Published by Solo Wing July 5, 2019 6:01am.

Orion Arts, the developer behind the Panzer-esque mobile game Galerider, has announced a new “free to fly” version of the game, set to be released on July 11. Galerider: Free to Fly will include the first two levels of the game at no cost and will be available on the App Store. The premium version of the game containing the complete experience will continue to sell for US$1.99.

The full game is already available on iOS12 devices (including newer iPods) in various regions; it’s expected that Galerider: Free to Fly will be available on the same platforms and regions, but we’ll post more details as they become available. Further information is available on The Geekiary.

Published by Solo Wing July 2, 2019 9:50am.

Nintendo World Report TV has interviewed Zbigniew Debicki, the CEO of Forever Entertainment, regarding the upcoming Panzer Dragoon: Remake.

Maybe it’s Sega Saturn Sunday at NWR because now we have a preview for Panzer Dragoon. We spoke with the CEO of Forever Entertainment & learned more about the PD remake on Switch. In addition, we can confirm Panzer Dragoon II Zwei is also coming to Switch.

Some points from the video:

• Panzer Dragoon: Remake has been in development for around a year.
• The game will have classic and modern modes; modern mode adds checkpoints throughout the levels.
• The biggest challenge is living up to the legacy of the series (the lore, story, world, and specific environments).
• Forever Entertainment intend to make the gameplay 1 to 1 with the original games.
• The source code from the original was not used; this is a remake from scratch.
• The game’s soundtrack is a secret… for now.
• Debicki has all the consoles, but prefers to play on Switch because he is always on the go.
• Panzer Dragoon II Zwei: Remake is also coming to Nintendo Switch.
• Would Forever Entertainment be interested in working on a remake of Panzer Dragoon Saga? “I cannot comment on that now”.
• No comment on whether he’s talked with Futatsugi or other Team Andromeda members about the game.

Published by Solo Wing June 29, 2019 6:47am.

I’ve gathered up a few articles/media covering the upcoming remake of Panzer Dragoon, based on the footage that was shown at E3 2019.

First up, Digital Foundry has posted a quick technical analysis of the remake’s E3 trailer in one of their recent videos. The Panzer Dragoon: Remake analysis starts at 6:51.

Forever Entertainment have released a slideshow of their post-E3 presentation. Here they look back on the media coverage and reactions on their E3 Panzer Dragoon Remake trailer. Most of the presentation is in Polish, but with accompanying visuals.

Monika Ginter from Forever Entertainment has also confirmed that a physical version of Panzer Dragoon: Remake is coming, but no further details are currently available (or news on platforms besides Switch).

A recent entry from Polish blog Strefain goes into more detail about the development of the game, including that the remake of Panzer Dragoon II Zwei is already in pre-production. We’ll have more news in this area as it arrives.

There’s also a new interview by USGamer with the creator of the original Panzer Dragoon series, Yukio Futatsugi. His stance on a new Panzer Dragoon release is basically that if it’s just copying the work, it’s something he’s already done and he wouldn’t need to make a new one. Futatsugi acknowledges he’d need to integrate “modern trends” into any new Panzer release, so it would end up being a different kind of game. Although part of him thinks that maybe he doesn’t need to make a new Panzer Dragoon, he’d says it would be nice to create something that features the unique world and look of the original games.

Published by Solo Wing June 14, 2019 12:44pm.

We’ve collected some new fan art for you all to enjoy:

If you’ve got art to share, the best way to ensure that it’s posted on Panzer Dragoon Legacy is to share it on our forum (we may not see everything you share on social media).

Published by Solo Wing June 14, 2019 9:53am.

Since Panzer Dragoon: Remake was unveiled to the world at E3 2019, fans have posted a wide range of reactions to the game. Although much of the feedback has been positive, some of us who have followed the series for years have been less certain about aspects of the remake. Benjamin Anseaume, Head of Publishing and Associate at TA Publishing (a subsidiary of Forever Entertainment) has posted a series of tweets responding to the feedback:

We got a lot of feedback on the trailer and the gameplay video, that’s awesome. I can’t reply to everyone but just few insights. Small thread ⬇️

Please keep in mind that, while hardcore fans are extremely important for us, our goal is also to increase the audience of the game, if we want to see more Panzer games. We have to re-imagine a game which is 25 years old and had some limitations back then.

We will have to make choices, about gameplay and art direction. And there are many people involved with their own opinion at Forever, MegaPixel Studio, TA Publishing and of course Sega 🙂

Something else is extremely important: trying to get some distance with our nostalgia, because something we loved back then may be not possible anymore.

We had some feedback saying that we should remove backgrounds elements because in the original game it was only a big sea with almost nothing, but it can’t be our direction, as players request nice and detailed backgrounds today.

Lastly, I want to ensure you all that we are doing our best, and we may be able to communicate some great news in the upcoming weeks for you, old fans 😉

Anyway, thank you for you support guys, past three days have been crazy, and full of emotions, the Panzer Dragoon community is the greatest and we are starting an awesome journey together!

Although we may not agree with everything said here, we’re certainly glad that the various parties involved in bringing the remake to life are listening what has been said. If you’d like your voice to be heard, be sure to comment over on the Forever Entertainment Discord server.

Published by Solo Wing June 13, 2019 7:15am.

Panzer Dragoon is back with a roar, and fans across the globe have shared their reactions. Warning, language in the following video may not be considered appropriate for work. ;)

Fans also continue to share their responses and feedback over on the official Forever Entertainment Discord server. You can also find some discussion from long time fans on our own forum and Discord server.

Forever Entertainment have also confirmed that the pictures of physical copies of Panzer Dragoon: Remake, such as this Nintendo Switch case, are fake. No physical version has been confirmed.

Published by Solo Wing June 12, 2019 12:04am.

For those who haven’t seen it yet, there’s a second trailer of Panzer Dragoon: Remake showing more gameplay footage from the first episode:

I’ve also uploaded the nine pre-release screenshots of the game to Panzer Dragoon Legacy:

Remember, if you have feedback about the upcoming remake, now is the time to let Forever Entertainment know, before the game is finalised. You can send feedback to the developers over on their Discord channel.

Published by Draikin June 11, 2019 4:36pm.

During the latest Nintendo Direct E3 2019, Forever Entertainment has revealed the first trailer for its upcoming remake of the original Panzer Dragoon. Scheduled for a release this winter on the Nintendo Switch, the game has received a considerable overhaul in terms of graphics and looks a lot more colorful than the original game. The trailer shows footage from the first level of the game, including the boss fight. We’ll update the article as more information is made available, but for now you can watch the trailer below!

The official website can be found here. There’s also an official Twitter channel. For now there’s no information about the game heading to other platforms besides the Nintendo Switch.

Published by Solo Wing April 26, 2019 6:48am.

Chris Kohler from Kotaku has published a new article titled How Panzer Dragoon Defined The Sega Saturn Era which looks at how the series and the Saturn hardware went hand-in-hand. Although repeating much information from the GDC talk, it’s still an interesting read for those of us who like to learn about the development of the Saturn Panzer Dragoon games. In particular, Yukio Futatsugi wanted to make a game that specifically didn’t use pre-rendered backgrounds (in contrast to Panzer Dragoon Saga’s competitor, Final Fantasy VII):

Futatsugi said that the design of Panzer Dragoon Saga wasn’t specifically a reaction to Final Fantasy VII, but rather, the realization of a challenge that he already had wanted to tackle: making a role-playing game using only 3D graphics, with no 2D sprites or pre-rendered backgrounds. “I really hate rendered graphics. It just doesn’t feel consistent,” he said. “But if you make everything in 3D, whether you’re looking at the movies or playing the game, everything fits together in a good way.”

In the GDC Q&A, Futatsugi hinted that the missing source code for Panzer Dragoon Saga may have been discovered somewhere, at some point. In this new Kotaku article, Futatsugi has expressed interest “something new” happening with the Panzer Dragoon series, particularly if the upcoming remakes of Panzer Dragoon and Panzer Dragoon II Zwei sell well. “I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me considering approaching Sega for the license to Panzer Dragoon.” Of course, if he does eventually get to make another Panzer Dragoon game - either a remake of Saga or a brand new adventure - it would likely be developed using a modern game engine.

Published by Draikin April 16, 2019 10:06pm.

The official GDC YouTube channel has uploaded the entire Panzer Dragoon Classic Game Postmortem talk, where Yukio Futatsugi and Kentaro Yoshida looked back on the development of the original Panzer Dragoon trilogy. While the most important points were already pointed out in our previous article, there’s plenty of other details in the full video that will no doubt be of interest to the fans. Among them is a question from a fan about the upcoming Panzer Dragoon remakes, to which Yukio Futatsugi replied that they weren’t given word of the remakes and aren’t involved with them, so all they can wish for is that they turn out well. You can view the full video below!

On a side note, it’s perhaps a bit unfortunate that GDC decided to use a Panzer Dragoon Orta image for the video’s thumbnail, as it’s the one mainline Panzer Dragoon game Yukio Futatsugi didn’t work on (and also wasn’t part of the presentation).

Published by Solo Wing April 11, 2019 9:07am.

The folks at Orion Arts have released a new update for Galerider, their Panzer Dragoon-like shooter for iOS.

Version 1.4 includes two new wind drakes that you can ride, and two new areas (comprising of six new stages). To give you an idea of how much new content this update includes, the original version featured three areas (nine stages), about an hour and half of play time. The update’s new content is two thirds the size of the original version, which is very impressive for a free update. I haven’t quite finished all of the new stages yet, but it’s set to offer at least another hour of play time (perhaps more with the increased difficulty level of later stages). Panzer Dragoon fans will appreciate the new desert area especially which further makes Galerider feel like a game that could be a part of the series.

What I particularly appreciated about this update is the addition of iPad support. This means that the game is now playable on wide range of different sized touch-screen devices, from the smaller 4.7-inch iPhones all the way up to the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. I played through some of the stages on a 10.5 inch iPad Pro and it was great being able to see the game’s rich visuals in greater detail. The cloud saves work well too, requiring you to manually upload and download save files from iCloud by pushing a button. I played some of the new stages on my iPhone while out and about, and continued on the larger iPad screen when I arrived home. Galerider is a universal app, so you only have to buy it once to play it on both iPhone and iPad. I know many of you will still be dismayed that the game is still only available on iOS (at this point, there’s no new information on a possible Android version), but given that this game is being made by a small team and both the iPhone and iPad run iOS, the iPad was the next logical step. A step that I’m glad was made.

Published by Solo Wing March 23, 2019 12:45am.

Daniel Choo from Orion Arts has informed me that a major update will be released for the Panzer-esque shooter in April:

The Galerider team has been hard at work for the past few months and we have some exciting news to share! We have a major update coming soon in April 2019 and here are the highlights:

New Content

• 2 new realms will be opened to players with a total of 6 new stages
• 2 new colossal Overbeasts to conquer
• 2 new Wind Drakes to unlock and ride

New Features

• Galerider will be playable on iPad
• Cloud save feature is supported

We are also preparing to release a demo version in tandem with the update. This will allow players to try out the first 2 stages for free!

It’s great to see the game is being actively developed, and expanded to work on the iPad. I played through the game when it was released in October on iPhone and shared my (positive) impressions.

Published by Solo Wing March 23, 2019 12:25am.

Yukio Futatsugi and Kentaro Yoshida recently presented a “postmortem” talk on the Saturn Panzer Dragoon games at Game Developers Conference 2019. In a series of tweets, Brandon Sheffield has captured some of the slides from the talk. Key points include:

• Futatsugi originally chose to make a racing game, but Gale Racer was greenlit first, so he made a shooter instead.
• An organic dragon was chosen to contrast with the “hard” ship designs found in shooters of the time.
• The homing laser was added because the original shooting mechanics were tough to aim with.
• Futatsugi was inspired by the space rail shooter Starblade.
• Team Andromeda were able to develop the game world and language because the Saturn development kits were behind schedule.
• Panzer Dragoon’s graphics were a response to the threat of the PlayStation.
• Panzer Dragoon Zwei’s on-foot sections were designed to accentuate the feeling of flight.
• The development of Panzer Dragoon Saga has given Futatsugi the most grief in his 25 year career.
• In Panzer Dragoon Saga, they originally they wanted you “to be able to go anywhere at any time” but realised it was impossible at the time.
• The tunnel in Zoah was added to hide loading time.
• For Panzer Dragoon Saga’s FMV sequences, they used a magnetic motion capture system.
• The development of Panzer Dragoon Saga was delayed by a year.
• At the time, SEGA had company culture of having employees engage in work that fell outside their fields of specialisation, which allowed Team Andromeda to break new ground.

Further information about the talk can be found on GDC’s website.

A couple of articles have been posted relating to Yukio Futatsugi’s attendance at GDC. A Game Informer article elaborates on how the threat of the PlayStation influenced Panzer Dragoon’s development. According to the article, Futatsugi said:

We rode the train home thinking, ‘What the hell are we going to do about this?’ That’s how much we were thinking about the PlayStation at Sega.

A second article from USgamer talks about the original idea for Panzer Dragoon’s storyline, and it’s even more fourth wall breaking than Panzer Dragoon Saga’s ending.

One idea we had was that the Panzer world, the whole world of Panzer Dragoon itself, was just a dream a salaryman was having. And so eventually the two worlds would start to mingle and mix at certain points. For example [the salaryman would] be riding the Yamanote line in Tokyo, and he’d look out the window and see a dragon flying there. So, we sort of had that idea we were running with, but we eventually gave up on.

Personally I’m glad Panzer Dragoon ended up being more grounded in a single reality than this, but it’s certainly interesting to learn what Futatsugi was originally considering for the game’s storyline.

Published by Solo Wing February 15, 2019 8:53pm.

Just a single fan art for this update, but it’s of a character who is often overlooked in favour of Azel and Orta.

A special thanks to Adamz for this latest contribution.

Published by Solo Wing January 30, 2019 9:38am.

Previously the only way to browse the site was by first choosing a media type (e.g. Articles or Pictures). But this approach groups categories related to every Panzer Dragoon game all mixed together; if you wanted to just view content related to a particular game, you were out of luck.

Today, we’re introducing a new way to browse the site. Now, you can choose a game (or the original video animation) under the “Browse by Saga” menu in the lefthand navigation and you’ll be taken to a new hub dedicated to that game. Almost every category has been linked to a game, giving you to the option to find content related to a particular Panzer Dragoon game in one convenient place. We also have a Panzer Dragoon Series page for categories that cover multiple games.

You can now toggle between browsing the site by saga or by media type on the Site Map too.

In addition to this change, I’ve added preview pictures next to Downloads, Music, and Videos. I hope these new additions make navigating the site easier!

Published by Solo Wing January 25, 2019 6:19am.

Yukio Futatsugi along with designer/art director Kentaro Yoshida will speak about the Panzer Dragoon series at Game Developers Conference 2019 in a session called Classic Game Postmortem: ‘Panzer Dragoon’, ‘Panzer Dragoon Zwei’, and ‘Panzer Dragoon Saga’. The hour long session will have the pair talking about the development of the three Saturn Panzer Dragoon games.

In this session, Yukio Futatsugi and Kentaro Yoshida will speak about the concepts for the art and design of the ‘Panzer Dragoon’ series on the Sega Saturn. This session will include not only talk of the original ‘Panzer Dragoon’, but also of ‘Panzer Dragoon Zwei’ and ‘Panzer Dragoon Saga’, which have rarely been discussed before. More specifically, they will disclose what they had intended with the idea of making an unusual shooting game that combines dragons and homing lasers, the thought process that went into planning the world’s unique atmosphere, and how they decided on the art style for the dragons. They will also talk about the concepts for the art and game design for Zwei, as well as what they had hoped to achieve with with Saga and what had to be done to make it a reality. While they are unfortunately unable to join the session, the materials that will be presented were made with the help of Tomohiro Kondo and Masanobu Kusunoki, who were pivotal members of the development team at Team Andromeda.

The session will take place between March 18-22, 2019 at GDC in San Francisco, California. Information regarding how to attend the conference can be found on the GDC website.

Published by Solo Wing January 4, 2019 11:39pm.

Galerider’s Twitter account recently shared the following statement:

Going for iPad support and cloud save. Hard at work on both those features right now 💦

Given the similarity between iPhone and iPad (they both run iOS), I imagine the iPad version will arrive before the Panzer Dragoon-esque rail shooter arrives on Android.

Published by Solo Wing December 31, 2018 3:57am.

Looking back on 2018, it’s been a monumental year for Panzer Dragoon.

In January we were treated with Resurrection: Panzer Dragoon Saga 20th Anniversary Arrangement, an all new take on Panzer Dragoon Saga’s music from Saori Kobayashi. This was followed by digital releases of the soundtracks for the four mainline Panzer Dragoon games. I recently added entries for all of the new soundtrack releases to our encyclopaedia.

In April Panzer Dragoon Orta became playable on Xbox One. Not only did it look great, but suddenly half of the Panzer Dragoon series became playable on modern consoles. It’s also worth noticing that the emulation improvements also fixed a major long-standing problem with the Xbox 360 version, effectively making the game fully playable on all three Xbox generations.

Then, to celebrate the North American 20th Anniversary of Panzer Dragoon Saga in April, we were treated to a massive, in-depth article interviewing former Team Andromeda members. This is definitely worth a read if you missed it.

In October a new Panzer Dragoon-like game was released on iPhone called Galerider. While not directly connected with the Panzer Dragoon series, it featured a lot of similarities and was a nice surprise in a gaming landscape mostly devoid of Panzer Dragoon-esque titles.

Finally, earlier this month Forever Entertainment dropped a bombshell by announcing remakes of Panzer Dragoon and Panzer Dragoon Zwei, with the first remake due in 2019. It remains to be seen how these remakes will turn out, but it’s certainly going to make 2019 an interesting year, perhaps even more so than the current year.

It seemed for a while that Panzer Dragoon was going to go quietly into the night, but rest assured the dragon has emerged once again and is ready for the next episodes of the Panzer Dragoon saga.

Published by Solo Wing December 29, 2018 10:06pm.

Thanks to our various contributors for this lastest batch of fan art:

Here’s to an artful new year.

Published by Solo Wing December 20, 2018 8:07am.

Back in the 90s, it was common place to PCs to come with a 3.5 inch floppy drive. Sega released a version of the Panzer Dragoon’s soundtrack in MIDI format, and the entire soundtrack fit on one of these 3.5 inch disks. It was called Panzer Dragoon SMF Music Data. One of our community members, Skye Welse, has kindly scanned some pictures of his copy:

Today, Panzer Dragoon SMF Music Data is a rare collectable; even if you manage to obtain a copy you’ll need a floppy drive which Microsoft no longer includes support for in Windows 10. My hope is that Sega will bundle data like this with the upcoming remake of Panzer Dragoon as a bonus, although I expect the sound quality will be much higher quality in the remake itself.

Published by Draikin December 16, 2018 5:16am.

Now that the Panzer Dragoon community is bound to become more active, we’ve created a new Discord server for our community. While I’ve already joined several Discord servers from other communities, this is the first server I’ve created. We’re starting out with only a few channels; if needed we can always add more. Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas about the server there or here in the forum.

Join the Panzer Dragoon Legacy Discord Server

Just in case anyone is worried, the Discord server isn’t intended as a replacement for the forums. Discord is just another place for people to discuss the Panzer Dragoon franchise and the forums aren’t going anywhere.

Published by Draikin December 10, 2018 6:33pm.

Forever Entertainment, probably best known for developing and publishing Fear Effect Sedna, has announced that they will be releasing remakes of Panzer Dragoon and Panzer Dragoon Zwei! The remake of the original Panzer Dragoon will feature “completely new graphics” and modifications to make the game “more attractive to modern players, while remaining “faithful to the original in terms of story”. The first game is planned to be released before the end of 2019, and new materials will be presented in the upcoming months. No mention was made of a potential remake of Panzer Dragoon Saga.

We did learn that SEGA (aside from obviously being the IP owner) will also be a co-publisher for the game. Meanwhile, Forever Entertainment will be a co-publisher and co-producer as well as handle co-financing. Development will be handled by MegaPixel Studio. While there’s been no announcement regarding the platforms the games will be released on, we do know that MegaPixel Studio was established as a studio which would “focus on porting and publishing new games on the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PlayStation 4”.

Outside from a comment from Atlus USA director Sam Mullen, there’s been no official announcement on the part of SEGA. This appears to be similar to deals SEGA made for other games handled by third party studios, such as Shenmue 3, Bayonetta 2&3 and more recently Streets of Rage 4. From the information available it doesn’t seem like Yukio Futatsugi’s Grounding Inc studio or Land Ho! (developer of Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 27: Panzer Dragoon) will be involved with the development of the game. You can read the entire press release from Forever Entertainment here:

Forever Entertainment together with SEGA Holding Co., Ltd. from Japan will co-create and publish Panzer Dragoon: Remake and Panzer Dragoon II Zwei: Remake. The premiere of the first part is planned before the end of 2019!

Panzer Dragoon: Remake is a refreshed version of Panzer Dragoon. The original version of the game had its premiere on the Sega Saturn console in 1995 and was well received by both players and critics. The entire Panzer Dragoon series has been repeatedly remade and released on many platforms. The last re-launch took place in April 2018 on Xbox One, where players can play Panzer Dragoon Orta with a backward compatibility. The new version of the game will be characterized by a completely new graphics compatible with today’s standards and several modifications of the game, making it more attractive to modern players, while remaining faithful to the original in terms of story. The first materials from the game will be presented in the upcoming months!

This is of course huge news for the Panzer Dragoon community, coming out of the blue (pun intended). The Panzer Dragoon series has been largely dormant since 2002’s Panzer Dragoon Orta, with only an updated (but not fully remade) version of the first Panzer Dragoon released as part of the Sega Ages lineup in 2006 and more recently the arrival of Panzer Dragoon Orta on the Xbox One as part of the backwards compatibility lineup. We’ll be sure to share more details as soon as they become available. It’s time for the dragon to take flight once again.

Published by Solo Wing December 8, 2018 1:47am.

Version 1.3 of Galerider, the Panzer Dragoon-esque rail shooter for iPhone, has been released on the App Store.

The game is now available in a number of new regions: France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Latin American. With the update also comes support for a host of new language options: French, German, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese.

The update also features various graphical and UI fixes and improvements, including a new control scheme for left handed players.

Published by Solo Wing December 8, 2018 1:23am.

Brave Wave are currently selling signed vinyls of Resurrection: Panzer Dragoon Saga 20th Anniversary Arrangement over on Bigwax. If you’re from Europe, Oceania, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, or Latin America you can grab one, but you’ll need to be quick as there’s only fifty being sold.

The limited edition vinyls are numbered from 1 through to 100, and each have Saori Kobayashi’s signature on them. A previous set of limited edition vinyls were released for the United States and Canada but these are unfortunately already sold out.

Published by Solo Wing November 1, 2018 2:21am.

Lusty Lundi has contributed two new drawings. The first depicts Mobo celebrating the birth of his child, and the second is of everyone’s favourite drone.

As you can see, both drawings are available in coloured and uncoloured variations.