/vr/ - Retro Games

I'll start it off. The game rocks and is one of my all time favorites but some things could have been done better.

95% of the spells you learn are practically useless since using your gun or homing shot does the job everytime time.

It's kinda easy. Especially the 2nd time around. Would have been nice if they gave you an option to up the difficutly after the first play thru.

While changing your dragon type is awesome it is almost never needed. Kinda felt like a novelty more then anything.

I've had it sitting around forever but my motivation to play it is zero.

>>2323784
Continued.

The parts where you explore on your dragon stead are great looking, some parts beautiful(dat water level) while the parts on foot didn't fair nearly as well.

>>2323785
Its short for a rpg(not in a bad way tho) so you could easily knock it out in a weekend. Well worth playing IMO.

Are there any options to play it without spending ebay-scam prices or chipping your saturn?

>>2323793
Nope. Your fucked. If I remember right they lost the code too so their wont be any re-releases ever either.

One of the all time greatest games. I was genuinely (ending spoilers) a little bit upset by the ending. I'm a sucker for games with downbeat endings.

The battle system isn't super deep but it is fun and engaging.

Also, it took me ages to realise you can hold B to run whilst on foot.

>>2323778
thanks for reminding me this game exists

>>2323793
it's supposed to work just fine in SSF, assuming you have a remotely decent CPU (like, a shitty laptop Pentium Dual Core from 2009 has no issues with SSF, any recent i3 or better machine will do just fine)

that being said, you will need a disc mounter (or you can do it the stupid way and burn the ISO to a disc, and then run it off of that) -- SSF WILL NOT OPEN if it doesn't detect a disc drive, real or virtual (it will show a tiny window for a second and then close)

>>2323793
>Are there any options to play it without spending ebay-scam prices or chipping your saturn?

>>2323807
I played the demo disc to death and back on a friend's saturn. I want the rest of the experience.

>>2323801

The battle system being engaging is by far my favorite aspect of the game. I'm not huge into rpgs because turn base is boring to me but by having to be constantly on the move really kept me involved.

>>2323793
Learn Japanese
Emulate
Swap Trick

Its too bad they never made a sequel(they set it up pritty gud for one) or at least another one set in the same universe for the DC back when Sega was still Sega. Wouldn't trust them to do it justice now a days.

>>2323784
>95% of the spells you learn are practically useless since using your gun or homing shot does the job everytime time.

That much is true for a lot of RPGs though.

Some enemies do require you to use spells to get GREAT levels on them, but even then it's mostly just using the fireball ones.
Astral Phantoms and that one rage laser from Atolm Dragon are pretty fun to use, but the problem is that they are usually not worth wasting 2 bars of movement on them. They should have tiered that system more, like up to 5 bars - items for 1 bar, normal move for 2 bars, magic for 3 bars, top level mana-free magic for 4 bars. And balance the spells differently; maybe make some bosses who have no weak points to attack but magic tears them up.

>It's kinda easy. Especially the 2nd time around. Would have been nice if they gave you an option to up the difficutly after the first play thru.

This is true, but on the other hand it doesn't require you to grind and allows you to be immerse in the story instead of micromanaging. There are pros and cons for both. If you prefer grinding Knights of the Round materia to master level, you won't find PDS as much fun.

>While changing your dragon type is awesome it is almost never needed. Kinda felt like a novelty more then anything.

The developers mentioned they put that in because unlike other RPGs, you only had 1 character to use at all times. So they had to give you some customization.

>>2323792
>while the parts on foot didn't fair nearly as well.

I disagree, the game pushes some of the most impressive and detailed 3d landscape on the console.
Some of the flying levels have ugly popup that they tried masking with similar looking backgrounds: those could've benefited from the fogging technique they did in Sonic R.

>>2323858
Well, technically Orta is the sequel. I think Orta herself is Edge and Azel's daughter

>>2323961
I've heard that also. Was that confirmed cannon, heavily implied, or just a fan theory?

>>2323778
Overrated JRPG's general?

>>2324135
the shit opinions thread is here: >>2324089

I've tried playing it, I get as far as an elaborate underground desert boss that I just can't beat.

In all honesty I find the game a bit exhausting.

>>2324150
The Blue Ruins lull me to sleep more than any other part. Must be the music and how serene everything looks.

>>2324150
>an elaborate underground desert boss that I just can't beat.

I think that was around the end of the first disc. My memory is foggy but I think you had to laser him until he revealed a weak point, then gun the weak point. Your dragon morphs for the first time after that fight.

Fantastic game overall. The Saturn's drawing distance however makes some stuff… confusing, to say the least. But the developers have been creative to get around that. The music is gorgeous.

The game is short and easy, but the story makes up for it.

The town sections are petty much the closest we'll ever have to seeing something similar to the Saturn version of Shenmue.

>>2324150
>>2324210

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UV7fbxOA-ts

>>2323778
starfox with dragons and ffxiii combat

Is Azel also Lil Meyers?

>>2324529
or Re-l Mayer apparently

dang my shoddy memory

I actually really like the battle system, and I also like the game being short enough that it doesn't particularly get all that tiring.

The evolution of this battle system from PDS>Skies of Aradia>Wild Arms 3 is also kind of strange and amusing. Japanese secret employee trading practices must be convoluted as all heck.

OP here.

Also wanted to add that the art direction in Saga(along with all the other PD games) is fantastic and my favorite of any game series.

I FUCKING LOVE THIS GAME, HOLY SHIT

LIKE, SERIOUSLY

I LOVE IT

>>2324534
>The evolution of this battle system from PDS>Skies of Aradia>Wild Arms 3
What. Same devs worked on those other two or something?

>TFW you will never find a qt 3.14 drone girl in suspended animation on a dig site working secruity for The Empire

Why live /vr?

>>2323807
I think it's neat how the demo disc is basically the first disc.

Fun FAct:

"The series's cutscenes feature its own language "Panzerese", which is based on Ancient Greek, Latin and Russian. Words in these languages were a hobby of Yukio Futatsugi, one of the core designers of the first game. This pseudo-language is used during cutscenes (in a manner similar to the 'Cityspeak' in the film Blade Runner or Simlish from The Sims). Panzer Dragoon Saga features Panzerese only in its opening and ending cutscenes."

>>2325462
And how it was given away free with Saturn Magazine. Damn that magazine was based as hell.

How faithful to the earlier Panzer Dragoon games is Orta?
It's the only one I've played.

>>2327236
Would love to see the notes Futatsugi wrote for Panzerese...I'm a tad skeptical he fleshed it out enough for anyone to speak it, but the concept's awesome.

>>2323823
This. The combat system is definitely the best thing about it. It's wholly unique and the way it felt similar to flight-mode was sweet. Walking around off your dragon was weird and definitely felt like it could have been more developed. I guess Panzer Dragoon world is kind of barren though. I never did and still haven't played all the way through any of the rail shooter games so some people may get a bigger kick out of the story although I still enjoyed the story a lot but I also did a lot of acid in 1998.

>>2327641
The story was pritty gud. Standard jrpg stuff up until the end. LOVED the ending. Really blew me away.

>>2327236
The same language is used in Shadow of the Colossus and Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter

how mysterious!

>>2328781
Ivalice crossgame shared universe confirm

>>2328781
I've never played BoFDQ but the ICO and SotC language is definitely not the same language from Panzer Dragoon

>>2328796
- WE GOT ONE

- DONT JUST STAND THERE, REEL HIM IN

>>2328798
Oh, I get it, you were "just pretending" to be an idiot.

>>2328802
>implying only samefag can calls gullible anons out for their own gullibiliteh

anyone tried to play it via yabause on PSP? i feel i'd be most comfortable with playing it on my PSP...

Almost at the end of it, all that I miss is the Tower and choosing whether it's better to be a "dragon" thing with one leg and have all the powers combined or the classic dragon with the five forms. It's not particularly complex, there is little choice on activities and locations save for some sidequests and secrets to find, and it's not particularly difficult if you get the hang of it (I got to something close to a game over once). The translation seems kinda wonky too, and the references to SoA members sometimes made me groan (Stolarium. Really.) But it's indeed a pretty cleverly designed game, with a pretty engaging combat; I liked much more than Skies of Arcadia, especially when comparing the ship to ship combat to PDR. If I was asked "You know Panzer Dragoon, those rail shooter games with the 360 view gimmick? Make an RPG out of it." I wouldn't have waited the end of the production to kill myself.

>>2323803
On word about SSF. Beside "it's crappy", recent releases tend to fix some games and break others. Saga falls in the latter category, I tried 0.12 and the latest Test version and both glitch out around Uru and its ruins, by making your dragon spaz out and refusing to open doors. 0.11 works fine, though I would have preferred to have full screen resolution, instead of a 4:3 window with black bars.
You can pass the save files between versions with impunity, just leave them in the same folder.

I have some questions about the ending: did Edge die? How? Why? What exactly was that surreal place where you fight the final boss? So the actual player was the chosen one, not Edge himself? Boy that really sucks for Edge, huh?

Great, great game. But if anyone could answer that that'd be awesome, thanks!

>>2328864
The latest test version specifically mentions fixing PDS on the twitter notes.

It also fixes the zombies not attacking you in Resident Evil.

dude rewrote the entire SH2 emulator from assembly to C, and it fixed some bugs.

>>2329050
Yeah, the ending indeed breaks the fourth wall.

>>2329070
Good, because it doesn't for me. On Test, in the ruins of Uru, the scooter thing you pilot with Azel would glitch out when taking one elevator. I did that part three times. It's two times too much.

On the subject of the ending, it seemed a bit incomplete. I always thought maybe if you got 100% everything, you'd get a better ending. But I could never cover 100% of the map due to some areas just not being accessible. Anyone manage it?

>>2323792
I really like the village sections, they manage to flesh out the world a bit more and the differences between day and night are cool!
When I first played them, seeing the night effects blew me away.

Loved it so much, I am currently playing through it again (third time, this time in Japanese). The morphing dragon thing is pretty nifty and it's nice to see that there is an actual difference. Like the Defense dragon provides significant compared to, um not defense... Also the amount of XP upgrades differs, so spiritual dragon gets you a greater increase in BP when you level up, and lower laser points.

Love it to bits.

>>2330208
While the morphing thing is nifty, I kinda find some forms much more useful overall (Attack and Spiritual mostly, defense is too slow, while Agility doesn't do much damage and it's obviously too fragile), though it depends on what you are fighting and what are you supposed to do to bring your foes the best way. Also Berserks are not useless at all, Shield would break the game in half if the battle system wouldn't reward you for finishing fights quickly, and it being costly.