AUTHOR: Team Andromeda / SEGA RELEASE: 1995 TYP: 3D Action SPIELER: 1 LEVEL: - SPRACHE: Englisch WERT: 13€

Betreten Sie eine gefährliche 360°-Welt tausend Jahre in der Zukunft. Ihre Leute leben in Furcht vor dem Dark Dragon. Mit einer tödlichen Waffe aus grauer Vorzeit ausgerüstet und unter Führung Ihres gepanzerten Drachen müssen Sie Ihren Gegnern in engen Höhlen, lebensgefährlichen Wüsten und phantastischen, versunkenen Städten gegenübertreten. Erleben Sie die Action aus jeder Perspektive: Zoomen Sie näher heran oder fahren Sie weiter weg, während Sie von riesigen Ringelwürmern, menschengroßen Wespen und todbringenden, fliegenden Kampfschiffen angegriffen werden.

SEGA Magazin Ausgabe 9/1995: ^{[Grafik: 92% Sound: 90% Gesamt: 91%]}
Die neuen Ideen, das innovative Design und die Perfektion von der ersten bis zur letzten Sekunde machen Panzer Dragoon zum derzeit interessantesten Saturn-Spiel.
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Panzer Dragoon is set in a distant oppressive future. The Dark Dragon needs to be destroyed, and you, Keil Fluge, are aboard a dragon and armed with a powerful weapon to do so. In this shooter, you ride an armored dragon on a predefined path with 360º of freedom (you can rotate and zoom in and out). This path takes you through an aquatic setting, through a tunnel and over a forest, and into combat with giant worms, wasps and flies. Each level ends with a boss. In a idea influenced by the film Blade Runner, cutscenes use a fusion language combining elements of German, Latin and Japanese. www.Mobygames.com

The beginning days of the Saturn were dark indeed. Sega was primarily counting on home conversions of Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA to carry its hype, especially during the summer of 1995, when it was surprisingly launched at a rather pricey $400. Although fans gobbled them up, Namco had a one-two punch of Tekken and Ridge Racer, which were being released for Sony's brand new Playstation. Despite not having quite the same level of street cred, they both looked much better, and helped begin Sony's dominance in the console gaming field. Meanwhile, Sega scrambled to make its Virtua Fighter port look less embarrassing with the release of Virtua Fighter Remix, and tried to create a number of other properties such as Clockwork Night and Bug!, neither of which were terribly impressive. In these dark early days, one of the only truly original titles that Sega fans could get excited about was Panzer Dragoon, created by a Sega division known as Team Andromeda. Although it was specifically designed for the home console, Panzer Dragoon felt much like an arcade game - it was short and shallow, but remarkably pretty, at least for the time. In many ways, Panzer Dragoon is a light-gun game without the light gun - the technical term for this is a „rail shooter“. Although you pilot a flying dragon, the game's path is completely pre-calculated, so all you need to do is shoot at enemies and dodge incoming fire. In all games, you have two weapons - a standard gun, and a lock-on laser, which is activated by holding down the fire button, targetting several enemies, then releasing. You'll then send out a homing laser which decimate - or least badly wound - whatever is in your sights. The only real freedom you have is the ability to turn your viewpoint for a 360 degree view of the landscape as you fly over the game's desolate landscape, which is activated by hitting the left or right trigger buttons. Since enemies come from all angles, being able to shoot in any direction is key to survival, although it also contributes to one of Panzer Dragoon's biggest issues - sometimes, there's just way too much going on at once. Short of spinning the view around rapidly, the only way to detect incoming enemies is by paying attention to the radar at the top of the screen. Before you get used to it, you'll find yourself tracking the enemies' position frantically, until you can finally target them, only to find out that they've already fired off a few shots and done some damage to your dragon. In many cases, the most efficient way to combat enemies is simply to play through the levels over and over, and memorize when and where the enemy formations pop up. It's frustrating to get the hang of at first, but the learning curve is almost a necessity, because the Saturn Panzer Dragoon games are remarkably short, and needed some kind of staying power. There are other issues that take some adjusting - you don't directly control your dragon, but rather, you control the targetting cursor, and the dragon just sort of follows. It's strange to feel the disconnect between the beast you're piloting, especially if you're more familiar with similar games like Nintendo's Starfox 64. It doesn't help that trying to dodge enemy attacks can be quite difficult due to both the controls and perspective - most of the time, it's better just to try to shoot down enemy projectiles than rather dodge them, which can occasionally be a fruitless affair. Despite these quirks, Panzer Dragoon is still remarkably fun to play, and most of this lies within its gorgeous visuals. The Saturn wasn't exactly a 3D powerhouse, and the installments for that system look a bit aged, but the actual artwork is spectacular. Drawing inspiration from the works of French artist Moebius (who provided some illustrations for the original game), Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and David Lynch's Dune movie (complete with sandworms), the world of Panzer Dragoon consists of expansive, barren landscapes filled with strange beasts and other monstrosities out to destroy the remnants of humanity. It's a masterful blend of fantasy and science fiction that's rarely pulled off in any other medium. The levels stretch from expansive oceans to barren deserts to the winding tunnels of lost ruins. It takes a lot of effort on the graphic designers part to take such dark and dismal landscapes and turn it into something of beauty. Also, the enemies in Panzer Dragoon don't just explode when they die - they literally fall apart at the seams. There's rarely a thing more satisfying than targetting a whole school of flying fish-things, hearing the beautiful chirp of the lock-on cursor, unleashing a hellstorm of lasers, and watching the dismembered chunks of your former foes fall helplessly to the ground. […] http://hg101.classicgaming.gamespy.com (by Kurt Kalata)