Long Time No See

By Geoffrey

I must admit, I’ve found it very hard to remain optimistic about the future of this series (among others) considering Sega’s recent mediocre output. However… things are set to turn around as Sega prepares to unleash a plethora of quality titles on the current and next generation consoles. The best thing that could happen for Sega would be to stop “jumping on trends” and start setting trends of its own once again by aggressively marketing its own brand of high-quality software realising Sega’s full potential. And when I say high-quality, I mean of the highest quality. I will never condone a flow of mediocrity mingling in a crowd of clones instead of standing out from that crowd (for example) when we all know Sega is capable of so much more. But I digress.

As for this update, firstly, Robert Frazer has kindly written an enlightening article explaining the meaning and origins of the title Panzer Dragoon itself for those of you who may not be fully acquainted with it already. I can’t see how he could have written anything more definitive.

Secondly, Lance Way has updated the Panzer Dragoon products section with coverage of more Panzer Dragoon merchandise on top of writing an entirely new article comparing some of the differences between the different regional versions of each game in the Panzer Dragoon series. I particularly enjoyed reading through this article from beginning to end, and I’m glad to see this section fill up with yet more elucidating insights worthy of our perusal.

And of course, last but not least Jeremy Prusak has contributed another concise yet fascinating theory to the site which provides a possible answer to the question of how the dragon is able store items that come from containers in the form of pure energy. It forces us to ask ourselves if there were any limits to what the Ancients’ technology could accomplish…

Hopefully Sega has a few more surprises in store for long-time fans eager to see a return to the glory days in addition to the very impressive-looking high-speed next generation Sonic game (is Sega finally returning to its roots?). While I’m not particularly thrilled by the prospect of playing nothing more than a souped up port of Panzer Dragoon (see previous update), it shows that Sega still sees some worth in this series. Sega is also taking a very prudent multi-platform approach to as many next generation titles as possible, which needless to say, is a very encouraging sign of things to come for those of us who can’t afford to buy every single console under the sun. I truly hope Microsoft can balance the scales with Sony in the coming console war since Sony’s PS3 has such a complicated/unique multi-cored processor that porting PS3 code to other consoles (even the developer-friendly Xbox 360) may prove to be far more trouble than it’s worth.