On the 30th of April 1998, several months after it’s Japanese debut, Panzer Dragoon Saga was released in North America.
To celebrate, Polygon has released a massive article discussing the game with former members of Team Andromeda called Panzer Dragoon Saga: An oral history. The article includes a video of former Panzer Dragoon Saga character designer Katsumi Yokota sketching the story’s heroine, Azel, along with numerous comments from the original team, including what they would like to see in a continuation of the series. These words from Panzer Dragoon Saga director Yukio Futatsugi stood out for me:
At the beginning, I envisioned it to be something like [thatgamecompany’s] Journey. But we didn’t go that route, because we figured nobody would want to play a game so open and distant from the original Panzer Dragoons. But I feel that now something like that might be accepted. Of course, I would keep the dragon in the game, but the focus would be more on riding the dragon and exploring the world, and the player would find traces of the previous games within this universe. The game would be like a remake of the entire series and flash back to the originals. That’s just what comes to mind. The core members of the Orta team work at [Futatsugi’s company] Grounding now. But I think everyone would like to revisit Panzer Dragoon again. I’d like to tie up any loose ends and complete the saga before I die.
Journey is my second favourite video game (after Panzer Dragoon Saga), so it’s exciting to read that Futatsugi would consider an abstract game like it set in the Panzer Dragoon world.