Panzer Dragoon 1&2 Remakes Coming

[Forlorn Drifter]

Link: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/1 ... ing_remade

Very exciting- no platforms announced yet, but I have a feeling it will come to everything. They do mention some changes which... is a bit scary, but let's hope for the best.

[bmoc]

Like everybody else, I just hope it leads to a remake of Saga. I know the source code was lost and all that but it would be cool to play it without dropping $400+.

[Tanooki]

The thing is, for all the years of complaining and begging, would it be all that hard just to observe the game in high detail, grab every piece of information possible on and offline about how all its mechanics and stuff go and just re-create it? If it's that good and worthy of recovery you would think it could be done, or is it more about people in a little minority that's vocal wanting something they can't have because it's freaking expensive and locked to a very old piece of hardware more than anything else?

[marurun]

Panzer Dragoon Saga is genuinely an incredible RPG, but it is also a fairly lonely-feeling, solitary RPG. Many traditional RPG fans may not like that atmosphere. PDS also used a lot of crazy programming tricks on the Saturn, tricks that really only work on the Saturn. And recreating a game by just watching and timing it can be very difficult, especially with a game like PDS. There are a lot of variables in play. Source code would make a huge difference, because that would probably also include all the raw art assets.

[Tanooki]

I recall much of that so I'm aware of the size of the hurdle. It's just that I was thinking if it were that desirable to enough fans and Sega, or a third party group who got Sega's ok to publish, something like this would have been at least attempted by now without the source. I've seen the comment for like 15-20 years and nothing ever happens. Clearly the source is lost or tucked away so dark somewhere it's forgotten and as such lost. Whatever the case is, if this ever happens, it's going to have to be recreated unless it pops out of the ether. I would put the odds of the completed Wing Commander 2 SNES game lost in Japan by Pony Corp who worked on it turning up first.

[Arenegeth]

I'm sure someday PDS will be reverse-engineered (or whatever the appropriate term would be) outside of the Saturn or Saturn Emulation. It is probably the number one desired game with a confirmed lost source code for an HD remake.

But as is mentioned already, it is too expensive and labor intensive for Sega to attempt something like this themselves, a potential HD re-release may not recoup the cost or at least minimize profit from sales, cause you have to remember, as popular as the game is amongst Saturn enthusiasts and collector's, it has very little pull in the mainstream, in fact Panzer Dragoon in general has little capital in today's market as an IP.

Though the remake of the first two games may help raise the profile of the series again, but unless Sega cashes out for a full blown sequel to Orta (or better yet, Saga) I doubt is going to do anything more than what other Sega HD ports or remakes did for their respective series.

Personally, I'm not that interested in these remakes, there's something about the original games visual identity that I'm pretty sure will be lost in the transition, and the Saturn originals are always there to play. But, I'll keep my eyes open, in case they manage to pull of something akin to the Resident Evil remake, than a lot of shoddy, more recent remakes we got.

[ElkinFencer10]

it is too expensive and labor intensive

In a world where Bubsy got a sequel on 8th gen consoles, anything is possible.

[finerion]

In a world where Bubsy got a sequel on 8th gen consoles, anything is possible.

This is so true. I'd love to see a fresh release in the series.

[Jagosaurus]

Pretty excited about these. Hopefully it's the original 2 games reskinned a la Orta.

Hearing gameplay changes worries me...

The camera panning to locked angles (for 360 shots) could just be a fluid circle rotation via triggers or shoulders. Outside of that, I wouldn't change much. They're great games.

Going to be a bit off topic but also related... ... on oXbox & now via backwards compatibility... when you unlock the original PD in Orta, is this the PC or Saturn port?

I have a modded xbox so I can go directly to boot the original PD .xbe. It looks great in 480p over component. Always assumed it was SS port but looking back... would've likely been easier to port PC version to oXbox then.

Worth noting you can plan this unlockable original PD on Xbox One, upscaled to 4K now.

[Jagosaurus]

To answer my own question...

General consensus is that it's the SS game unlocked on Orta:

https://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/commen ... box_one_x/

But according to this Panzer Dragoon forum... yup, that's a thing... it's the PC port on Orta

https://discuss.panzerdragoonlegacy.com ... -of-pd/824

Yes it’s the PC version. Ported by the same Smilebit memember that did the original PC port for the old SEGA PC division.

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Edit/Add: More on PD PC port differences from SS:

Following its Saturn release, Panzer Dragoon was ported to Windows PCs in late 1996. Like Virtua Fighter PC, in its original PC form all 3D geometry was rendered in software. While the PC version is able to output a higher resolution image, the lighting differs from the base game, frame rates can be inconsistent (particularly between level transitions) and some full motion video clips have been removed.

The Saturn version of Panzer Dragoon makes (limited) use of "fogging" to attempt to hide 3D geometry pop-in caused by short draw distances. In the PC port, draw distances are the same, but the fogging effect is removed. True semi-transparency is used for some effects in the PC version, as oppsoed to the checkerboard mesh patterns used to simulate alpha transparency on the Saturn.

Also like Virtua Fighter PC, an exceedingly rare NV1-compatible hardware accelerated version of the game was also released in limited quantities. The NV1 version of Panzer Dragoon was never sold as a stand-alone product - instead, copies were bundled in a EDGE 3D 3240 package by Diamond Multimedia[8], alongside Virtua Fighter PC, NASCAR Racing and a Sega Saturn controller. It is also unknown if this version was ever released outside of North America.

https://segaretro.org/Panzer_Dragoon#PC_version

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For Saga... I've read it emulates fine on PC but is prone to crash at the final boss & a patch is required. Emu on multi discs games can get dicey also.

Gamester81 posted a video of PDS (and other 2 PD games) running fine on Odroid single board micro PC (think Rpi suped up).

I may just try that someday. Unfortunately it wasn't compatible with the SS AR cart psuedo softmod last I checked (allowing you play burned CDRs without mod chip). this one keeps eluding me... without wanting to spend the $500+. One day...