited themselves in a box. But it's probablydifficult because nobody was there to say "Create freely."

There's one sequel product that I actually like, which isAl iens. The first one was a horror movie,so it's impossible to have the same kind of impact with a sequel. So, the second film wasscience fiction. It still kept the same core concept, but it took a different spin. It was a war-actionmovie.

1UP: Which is you r favori te character from the series?

YF: The blue dragon. [Smiles]

1UP: If you could change one thing about the series, what would you change?

YF: I'd make the first game less difficult.


20/31

1UP: One problem I had with Saga is that the underground maze part, with Azel riding onthe back of your hoverbike was a littl e long, confusing, and basically just long. [Laughs]

YF: Yeah, I have to admit, that part could definitely have been improved. [Laughs]

1UP: If you have any final words for the readers,

now is the perfect time to share them. If you coulddo anything in the world in regards to the Panzerseries, what would you do, would you make a newgame?

YF: I want to make a shooting version of Azel [PanzerDragoon Saga]. I want to create the third project as ashooting game and end it there.

1UP: A remake of Azel as a shooter? Or a shooter based on the events after the end ofAzel?

YF: To me, the story ended with Azel, so I don't want anything to continue from there. So I wantto just create a shooter Azel. Or I want to create a Panzer without a dragon. [Laughs] You know,you're not the person riding the dragon this time. You're just a person, a nobody in the game,and you see a dragon flying in the distance, and you can't even imagine riding such a thing. Itmight even appear to be an enemy.

1UP: So when does it get fun? [Laughs ]

YF: I just want to create something that will make no money.You find bits and pieces of old planes and machines, and yourebuild it, and then you fly far away with it. You travel and findpieces of weapons and machines, and reassemble thesethings. So if someone came to me and said "Make a Panzergame that would make the original fans happy," I'd make ashooter version of Azel. But if there was no lock on theconcept, no preconceptions, I'd make the game I justdescribed. You're a little person in this town that's about tocollapse, you can't ride the dragon. You just collect piecesfrom caves all over a mountain, and build a plane, flysomewhere else, create a gun or weapon, and just do stuff likethat. I'd probably create a game like that.

I'm saying this now, but if the opportunity came I'd be moreserious about it. But if my wish were to come true, I would beallowed to create a sequel to Panzer Dragoon before I die.

This cover feature is dedicated to all those who worked on thePanzer Dragoon series, especially those who aren't with usany more. Special thanks goes out to Yukio Futatsugi andTakayuki Kawagoe for their participation in the creation of thisspecial feature.

"if my wish were to cometrue, I would be allowedto create a sequel toPanzer Dragoon before Idie. "


21/31


22/31

blew them out of the sky. As with the Panzer games before it, this one toyed with the morphingsystem, allowing players to cycle between three dragon configurations -- Base Wing, GlideWing, Heavy Wing -- each with its own specific strengths and weaknesses. Each form had fiveupgradeable steps of evolution -- "leveling up," in a sense, along the way. While you couldcomplete the game in any form (you could pour all your "gene base" upgrades into one style, forexample), having a balanced array of Wing types leveled up was in your best interest: Some

bosses were only susceptible to specific forms, while later bosses required tactical use of allthree forms. Orta also added a new dash (and brake) mechanic that allowed players toaccelerate or decelerate around enemies in order to exploit their weak points. In the later stages,expert use of these tools become necessary to beat the game's final bosses, of which onestage's giant humanoid boss, Abadd, ironically resembles a boss encounter inRez (which, in itsown way, resembled Panzer Dragoon).

As withZwei (and not so much with Saga), the ultimate payoff of Orta was the incredibly richPandora's Box full of extras and unlockables. The one found in Orta was, to be fair, so packedwith fan service, movies, additional modes, missions, and dragon models, that it makes the onein Zwei look barren by comparison. Clearly a nod to the Panzer faithful, Orta even contained anunlockable port of the PC version of the original Panzer Dragoon, making this iteration in thecanon the most accessible and satisfying yet. However, while the Orta experience was

obviously subjective depending on how much prior exposure one had to the original trilogy, itfelt like something was just a little of f. Our theory is that when the series found its first life on theSega Saturn, there was something charming about seeing such a grand 3D vision enacted outon such underpowered hardware. In the move to the Xbox, Panzer suddenly had a surfeit ofprocessing power, and while the end result of Orta was and still is wonderful to see in motion, alittle bit of that underdog feeling had disappeared. Still, beggars can't be choosers, and Panzerfans were lucky to have a follow-up to Saga in the first place. That such a follow-up was sobeautiful and complete is a rare example of Sega reviving a beloved series right. The recentpatches that Microsoft added, allowing for backward compatibility on Xbox 360, ensure that Ortais just as playable (if not obtainable) as it was upon its release back in 2003. That it looks asgood as half of the original 360 games being released today is testament to Smilebit'sdevelopment powers and to Orta's timelessness.

Random Statistics:Artists working on Panzer Dragoon Orta used Softimage for animating and 3DS Max for other3D tasks. 16 ex-Team Andromeda members worked directly/indirectly on Panzer Dragoon Orta.

Stepping into Team Andromeda's shoes and breathing new life into the Panzer series couldn'thave been an easy task, as anything but the perfect follow-up to Saga would be met withskepticism and, possibly, outright derision. But Smilebit took the high road, silencing potential

critics by going back to basics and creating a fast-paced shooter worthy of the legacy. A wholenew legion of gamers were discovering Panzer for the first time in Orta, and if anything, thegame left a great first impression. Hearing the dragon's cry in the opening cinema was likehearing an old friend's voice from a long-ago era and playing Orta was just as engaging. To putthings in perspective, we talked with Smilebit's general manager and producer, TakayukiKawagoe -- a man responsible for some of Sega's most unique franchises (like Jet Set Radio) --about his team's time with Panzer and how, nearly five years later, he looks back on the effortand it's place in the pecking order.

1UP:Panzer Dragoon Orta was one of the best-looking Xbox games ever, and even nowwith the recent patch that added backward compatibility for it on 360, it still looksabsolutely beautiful. In hindsight, do you feel you achieved what you set out toaccomplish with the game?
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3152405http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3152405http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_Dragoon_II_Zweihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_Dragoon_II_Zweihttp://www.panzer-dragoon.com/eng/index.htmlhttp://www.panzer-dragoon.com/eng/index.htmlhttp://www.panzer-dragoon.com/eng/index.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_Dragoon_II_Zweihttp://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3152405


23/31

Takayuki Kawagoe: Panzer was revived and as a result Orta was welcomed. Orta evoked newbeautiful questions and memories about Panzer's past. I think we can say that we fulfilled mostof our goals. I thought the reactions were basically favorable. However, I also think that theusers' beautiful memories had some differences, since we were able to create richer visualexpressions in Orta than we had in the past.

1UP: What was Smilebit's feeling toward Orta when you were finished with the game?Was everyone very satisfied with what they had created? After all, it came as somethingof a surp rise that Sega had made another Panzer game in the first place, and the finishedproduct was very fun and very beautiful. Was the team proud of what it had created?

TK: We are proud of our work, but I've never come across a developer who feels satisfied withthe end result.

1UP: Orta was a very value-packed game, with all the unlockable movies and archivalmaterial, the extra characters and minigames, and the entire original Panzer game hiddenas an Easter egg. There really wasn't anything lacking in the game, but if you had to do itall over again, is there anything you would have added or changed? Would you havemade it longer or shorter, easier or harder?

TK: I really don't want to answer this question since we are proud of our work, but if I had to, [Iwould say] adding difficulty levels would be my answer.

1UP: Back in 2003, during an interview I did with you during the promotion of Orta, Iasked about a possible sequel to thePanzer Dragoon SagaRPG. Your specific quote was,"We have a plan for the sequel to Panzer Dragoon Saga, but whether it happens dependson how people respond to Orta." Obviously that hasn't happened yet. Has Segaabandoned the idea of continu ing the Panzer franch ise?

TK: All I can say is we haven't decided on notmaking a sequel.

The nucleus of Smilebit's Panzer Dragoon Orta team, circa E3 2002.

1UP: If the decision to create new Panzer games was going to be based purely onsoftware sales of Orta, that seems like a tricky proposition in the first place, since theXbox installed base at the time wasn't yet mature, especially as the hardware wasn'tpopular in Japan. What would have to happen for us to see another Panzer game beingmade?
http://www.gamespot.com/saturn/rpg/panzerdragoonsaga/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;reviewhttp://www.gamespot.com/saturn/rpg/panzerdragoonsaga/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;reviewhttp://www.gamespot.com/saturn/rpg/panzerdragoonsaga/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;review


24/31

TK: Xbox had the all the requirements to revive Panzer. For another Panzer, we'd definitelyneed the voices of the fans all over the world.

1UP: One thing that made the first three Panzer games so endearing was that theyoverachieved on underpowered 3D hardware. Orta, by comparison, had the distinction ofbeing the most beautiful-looking game at the time on the most powerful hardware. Do

you think that affected the reaction to the game on any level?

TK: I feel that the time between [the first] three Panzers and Orta and the improvements ofvideogames during that span [created] mixed expectations and reactions in so many ways.

1UP: What has the team you assembled to create Panzer Dragoon Orta gone on to do inthe years after Orta's release? We know you've been working on a lot of sports-relatedgames. That doesn't seem like the direction you were going in with Panzer andGunValkyrie.

TK: The Orta team's staffs are working hard on their individual projects. I [spent some] timeworking on sports-related titles, but now I'm overseeing all the developments in Sega of Japan.

More desirable than Panzer Dragoon Saga: The Japan-only Panzer Dragoon Ortalimited edition Xbox, of which only 999 were made.

1UP: Lastly, unrelated to Panzer but related to you is GunValkyrie. It would have beennice to see a sequel to that game at some point. The only thing holding it back was thecontrol scheme, but it was still great to look at and had cool character designs. Is thereany chance a sequel to Gunvalkyrie might ever be made?

TK: Making a GunValkyrie sequel would probably be difficult, but action games as good asGunValkyrie will from us in the future.

1UP: Thanks again for your time and for your contributions to the Panzer series, andgood luck on whatever you develop in the future.

TK: Thank you. I'll continue working hard to fulfill your expectations.
http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2005813http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2005813http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2005813


25/31

Life After Panzer Dragoon.Not all entries in the Panzer Dragoon canon were as memorableas the first three games. There was a mediocre PC port of the first game, a tragically briefanime series, and of course Panzer Dragoon Mini, an aberration in the series that is best leftforgotten. On the upside, Team Andromeda's Yukio Futatsugi, who left after the completion ofSaga, showed that he had more of the ol' Panzer magic up his sleeve, and while Phantom Dustisn't a part of the series by any means, it does carry some of the DNA that made Panzer sogreat.

Panzer Dragoon MiniSystem:Sega Game Gear | Publisher:Sega | Developer:Sega | Release Date:1995

Crap when it first came out, ironically.

Ironic because it's crap now too. Don't bother trying to trackthis one down.

So rare (original Team Andromeda member Yukio Futatsugi doesn't even have a copy) and someaningless it's barely worth a footnote, Panzer Dragoon Mini on Game Gear is a dumbed-down, cartoony shooter for kids that bears little resemblance to the epic adventures on Saturn.For starters, the dragons you can choose from, of which there are three, don't even have riders.Instead it's just a brief foray into the foreground blasting pixelated ships and enemies out of thesky, but it's a lot less fun than it sounds. Since the game only came out in Japan, on a systemvery few people owned, it's incredibly rare, even more so than the comparatively obtainablePanzer Dragoon Saga. The primary difference between the two, however, is that Saga isactually worth the investment. Mini is not.

Phantom DustSystem:Xbox | Publisher:Majesco | Developer:Microsoft Game Studios | Release Date:2005

Good-looking and unlike any other "card game" around, thisPD was worth savoring.

If you own an Xbox or 360, this game can be had for cheap,and belongs in every gamer's collection.
http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3162705http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3162705http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017791http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017791http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=2017791http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3162705


26/31

When Yukio Futatsugi ended up at Microsoft Game Studios, and before he left active gamedevelopment in order to manage the department, he cooked up a little corker named PhantomDust, which he deliberately named using the letters P and D in order to keep the spirit of PanzerDragoon burning. Like Panzer, Phantom Dust was set in a postapocalyptic world, but this timethe protagonist had no memory of his former self. Unlike Panzer, Phantom Dust was nottechnically a shooter. It was generally described as a kind of card game, although any similarity

between Dust and something like Culdcept or Yu-Gi-Oh! were minimal at best.

With the world in disarray, and nearly everyone having lost all of their memories, the Espers --warriors who can control the dust on the world's surface and bend and shape it into powerfulattacks and defensive abilities -- are all competing to find the legendary Ruins, which hold thekey to the mysteries of Phantom Dust. The original Japanese game was released entirely inEnglish, and had been intended as an eventual first-party release by Microsoft Game Studios inthe U.S. But for whatever reason, the powers that be at MSG HQ, the same people whoreleased such "gems" as Brute Force and Kung Fu Chaos as first-party titles, let Phantom Dustgo to small East Coast publisher Majesco, where the game languished and suffered from aminiscule ad campaign. That's a shame, because that meant that most U.S. gamers missed outon -- along with the under-appreciated Otogi 2 -- one of the most satisfying and original Xboxgames to come out of Japan, regardless of console.

Phantom Dust is, despite the card concept, basically an action game. Players run around thecavernous, ruined arenas, picking up skills and building arsenals on the fly. By running over a"token" a player can then map a particular temporary ability to one of the four primary buttonson the Xbox controller. The player is then free to use those limited abilities in battle, either aloneor accompanied by an NPC ally, needing simply to recharge his arsenal by finding more tokenson the playfield, like weapon spawns in a first-person shooter. The rock-paper-scissorsdynamics of the battle engine worked very well, and Phantom Dust offered tremendous replayvalue (and foresight) by implementing head-to-head online functionality. Building and masteringyour deck was of utmost importance in online battles, as an unbalanced deck spelled doom forthe amateur Duster. Knowing what to use in the right situations from the five different "schools" -- Psycho, Optical, Nature, Ki, and Faith -- was crucial to success in the online arena.

The game was visually rich, using a unique cel-shaded visual style similar to techniquesemployed in Jet Set Radio Future. Character models were cut from a classic cyberpunk mold,reminiscent of the Mad Maxmovies, and the moody oranges and blues of the arenas helpedset a distinctly futuristic tone. Because Futatsugi would spend the years following PhantomDust's release managing the progress of other development teams' games as MSG's designmanager in Japan meant that the proposed Dust sequel would never materialize. However, notall hope is lost. In a somewhat unexpected turn, Futatsugi is hoping to license the game hehelped create for a future sequel -- you're hearing this right -- on the Nintendo DS. SinceMicrosoft is letting some of its Rare franchises (Banjo) go to the DS, this isn't as unprecedenteda move as one might think, although it is somewhat surprising. But if Futatsugi has his way, thefinal chapter of Phantom Dust hasn't been written just yet.

Yukio Futatsugi and Team Andromeda had nothing to do with the development of PanzerDragoon Mini. But he'd like a copy. Also, Phantom Dust, one of the most critically acclaimed,unplayed Xbox games to come out of Japan. Futatsugi discusses yet another missedopportunity.

1UP: Why did Microsoft suddenly not publish Phantom Dust in America? I'm gladMajesco picked Phantom Dust up, but it kind of marginalized it, whereas if it had beenpublished by Microsoft, it would have conveyed a lot more confidence in the product,and received a higher profile. They'll publishBrute Force,but pass on Phantom Dust? I

don't get Microsoft sometimes.
http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3046301http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3046301http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3046301http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3046301


27/31

YF: When I joined Microsoft five years ago, there were a lot more people around thatunderstood games, in both Japan and America. But Microsoft as a company, when people smellmoney, or when people think the business is going to make a lot of money, they start gatheringat the game division. Business people who want to be part of the new thing, and that's whenthings start to become weird, when you're dealing with people who are only interested in the

business and don't understand games or game quality. That's why Phantom Dust got swallowedup and it wasn't released by Microsoft. I think that since the game has tactical features in it, themarketing types at Microsoft U.S. assumed it was a game that was too difficult.

1UP: If you could find a way, would you make a sequel to Phantom Dust?

YF: I do want to. If I had a chance I'd want to make a sequel, and as a matter of fact I'd beenplanning the sequel. I wanted to improve the graphics and change the game rules a bit for thesequel. I had everything planned out in my mind for it.

1UP: Now is that a Microsoft Game Studios property or license, and could you even doanother one if you didn 't work at MSG? What's involved? Would they license the property

to you since they obviously don't have any plans to do one themselves?

YF: When I talked with my boss at Microsoft recently to tell him I was going to quit I said "I knowyou guys aren't going to create a sequel to Phantom Dust, so if I wanted to make one myself,could you let me use the property with a small licensing fee?" So they said "OK" if I create it onXbox 360 or Xbox 3, or whatever, but if I were to make the sequel on DS, it would be difficult.

1UP: Is the Nintendo DS technically able to handle what you have in mind for a sequel?

YF: Well, the visuals of course are not possible to do in the way the original game looked, but interms of the game system it's very possible.

1UP: Hell, any sequel wou ld be great. I know a lot of gamers love Phantom Dust. Anotherthing about Phantom Dust is the initials of the title are "P.D." Was this an intentionalhomage to Panzer Dragoon?

YF: I did it on purpose, since the previous games I worked on that sold the most were PanzerDragoon games, I named my Xbox game 'Phantom Dust' to carry the luck.

1UP: With Phantom Dust you may have run into a little bit of bad luck because ofMicrosof t's handling o f it, but would you make another game with " P.D." in the title?

YF: [Laughs] I don't know if the next one will be a "P.D." title or not. As you can tell now, thefocus of Phantom Dust are the magical powers, the "ESP" powers, but that wasn't the original


28/31

concept. The original concept for Phantom Dust actually involved dragons, so that's why Iwanted to use " P.D." It changed after that, though. So I chose a name using those letters.

1UP: Panzer Dragoon Mini for Game Gear. What's up w ith t hat?

YF: [Laughs] My only involvement I had with Panzer

Drgaoon Mini was to approve the packaging,everything else was handled by Sega of America.Nobody I know owns it, and we have no idea whodeveloped it. Hell, Iwant a copy. [Laughs]

1UP: Panzer Dragoon, when I think abou t it, seems like it could run on the Nintendo DS.Al though it seems un likely to happen, do you th ink Sega could techn icall y port one ofthese games to DS?

YF: Viewing the specs, I think it could probably go to the DS. But if Sega came up to me andasked me to port this to the DS, I don't think I'd be interested in revisiting a past project. Soinstead of doing a port, I'd rather do a whole new game for DS. But Sega has changed. Now

they're a pachinko company, it's not the Sega it used to be. Now the Panzer series, looking atthe numbers, it didn't sell that well, so I doubt that Sega would do something like that again.

What the users expect from the Panzer series is nothing less than the most the latest machinescan produce. They want to see us push the hardware. So if you think of a Panzer coming outtoday, you'd want to see it on 360 or PS3 today, and that would need a 10 million dollar budget.People don't realize how much these things cost to develop, or how many copies we'd have tosell to actually make a profit. But if someone asked to make a new Panzer, what I'd probably dois create a Panzer Dragoon game on PSP, with a budget of 3 million or so. That's more feasible.It's got the beautiful widescreen, so we could make it look beautiful.

1UP: You don't think the DS stylus would lend itself to some fast gameplay? Or would itbe too easy?

YF: If we did one on the DS it'd be possible to create new gameplay styles too.

"If I were to make [aPhantom Dust] sequel onDS, it would be difficult."


29/31

The captivating aural and visual beauty

of gaming's greatest dragon saga.

The Panzer Dragoon series has alwaysbeen widely appreciated for itsunconventional use of organic textures,colors and mechanical designs to presentthe game world's futuristic milieu, insteadof relying on cliched metals andcybernetic parts to tell the tale. The music,too, has always been an integralcomponent in purveying the windswept,epic dragon versus military showdown.Scores of synthetic brass and stringsswirl in cry out from the ramparts as riderand dragon rush in headlong againstincredible odds. And yet, somehow, thepair always win. In this edition of Sightsand Sounds, we're happy to showcasethe music and images that helped shape

the unique, one-of-a-kind vibe the Panzergames are so fondly remembered for,and to offer a hope of what might yet lie instore.


30/31




31/31



panzer dragoon by james mielke

Documents