#Team Andromeda

[posthumanwanderings]

Panzer Dragoon Saga (Team Andromeda - Sega Saturn - 1998)

#Panzer Dragoon Saga #Sega Saturn #Team Andromeda #gif

[miloscat]

[Review] Panzer Dragoon Saga (Sat)

Maybe they should have stuck to rail shooters...

My perfectly sensible journey through the Panzer Dragoon series: Mini, then Orta and the OG, then Gamera 2000, Remake, Zwei, and now finally this, the one that's not actually a rail shooter. Apparently development on Zwei and Saga both started at the same time but being an RPG spread over four Saturn discs, Saga took a few more years to cook. It's also one of the more pricey games in existence due to its release right when the Saturn was imploding and overall poor sales; its reputation as a rare and expensive title comes with a vaunted hidden gem status, but the reality... well...

Saga (or as it's known in Japan, Azel: Panzer Dragoon RPG) certainly is experimental. Like the monsters that populate the world's wastelands and forests, it's a mutant creation, a strange hybrid of Panzer Dragoon mechanics in an RPG framework. Or if not mechanics then surface trappings: four-quadrant perspectives in battle, aiming a lock-on cursor, three-dimensional dragon flight... but the gameplay experience is nothing at all like the arcadey rail-shooters that constitute the rest of the series. Saga is very much a departure, and I don't think that works in its favour.

The world of Panzer Dragoon was always so evocative, the unknowable but hostile technology of a lost era (with its cool techno-organic designs) littering a devastated landscape, folk struggling to eke out an existence while empires battle overhead. Digging into the setting seems like something the series was crying out for... yet somehow, by nailing things down in Saga you do end up losing some of the mystique. Sure I understood the lore more clearly from in-game texts and characters pontificating, but is that what the series really needed? Maybe they explain too much, and since this is a Japanese RPG you of course end up travelling through space and time to kill God. Ho hum.

Panzer Dragoon has always had cinematic moments, but again Saga goes to excess by having all dialogue be fully voiced, with mocapped cutscenes and long conversations. (The VA is all in Japanese as well, even in the international releases, with the series' trademark made-up language only used for the intro and outro cutscenes; another choice that removes a layer of mystery from this world.) It really slows the pace down, which is a theme for the on-foot sections, battle animations, and the speed of the overall plot.

After the inciting incident where Edge the bland protag-kun meets the dragon who befriends him for no reason, almost nothing happens to advance the plot for two whole discs. Although Edge is a defined character with a voice and backstory, he was designed to take a backseat to the eponymous Azel in story terms. Congratulations Team Andromeda, you created another boring RPG protagonist. Azel herself has potential to be interesting and has her moments but ends up underdeveloped, as often a plot device as a character, and literally not present for maybe half the game.

Although four discs sounds big, each one has just a handful of areas, and there's only two and a half towns in the game world. As an RPG and a story the scale is relatively small which works just fine for Panzer Dragoon, and the inhabited areas you do explore are dense and lively, with a day/night cycle and lots of interaction with the blocky Saturn people who live there. Controlling Edge in these areas is kind of clunky and slow, with the lock-on cursor being an odd way to interact and observe the world, but it results in lots of flavour text for background details even if a lot of it feels like filler.

When on the dragon, the world is understandably scaled back. An overworld map takes you between discrete zones, which are usually big open spaces broken up by tight corridors, or dungeons absolutely riddled with repetitive hallways and lifts. The dragon movement mechanics seem impressive but feel ultimately shallow and limiting, the technology and dev realities clearly not fulfilling the ambitions of open-roaming dragon-flying exploration. There's only a couple of occasions like the assault on a flying warship or the stealthy infiltration of an Imperial facility where these sections actually approach compelling gameplay; most of the time it's just busywork flying around and locking onto things to interact with them.

Finally, the battles. There are random and set encounters in the flying zones which take you to the battle screen, your dragon occupying one of four cardinal positions around the enemy. You or they can choose to move, which affects the ATB gauges that determine your actions but more importantly your relative positions put you in safe or danger zones from enemy attacks, and likewise enemy weak points are only revealed in certain spots. This positioning mechanic gives battles a unique feel, and turns most encounters into puzzle battles as you figure out how to respond to certain enemies. Your actions include the traditional PD single-target gun shot, a multi-target homing laser, and Zwei's Berserk technique is now the magic spell system. It's an amusing way to convert PD conventions into RPG ideas but it works well enough in theory. The problem is it felt to me that battles eventually became just slow and punishing until you learn the trick to them, at which point they're easy and time-wasting.

Saga is full of little secrets and such, the sort that compelled me to follow a guide so I didn't miss any obscure sidequest or missable treasures. One interaction requires you to talk to an NPC twenty-six times for crying out loud! Many of these rewards are relatively inconsequential but if you want your dragon to reach its final form there's a few hoops to jump through. By the end I found my inventory full of unused items and unspent money, so maybe I was too thorough. I also followed the guide's advice to seek out rare enemies to grind levels on, which may have reduced the difficulty but I'd rather that than the tedium of getting destroyed in late-game battles and having to replay sections. Saga is old-school in that way but it is from 1998 after all.

Panzer Dragoon Saga is such an unconventional RPG that I can't help but admire it, but at the same time it's clearly held back by the technology of the time and development pressures that result in it feeling messy and clumsy. There's no denying it has atmosphere and ideas and ambition, but it just didn't translate to the transcendent masterpiece that it's been built up as for me. Moreover, as a Panzer Dragoon game, it has almost nothing of what I really want out of a series that is otherwise stylish and inventive rail shooters. If telling a deeper story is what you want, then Orta was much more successful at it just by having a little more cutscene between levels! Even the rich world and visual design of the series is compromised rather than enhanced here as a result of the combination of gameplay styles/scales. I'm glad I played it but it's firmly the black sheep of the series as far as I'm concerned.

#panzer dragoon #panzer dragoon saga #team andromeda #saturn #review

[gamemories]

#Azel Panzer Dragoon RPG #Panzer Dragoon RPG #Panzer Dragoon #SEGA #SEGA Saturn #Saturn #Panzer Dragoon Saga #1998 #Team Andromeda #Smilebit #Japanese role-playing game #RPG #JRPG

[the-ocean-is-scary]

I know like no one's gonna vote but for the record I'm making the poll because of this post.

#kento park #warcross #marie lu #marielu #marie luniverse #warcross duology #warcross marie lu #team andromeda

[katekat500]

So… funny thing… right after I posted the art from my birthday (posted only about 3 hours ago) I started working again on another drawing I had started like a week ago that was supposed to be a perspective study and it kinda is but…

I’m in love with my Splatoon Oc at this point guys…

And about two seconds after posting this did I realize her eyebrow cut is on the wrong side cus I started on the other side of the canvas but chose to do it this way cus it looked prettier

#splat3 #splatoon #splatoon art #fanart #art #gaming #my art #team andromeda #my splatoon oc #perspective

[blazehedgehog]

I know you covered the Panzer Dragoon Remake a couple years back now, but have you played the original games? If so, what do you think of them? (I just beat Orta on the Xbox, which is a wicked good time, and it's made me curious to revisit the Saturn trilogy)

Playing the Remake is the most I've ever played a lot of these games. I never owned any of the original Panzer Dragoon games (I never saw them on shelves, and even when I did, I was just a broke kid).

And with emulation, that's often something where you "poke" at games but only ever maybe finish 0.5% of everything you touch. So I'd played Panzer Dragoon and Zwei, but never gave them my full, undivided attention, and never saw the credits roll. It's the difference between "testing out a Saturn emulator" and "sitting down to play Panzer Dragoon."

So, before Remake, I'd played maybe 30 minutes of either game. Now, since Remake, I've played the original Saturn version to completion (knowing how how short it is). Still haven't put much time in to Zwei, though. I streamed maybe 45 minutes or an hour to a friend on Discord earlier this year.

Never touched Saga. Never even looked at it. I don't want that to be a game I "poke at." When I play Panzer Dragoon Saga, I want it to be the sort of thing where I sit down and intend to finish it.

About a year, maybe two before Remake came out, a digital copy of Panzer Dragoon Orta was on sale on 360 for like $3, so I picked it up, and played an hour or two of it to contrast with Remake.

I think the thing about at least the first Panzer Dragoon game is that when you're only really sampling it, it feels incredibly simple. The game doesn't openly track score, there isn't dialog during play (like, say, Star Fox), and the game isn't especially difficult. So you're just kind of vibing and it's kind of boring. Like Rez, without the rhythm element.

I don't know if that ever really goes away, but I do know that Zwei is definitely more challenging and engaging, and Orta has all kinds of mechanics with switching dragon modes.

Anyway, I like it. I think I said this in my review for Panzer Dragoon Remake, but, I get the same vibe from that as I do, like, a Team Ico game. It's got that same kind of otherworldly melancholy of, like Ico, or The Last Guardian, or Shadow of the Colossus. It's not your typical fantasy world.

I still don't think the Forever Entertainment guys are very good at their remakes. House of the Dead was at least slightly more polished than Panzer Dragoon, but they still have kind of a sloppy, rough, devil-may-care attitude to how they handle these remakes. They've vowed to remake all of the Panzer Dragoon games, and frankly, I'm dreading what they'd do to Saga, assuming they ever get there.

#questions #Anonymous #panzer dragoon #sega #saturn #team andromeda #forever entertainment

[babylonburningmadiacenter]

Panzer Dragoon (NTSC-J) (2006) (Rail Shooter) (PS2)

Panzer Dragoon (NTSC-J) (2006) (Rail Shooter) (PS2)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_Dragoon_(video_game) ROM ISO : Panzer Dragoon (NTSC-J) (2006) (Rail Shooter) (PS2) MANUAL (SATURN) : https://archive.org/details/Panzer_Dragoon_1995_Sega_EU/mode/2upVIDEO LONGPLAY (SATURN) : https://archive.org/details/SaturnLongplay005PanzaDragoonCOMPLETE GUIDE (SATURN) (JP) : https://archive.org/details/panzerdragooncompleteguide/mode/2up Panzer Dragoon…

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#2006 #Bin #Cue #Game #Games #ISO #Land Ho #NTSC-J #Panzer Dragoon #PS2 #Rail Shooter #Retro Gaming #Retrogaming #Sega #Team Andromeda #Video Game

[wolfswitcheryanimations]

Meet the RGB team, a ragtag pack of three researches turned to mercenary work for extra cash. (Lupus uses any pronouns, Andromeda uses She/Her, Turing uses He/They)

An actual reference sheet coming soon-ish.

#monkey wrench #mw #monkey wrench oc #oc #my ocs #mw lupus #mw turing #mw andromeda #RGB team #oc art #art #artists on tumblr

[racmune]

you're too pure to be a killer

#racmune art #the scratched universe #masked mechanic #EXPLODES #this is the first like actually finished piece ive done on pc i think #and it went absurdly well so im really proud of myself rn #ummmmm the constellations are perseus and andromeda cause.. theyre in love or whatever #IM GONNA VOMIT THIS WILL CAP AT 40 NOTES I KNOWWWW #guys its okay :) #whatever im using tf2 tags on this cause i like it too much #tf2 #team fortress 2 #tf2 scout

[ageless-aislynn]

Halo, Halo: Reach, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Mass Effect, Call of Duty and Baldur's Gate 3

#aka me realizing my main fandom right now is #video games #👀 #halo #halo: reach #halo reach #mass effect: andromeda #mass effect andromeda #mass effect #call of duty: modern warfare iii #call of duty #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #cod #master chief #cortana #noble team #sara ryder #reyes vidal #scott ryder #cora harper #garrus vakarian #commander shepard #james vega #kaiden alenko #tali'zorah #lieutenant simon ghost riley #sgt john soap mactavish #karlach #astarion

[yesiplaygamez]

When a companion/npc betrayed you:

#dragon age #video game #mass effect #dragon age inquisition #dragon age 2 #dao #dragon age origins #mass effect andromeda #fallout #fallout nv #fallout 4 #fallout 3 #team mate #video game meme #meme #assassin's creed #acs

[posthumanwanderings]

Panzer Dragoon Saga (Team Andromeda - Sega Saturn - 1998)

#will do pt.3 stream of this in July for the sidequests + ending #Panzer Dragoon Saga #Team Andromeda #Sega #Sega Saturn #JRPG #RPG #Azel Saga #Panzer Dragoon #Azel #click hyperlink for longplay

[miloscat]

[Review] Panzer Dragoon Zwei (Sat)

It's more Panzer Dragoon!

The first Panzer Dragoon was rightly lauded, its ambitions fulfilled. Team Andromeda set to a pair of sequels: a more straightforward rail shooter follow-up, and an RPG which would become Saga. Zwei (the German word for two) turned out to be more of a Null in story terms (that's German for zero, language fans), although like the first game the plot isn't dwelt on too much.

There is slightly more story, in direct response to PD1's reception. We have Lundi taking care of a mutant beast of burden, riding it into battle after his village is destroyed. The first game's black dragon gave a strong throughline to events, while here Lundi just chases down the airship that blew up his home for some reason. This provides a great setpiece for the penultimate stage, but otherwise the stages are more of the same.

Part of the story I suppose is seeing Lundi's pet Lagi grow and evolve as you progress. It turns out that these mutant creatures are actually proto-dragons (gasp!) and by the end you'll be flying a magnificent creature in the signature PD style... that is, if you do well enough. One of Zwei's new features is points earned from your performance, which contribute to the dragon's changes in form. Play perfectly and Lagi becomes the dragon from the first game, which I guess is really the only indication that this is a prequel, otherwise it doesn't really matter.

Playing into the points system is alternate paths in some levels. Three of them randomly have spots where you apparently go a different way, and I think these can be harder and give you more points? I dunno, the whole thing seems a bit undercooked to be honest. It could give some replayability, as well as discovering new dragon forms, but only if you really know what you're doing. The Pandora's Box debuts here but to unlock its options requires perfect play or just lots of it (30 hours of game time opens it up completely). It seems demanding but you have to admire the optimism to create a game that you want people to play over and over to master it.

Another point where the team responded to criticism is that they apparently toned down the difficulty on this one. Well... I didn't notice, because I took quite a few deaths on later levels... but I guess I'll take their word for it. Perhaps my treatment of this as a one-and-done arcade shooter is not how the game really wants to be played, but I still had a decent time with it. The turning around mechanic is implemented well, and the new Berserk mode gives a much-needed panic button or strategic super-weapon. So in some ways it's a bit refined from the first game, but some of the additions are a bit unpolished. Either way it's some excellent rail shooter action and I got to exist in this wonderful, desolate world for a little longer. I'm thankful for that.

#panzer dragoon #panzer dragoon zwei #team andromeda #review #sega saturn

[paragonraptors]

PLEASSEEEEE TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE BRAINY/LYLE SHIP THE ART IS SO GOOD I NEED THE DEETS

Well, I love any opportunity to peddle my rarepair and they've been rotating in my mind as I've been reading the late 80s-90s Legion of Superheroes/Legionnaires.

I've always loved the '06 cartoon and Brainiac 5 has always been one of my favorite characters of all time. I was very excited when they gave Shrinking Violet more of a role in s2 as someone who could hold their ground intellectually against Brainy and thus give him someone to connect to emotionally beyond Superman. Once I got into the comics I found out Lyle's the one who typically holds this role and it was kind of all over from there.

I like their dynamic when they're sort of functionally similar but drastically different in practice. They're both intelligent, but Querl's more of your typical anti-social stereotype while Lyle's a bit more extroverted. Querl's constantly fighting his own hubris while Lyle takes a more 'fuck it we ball' approach when it comes to their sciences. (Big fan of when he gets his powers by performing bio-medical experiments on himself. And this aspect is also funny when he runs the Legion's espionage branch.) I like writing Lyle as someone who's completely unphased by Querl's personality and Querl having to learn how to handle that. Protocol dictates that he should annihilate this man but Lyle's just sooooo charming and good at what he does it just makes him pace around his enclosure like an understimulated animal. And when they get past that their banter is just unparallelled.

I think these panels perfectly sum up what I love about them (From "Legionnaires" #22):

#sorry to everyone who followed me recently for mass effect/dragon age only to find out im into this relatively niche dc superhero team #if it's any consolation though when i rewatched the legion cartoon a few months ago i was like 'oh this is wHY i love mass effect' #'and andromeda in particular' #also jennifer hale plays emerald empress in s1 so it all comes full circle

[whatudottu]

Concept: Ben 10 Alien Force AU where everything is the same except Kevin is just insanely passive-aggressive towards Ben for the entire duration of the series

“No worries Tennyson, I buried the hatchet ages ago! That bad blood between us? Water under the bridge! I mean, it’s not like you got me stranded in a prison dimension for five years and never bothered to try and rescue me or even check up on me or anything like that! Of course I’ll help you save your grandpa! After all, what kind of hero just leaves someone for dead in the hands of vicious aliens that proceed to inflict them with severe psychological damage that will take decades to fully heal?”

I feel as though that would be a whole lot more realistic of a thing to happen, especially as the Tennysons realistically react to Kevin's passive-aggression with their own Tennyson brand passive-aggressiveness, though it might not be the most enjoyable trio to watch, which would be basically the complete opposite of the previous trio of Ben, Gwen, and Grandpa Max-

Ben and Kevin would have more personal beef (something about stealing a way too high security unreleased but already boxed game vs making two trains crash into each other for free money), but Gwen never particularly liked Kevin in the first place way back when, so even if Ben and Kevin settle their differences with admitting what they had actually done wrong (probably fighting over the more petty shit or arguing about the worse shit they did), Gwen doesn't have much basis to forgive Kevin because ultimately she did not get involved. Which I mean I don't think would be that great to watch nor that great to create a team around, especially in the earlier more mystery focused side of AF-

And this is the obligatory mention of @kariachi for introducing the idea of the Ben, Gwen, and Argit trio- you can have passive-aggressive Kevin (and the Tennyson's appropriate responses to him) all you like if Kevin takes Argit's role and Argit fills in that missing main trio slot in his stead. Depending on where and how he's introduced you could totally have a fake-out trio of the Tennysons and Magister Labrid, you know, with the assumption that someone's filling out Max's 'experienced plumber' slot. Not sure how convincing that might be but oops, I did a little ramble lmao-

#ask #anonymous #kevin levin #ben tennyson #gwen tennyson #ben 10 #don't mind me just thinking about argit- not a whole lot but it's something #i do realise that i kinda maybe vaguely forget to think about any form of team ben lmao #since a lot of my first thoughts about ben 10 are either my petrosapien ocs (they grow in number) #or the andromeda 5 of whom i like to pair with xenobiology and other worldbuilding #so i guess i'm sorry for going off topic but lmao if you've sent in an ask to ME i bet you already know that i ramble #gwen's stubborn and would probably either never come around to kevin on her team or take too much time to do so #and ben might be ultimately more forgiving as a teen than as a 10y/o but kevin's kevin #there might be a little sympathy there for the general 'sorry you got amalgamed that one time' #but like kevin dragged his 'not actually known' name through the dirt when it was just 1 to 1 transformations #let alone actually working with/for vilgax that one time #not that kevin doesn't have his own beefs of course- the null void is a horrible place to send folks as punishment #especially a distressed 11y/o who's not very human at the moment if he ever was (depends what floats your boat) #ultimately... though realistic- probably not the best working environment for a highbreed investigation

[katekat500]

Ok it’s literally been a month since my birthday (July 3rd) but I made this like the night before and meant to post it on here cus I’m pretty proud of myself

#splatoon art #splat3 #team andromeda #my Splatoon Oc #my art #fanart #gaming #art