Yep, the series ended with Shining Force III. I think Shining Force is a series that would be better suited to receive a spiritual sequel at this point rather than a direct continuation. Either a “Golden Sun Force”, or a new IP. Actually a Shining Force style game would be suited for Kickstarter project. The graphics aren’t as important as in Panzer Dragoon; you could do a lot with an isometric world like Shining Force III (with sprites or simple 3D models for characters) and still make an engrossing game.
Sure you can, but you eventually end up with talking pandas in World of Warcraft.
Money corrupts everyone. You just have to work with it.
If you can’t find a game anywhere else chances are it will find an audience, especially if your audience is already large or if there’s less competition on your platform like at the start of a new console cycle.
Console manufacturers have less incentive to innovate if they aren’t competing for marketshare.
The people at Sony aren’t saints. They have just been forced to compete.
The worst part is the new Shining games like Ark could be made for the Dreamcast and would even look better. The PSP proves that graphics aren’t the be-all and end-all of gaming. However, it is a different market in Japan.
SF2 was the pinnacle of the series for me anyway. It’s much better than SF3 in some respects but worse in others. But the art is just stunning in all the games. It makes me miss them.
Btw, if you are willing to mod a Saturn you can plan all three scenarios of SF3 in English with a translation hack. I wish someone would perfect Saturn emulation instead though.
I’m keeping an eye on Kickstarter games. Baldur’s Gate, for example, was a great game for its time and still is and could be made with a Kickstarter budget.
You keep drifting away. I mentioned examples. Good examples.
You sound like a broken record.
I think that at this point it’s pretty clear that you have something personal against Sony. No need to keep repeating that.
[quote=“Pyteo”]You sound like a broken record.
I think that at this point it’s pretty clear that you have something personal against Sony. No need to keep repeating that.[/quote]
Yeah I do. I am biased. I freely admit it.
It doesn’t change the fact that Sony has been forced to compete more. Sony’s investors don’t make games just because they love making games.
Only the most delusional of fanboys would believe that. The devs no doubt love making games, but I’m sure they like being rich too.
Hopefully M$ will be a bit more clinical when dealing with competition now. Of course, I’m not a fan of them either. I just recognize that competition is good for gaming.
Oh boy, do I thank you for helping me prove the point now Pyteo or what?
[quote]I disagree, that’s a hipster attitude. You can have a complex and elaborate game, with several layers of depth, that appeals to a broad audience. Each different group will find different things they like about it.
I’ll give you examples. Mainstream games that re not dumb: Mass Effect; Demon Souls, GTA 5, Fallout 3, Batman(arkham series), Deus Ex. Portal? Half Life?[/quote]
Halo? That’s as mainstream as it gets yet you slagged it off here with THE prescribed “hipster” stereotype script.
Microsoft originally funded Mass Effect, funny how that already never happened. And you’ve mentioned Demon’s Souls twice now - is it really mainstream? - but not any respect to all the other great games From Software have done on Xbox over the years? I seem to recall a political side to the development of that game as well, from when Sony was trying to promote a particular XDK or something. And what makes it so special in this context? The fact it’s so “HARD” or the fact it had a cool meta multiplayer gimmick? And so what about Chrome Hounds? Also already never happened?
This is just… so…
Alright first, Solo also what do Quantic Dreams’ games really have to do with this subject? Does anyone actually KNOW what they are saying anymore, or is that actually not even possible in this world anymore, should I give up?
This started out with a simple difference of perspective over qualities to some games that are already rather subjective, and I thought you were even disagreeing that Panzer Dragoon can be pigeonholed in such particulars. So here I was thinking this is a discussion about artistic GAMES, yet it can flip on a moment into a numbers competition about ARTSY (games). And yes, you got me there, over the course of the last console generation Sony seemed to deliver a lot more overwrought, high production and high pretension “video” “games” with delusions of cinematic gravitas than the Xbox platform. The mandate always seemed patently obvious to me, since they had a strong motivation to demonstrate a tangible distinction - and upmarket value - of the BluRay advantage, as well as try to impress enough, with any and all tricks available, to save face on the hyperbolic claims made about the unrivaled power of the PS3. And well, it worked, so good job to them.
I honestly don’t see how that can bear on the nominated premise that I (thought) I was originally responding to here. That a hypothetical rebooting of Panzer Dragoon with full stops contemporary production and technical merits has some categorically superior recommendation to the Playstation ‘ecosystem’. So just trying to be categorical about this myself now, is that not right?
And are you really so sure about where your “own observations” are coming from?
Pyteo just sang the very jingle here, lumping Halo and Gears of War into a single featureless trope, and dismissing them as such, summarily. Two high profile, popular games, and defining for the Xbox platform. So of course MS supports and promotes them. And… Sony props up their Killzone franchise as the ruggedly pretty face of their last two console launches? Not content with one high profile exclusive FPS, they swing big on Resistance with 1, 2 and three games in less than five years? Their poster child success story, Uncharted 2, shows such obvious Gears envy that it overhauls the game mechanics around gunplay and tacks on a multiplayer arena combat mode? How insane does this script have to get before we stop letting the loonies write the diagnosis?
Two games, that are “mainstream” and very popular so they get a lot of attention. But that’s it, two games, that sell, and people love so they obviously want to keep those people happy and keep taking their money. Sony also has it’s two (and a half) games, they just don’t sell nearly as well so um, what’s their excuse then? Why isn’t the Playstation accused of pushing the shooter genre as well?
So let’s break up those two inseparable “dudebros”, traumatic as it may be, and assess them as individuals rather than tropes that can be dismissed without so much as a second thought, just to pretend there’s anything like rationality in the world for a moment. What stands out first is the things they don’t have in common, like the detailed mechanics are philosophically on different planets (appropriately enough) even as they are both “shooters”, and - recent exceptions aside - the approach to narrative and game scripting is also very different, Halo has been an archetype for free expression of gameplay within boundaries, where Gears, in spite of the aspirations of an action blockbuster at heart it’s still an arcade roller-coaster, and a damn good one. Yet what they do share that matters most, is never part of the script: they both have genuine style and they are both simply fun GAMES.
The moment you brush off Gears in such manner you lose all credibility as far as I’m concerned Pyteo, because Panzer Dragoon has much more in common with GoW than anything Sony had any part in producing for the PS3. (Including GoW actually, God of War 3 was another overblown spectacle that totally lost the heart of gameplay that was its heritage.) Panzer Dragoon was always a game first to me, in fact it was always a SHOOTER first to me, as are Halo and Gears, as are NOT any of the pretentious examples on the Sony estate anyone seems to be able to come up with in this whole surreal exercise. Anything over the last generation at least. But you’re also right, Xbox became a particular home for shooters lately, there’s probably ten times as many great old-school shooters available for it than the PS3 or even Will have shown, not including digital rerelease libraries. And again that’s what Panzer Dragoon is first, an old school SHOOTER. One of the mainstream standards of its day, even if it came in the waning dusk.
How about Child of Eden then? Also never happened? Well, the PS3 version didn’t happen curiously enough. But that is also a GAME, that may be art.
How did the Xbox ever get a Panzer Dragoon game in the first place? Because even in Japan it was not a particularly valuable IP, which may be the most important point, but the team at Smilebit also wanted to make that game for that hardware. Contrast with Virtua Fighter 4, which I bet some people would love to have been able to make an uncompromisingly arcade faithful port of on Xbox, but at a time when everything was still exclusive in some sense it had to be given to the PS2. It literally had to as simple economic sanity, since it was the biggest mainstream hit SEGA had in Japan by orders of magnitude.
Mooting the other SEGA and Smilebit inaugural presents, how about some of the other scraps Xbox has managed to beg from the table of the rising sun?
Since Demon’s Souls can somehow be nominated as proof of Sony’s “open mindedness” about game diversity, why doesn’t the Xbox relationship with Team Ninja count? Ninja Gaiden was the poster child for HARD-as-core action gaming before From’s spiritual King’s Field successor showed up. But the script was always either that it wasn’t as good as it was supposed to be, or if it was then the Xbox OBVIOUSLY didn’t deserve to have such a gem… which is a running theme anyway, starting with Panzer Dragoon Orta in fact.
Steel Battalion, how fringe does it have to be before due credit is given?
Lost Odyssey, doesn’t smash any molds but might be the single most “artsy” conventional JRPG ever made. But along with its sibling Blue Dragon could hardly be given any mainstream acclaim unless accompanied by due reference to how it was still about MS trying to buy its way into the Japanese market, like what, Sony didn’t begin the Playstation world conquest by buying their way into western markets or something? But no the script always has special rules for Sony, always. That may as well have been pure altruism or something, to go by the gospels of the fold.
Another example almost companion to PDO, Bayonetta was a game some bad-ass devs wanted to make for a bad-ass game machine like what Microsoft happened to provide in the 360. But the script will never reflect any honest credit for that part of the reality, ever, it was once again a case of Xbox doesn’t DESERVE a game like that, or propping up the dumbed down style over substance chore that was GoW3 as some yardstick of superior core gamer credibility… /eyeroll
Platform holders and publishers don’t make games, PEOPLE make games. Corporate subjects and media sheeple don’t play games, PEOPLE play games. At least that’s how it should be, and how it is unless you CHOOSE to follow the script! The script you don’t even know that you are reading from. Which is how you know something is a categorical double standard, when no one can even see it anymore. No one can even think about it with honesty.
Take it back a ways to an actual connection between Sony and Panzer Dragoon, when Sony reportedly head hunted people from SEGA. among many others, and one result was Omega Boost for the original Playsation. Great game too, great old-school shooter, made by a team at Polyphony Digital, remember them? You know, the developer that has been making nothing but driving simulations ever since? Because Gran Tourismo is the only full on hit game or franchise Sony has ever actually produced from their Japanese stables, as everything else that has been linked with the brand is third party and/or produced by western devs. And they also milk any cash cows they have for as long as they can, for as long as PEOPLE want to play them. And take a look at those other big hits again, pretty much one from each of the big home turf houses, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Tekken and Ridge Racer as an arcade combo… and I can’t seem to think of anything else of that blockbuster status. Two were outright poached from Nintendo’s favor (actually MG was on a Microsoft branded platform originally) and a faction of Capcom even later tried to shrug off the proprietary weight of Sony’s chains, moving RE to the GameCube, and the Namco connection always had a lot to do with the rivalry with SEGA and the issues in directly competing on so many high profile arcade genres at the time. And all of those franchises have faded in their significance, about the only thing from the old days that still has the same punch is GTA, which then brings us a little more up to date, so let’s consider the PS2 for what it actually is:
Sony had amazing momentum going into their second generation, which then translated into three factors for the degree of success of the PS2 that leave any other factors to background noise by comparison. First they had the press bent over a barrel, just begging for whatever and whenever Sony wanted to give it to them. Second they had a privileged opportunity to undercut every other decent DVD player on the market, timed perfectly to the engineered adoption shift and obsolescence of VHS, and making PS2 appear as a value proposition anyone would be stupid not to take advantage of. And finally they had the full and virtually exclusive support of Electronic Arts, the largest and most commercially important entertainment software publisher in the west, or the world for that matter
Such unparalleled success then, was based on effective lies that the publicity media swallowed and then regurgitated on us without a hint of skepticism and which neither side has ever been honestly called to task for; it was based on a market manipulation maneuver as scummy as anything Microsoft are supposedly always up to and that has nothing to do with making GAMES; and it was based on an alliance with another industry giant that had nothing at all to do with JAPANESE GAMES.
And yet, purely because of the dominance of this platform it became the default conduit for the creative output of an entire nation. And for those who care, the perception becomes that all Japanese game belong to Sony, which even becomes that somehow Sony is therefore responsible for all Japanese gaming goodness. And when anyone else gets some, especially dirty old M$, it must be the Playststion that has been cheated somehow. And as such, as a reductive argument that is just as absurd as saying that Microsoft deserves a share of credit for every PC game ever made.
But this is what most gets me about the whole thing, when people start crying about what MS has supposedly done to consoles and how Sony are the good guys and all that sort of bullshit. Because at the very WORST, what Microsoft did was follow Sony’s own playbook and finish what had already been set in motion. And now as some bizarre double irony, we have Sony effectively transforming the Playstation platform - from the demographic priorities to the hardware philosophy to the service model to the feature set - into the very image of what the Xbox platform has been pushing from the start. And of course Sony gets showered in acclaim and adulation for how… clever that is or something?
It is all just so trite, tiresome and petty. Microsoft is an unlovable company, that’s like a fact, I sure don’t love them. But I will say that, in THIS competition, and publicly at least, they have been immeasurably more classy and magnanimous than Sony have ever been. And Sony has never been subjected to a tenth the degree of negatively charged press scrutiny as MS, or to some degree or another everyone else who are not Sony. And this notion that there is any defining substance of one Megacorp being more “about the real gamer” to choose between them is so fucking twisted beyond all reality…
I’m happy to be a SEGA fanboy till the day I die, because there actually WAS something to choose between them and EVERYONE else. And that’s exactly why they had to to go I think, just a little too good at times, even in how they were so bad at times. But it’s like the Johnny Depp character in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, the puerco pibil was too good, in fact it was so good he had to kill the cook and restore the balance.
So yeah, restore the balance, maintain the fiction, follow the script and swallow the cool aid. Nintendo saved videogames, SEGA was only good for porting their own arcade games to shitty failure consoles, Sony has always made the most powerful hardware, Xbox was just cheap PC disguised as a console and the 360 was an even cheaper piece of unreliable trash, and now only Sony care about real gamers and the the Xbone is so pathetically inferior that you’d have to be an idiot to even consider one… and etc etc etc
Nuance is for chumps and personal integrity is only for losers. And I oughta know since I’ve been both of those my whole life. Whatever, this script is already paid for anyway, which is why I was already agreeing with it in a sense. Xbox would certainly never be seen as DESERVING a Panzer Dragoon game if it got one, so sure, there you are.
Oh and Pyteo, you could only see it as Geoffrey just repeating what you had already said because you can’t even see that your own statements are so incongruous within this one thread. You don’t see your own double standard, which is the proof there is one.
I stopped reading here.
Like the good little hipster that you are.
EDIT: you’re right I was wrong, this how it should have been said in the first place. I’m disappointed in myself.
Really? I don’t remember being rude. That kind of immature behaviour is completely unnecessary here…
If you can believe your first reply doesn’t qualify as rudeness, that would be telling.
If you don’t actually believe it but can claim it anyway that would be positively revealing.
/shrug
Please explain how any of my replies compare to calling someone a dog…
And if someone felt offended by anything I said or if my tone was ever inappropriate all they had to do was mention it, in which case I would gladly apologise.
What you did was wrong.
I don’t take personal offense to anything, that is a meaningless indulgence to me. Likewise I don’t believe in “inappropriate” as a formal stricture.
I simply respond appropriately to offenses against my intellect.
You intent was patently dismissive, I responded reciprocally. I probably would not have chosen the “dog”'metaphor if you had not also chosen such a trite, clich? taunt in the first place. So really no problem here, I thought we rather understood each other now?
Guys, chill out, we are all friend here, joined by our love of this franchise!
That being said…
I was once a Sega/Sonic fan boy, and bought my 1st Sega Saturn to play exclusive sonic games (that I never got) and discovered Panzer Dragoon as result, going Saga, Zwei and original back to Orta (the sole reason I got an Xbox).
PD was created on a financially failed console (my beloved SS).
The 1st one as a tech demo turned game (turned art IMHO) with a clear simplicity and mystery in it’s story, with innovative shooter game-play that was super hardcore but got you hooked.
Zwei was everything the original was but better, and still stands the test of time in the game-play department (and even makes those horrible 32bit gen 3d graphics look good with it’s art-style)
Saga/Azel was the game that changed my view of gaming!
It showed me that games were an interactive Art/Story medium of distribution that toppled modern films in every aspect.
The game, created as a really unexpected curve-ball (unless M$ decides do create a platformer called Super Halo 360-359) changed from shooter to RPG.
It was simply a (very) short RPG, very well made in all it’s aspects (Gameplay, Art, Story, Questions Answered, Questions that remained after the end), a great game for hardcore gamers, Sega Saturn owners and fans of the franchise, released too late in a dying console on the west.
Now I’ve played my share of JRPGs, and this one was unique to me, tied with Chrono Trigger as the Best Story/Gameplay in RPG I’ve played until this day.
Team Andromeda story ended with Saga, and Azel’s eternal search… leaving us to question what would happen, condemned by design to never know more than that the world was saved.
A good old franchise exclusive to a commercially failed console that explains the situation we find today.
And hence was Orta created, the ultimate fan service and an AAA title for a launching Xbox that was the rail-shooter genre last swan song (up until now at least IMHO).
I loved every bit of Orta, even if It was not Team Andromeda, Smilebit did a hell of a job and took the series in a new direction, answering several questions, creating others (where the hell does Orta get that Gun???), hard mini-games, the original PD, making a game full of content and unlockables.
But Orta proved that rail-shooters were a dying game archetype… people loved it, but did not buy it enough and was not a financial success.
Hardcore gamers, the target audience, buy a lot of diverse games, but are really just a tiny fraction of game buyers these days (damn those “casuals”).
Success in games like in any other commercial medium is measured by sales (or value of sale) and these games failed in that respect and that is why we are not playing PD 2014.
I don’t mind that this is not a successful franchise commercially since we are still able to enjoy it, but Sega really fails in not bringing back it’s exclusives catalog from the Saturn Era by emulation, specially Panzer Dragoon, the money made from that probably would finance a possible next chapter.
I personally would throw my money at a PDSaga inspired RPG that closed the Orta story Cycle, hell if I would win a really big lottery I would buy Sega-Sammy shares in crazy numbers just to be able decide this franchise future.
And since the Panzer Dragoon franchise has decided my console buying for me I would not mind for it to be released for the WIIU (poor console… such great franchises… such last gen specs…) or something like that, if it had the dark world and slick game-play I would still buy it!
Now back to us as a community, we could create fan games either by modding the old engines (the SS was crazy hard to program… not so easy to do), Modding PD Orta or PC PD (way easier after you get rid of encrypted files) or creating fan games set in our beloved world, any type of game genre would be nice if it was feasible …
Even a HTML based Adventure Game that did justice to the source material would be a fun thing to be part of, too bad we really are just a few cats in here with RL and everything…
This is just my opinion, and may all keep playing PD.
Stop all of this intellectual banter. An opinion is like an ass hole everyone has one. J/K
Crimson Dragon was the closest thing we have ever had to a new PD game. And quite frankly it turned out pretty mundane, mediocre and just plain lazy. I 'd rather just replay the games as they are on their respective systems.
I feel it in my heart; a new PD rpg would feel completely alien. If it is made to appeal to this generation, all hope is lost. The magic would be gone, the atmosphere destroyed; the uniqueness lost to adolescent ignorance and short attention spans.
Only if the original team were to get together again would it have any hope. I would be happy even with as many Team Andromeda members as Orta had. Alas, it is just a dream…
This is a quote worth saving.
Sega had an identity that people could rally behind. I wonder if that happened by accident or design.
I suppose there are still games worth supporting though but it’s just not the same as having a console that represents you. Plus, the moment something becomes popular it inevitably changes to reflect a larger audience. Most games now are either made for as many people as possible or are small budget games. There’s very little inbetween now.
I think one of the main reasons why Sega succeeded in Japan after the failure of the Genesis there was Virtua Fighter 2. I look at that game now and I am still stunned by how unique the art is. The character models are colorful and neatly defined and are so unique that they don’t age except from a technical point of view. It had great depth too. Any character had a chance of defeating any other character. That’s how it should be. The graphics in the newer games have become more realistic instead but I think that VF2 was one of those rare perfect games.
When we live in the shadow of monopolies who have their own dark agendas, you have to give Sega credit for even trying.
I’ve been busy, but I’m back. I was also discouraged from responding sooner due to the tone of this topic.
…
Starting somewhat fresh.
What we each want from a new Panzer Dragoon game (and thus what makes a good Panzer game) is subjective. We can all probably agree with that.
For some of us, the gameplay is paramount. I used to think gameplay was important for all games, but with Panzer Dragoon I’m not so sure. For other games, gameplay is absolutely central. Sonic and Shining are defined by their well thought out interactive sections.
It was Panzer Dragoon Saga that really defined Panzer Dragoon for me, and what makes that game great isn’t always the interactive sections. Sure the battle system is great, but I doubt it would be replicated in a future Panzer Dragoon game. We would probably get something real time instead. That’s fine with me, the gameplay doesn’t need to be the same. But delving deeper, the gameplay itself may not even be as important as other aspects, such as the game world, themes, and music.
A Panzer Dragoon film that captured the world and themes, but with no interactive elements, could absolutely be true to Panzer Dragoon Saga. But the reserve, a shooter without the Panzer world/themes would be quite a different game. Even if the gameplay was the same, I don’t think it would be Panzer Dragoon to me.
Essentially I’ve realised is that Panzer Dragoon isn’t a game series for me. That’s the format it’s presented in, but for me that’s not what’s most appealing about it.
As you must know by now Solo, I agree with much of the sentiment of that. Panzer Dragoon represents an experience of a world, probably eclipsing any other fiction from any medium for me, I’ve certainly given more time and thought to it than any other - excepting perhaps Star Trek by virtue of sheer volume and time scale.
This is also in a different context from earlier, and a part of that context was the very broad comparisons being drawn between games that I find honestly disagreeable. Considering it from this angle sort of clarified the other context further for me however: taking the example of Heavy Rain specifically, I can make the case that it has more pertinent parallels to Call of Duty even than to Panzer Dragoon. In terms of theme, content and execution, they share the priorities of a realistic and compelling depiction of a real world / contemporary setting and story, following a very classic / mainstream narrative formula and overt emulation of cinema. They’re both lowest common denominator sensationalism pieces in other words, one just being primarily action and the other a thriller.
Factoring in the increased scrutiny and franchise fatigue with CoD, the actual writing is acknowledged to be about as successful, if not even superior in the best titles, for what it is. And on that subject: how did you actually intend the comment about Alan Wake, do you find the plot and the writing itself objectively inferior to a QD game (or whatever)? If so that would be a fair if debatable point I guess, but on the basis that AW is also generally praised for the writing, it seems reasonable to interpret your statement as it literally stands… as a comment on the GAME right?
So the distinction was also about the genre and format of the gameplay, and / or the quality of its execution; rather than the qualities of its storytelling or virtue of its content. Correct me if I have chosen the wrong interpretation, but I hope you can still see my point regardless: in what way is it pertinent to this subject that Alan Wake “still fit the third person shooter/survival horror mold”? Three out of four Panzer Dragoon games also fit the ‘third person on-rails / arcade shooter’ mold as well. And with that I think how this connects in response to your last post should also be implicit, of course I can agree with the sentiment, but the context has become very imprecise here.
A film is not a game, half the concerns for a ‘good game’ are non-existent or translate entirely different to a ‘good film’. So that is something of a non-sequitur as an argument - though it’s not necessarily fair to treat it as one I understand. Still it serves to un-qualify as much as qualify the subject, because again you cannot presume to judge a game as though it is other than a game, or other than what it is. We all have these conditioned expectations for engagement with any medium, hence why rules of good practice evolve for any discipline, and the simple fact of interactivity multiplies the number of factors that can affect ones engagement with a work. So to express it as a personal example, I would love to see a Panzer Dragoon movie that respected the material, and successfully translated the heart and drama of the games, I mean of course. But I can’t expect, imagine, or even wish for that to be any sort of replacement for, or displacement of the Panzer Dragoon I already have.
Panzer Dragoon is more than a game to me, as you say, but it is also more than other stories to me because it is a game. The Panzer Dragoon I know could not have been given to me in any other form, that is why it is so precious and even singular. And in that respect the game still has prominence over the story, because it was the delivery medium of the experience.
The best way I can personally articulate it is: I think a Panzer Dragoon ‘game’ - let’s say a straight up adventure even, with minimal mechanical challenge - that fully succeeded on story and atmosphere yet dropped the ball on interface and overall system proficiency, would still break my heart. While a shooter throwback to Eins, lacking any exposition or even narrative glue whatsoever, could still be wonderful as long as the gameplay and of course the style lived up to expected standards.
And a little reminder that with Crimson Dragon most everyone here seems to have also been disappointed in it as a GAME rather than as a story or adventure, strictly speaking.
I guess I can’t quite pin it down even in so many words, but to stretch the film parallel even thinner… I imagine nearly everyone has had an experience going out to the movies and having it virtually ruined by something super inconsiderate that other people in the theater are doing - being loud or obnoxious or even threatening or whatever. That’s a bad film ‘experience’, and sometimes there may be nothing you could do to change the experience of it. Bad gameplay can still make an otherwise phenomenal effort a bad game experience very easily, and Panzer Dragoon occupies the apex of refinement on virtually every level for me, as a series. The exceptional degree of good and wonderful feelings I have for PD are based on the complete experience, of what it is, game by game, rather than any component that can be isolated from the whole of it.
And a note on the tone… that I know I contributed to. Most of my previous ire was not directed at anyone here, except as specified of course. But it is my honest response to that script, and if anything it is just because I don’t wish to see it in these boards that that response may be more passionate. The whole reason for that long lecture / rant is because I know that what I was trying to get across cannot be pinned down with any clear and concise argument, it is a CLIMATE rather than the WEATHER I am talking about. Fanboys squabble over who the sun is shining on today and who got soaked, but the very usage of the word “fanboy” was fixed in the lexicon specifically by Sony converts as a shorthand term connoting the illegitimacy of SEGA fans for exhibiting partiality equal to their own! Yes Nintendo was in the mix and got a lot from all sides as well, and yes the memes became common property ammo, but the crucible of fanboy culture was the circumstance between the Saturn and Dreamcast “failures” relative to the Playstation dominance. And so this sanctimonious subtext, as typically seen in the pattern of someone ‘correcting’ the ‘opinion’ of someone else for not reading from the same script as themselves… honestly makes me see red when it crops up in one of my sanctuaries. And believe it or not I have often reminded myself that I am not the thought police and let it go many times in these boards, but again all I can say is it is simple honest anger. When I see the script followed to the point of an expression of status quo condescension, I will react. Not to presume my view is the same as Geoffrey’s; but it is plain hubris when someone brushes off a dissenting “opinion” from their own with any such crypto-ad hominem aspersions like “agenda” or “grudge” without any background context acknowledged or refuted. Or in plain terms, some of us have actual REASONS for opinions that are very different form someone else, and that seems to be the principle and understanding most often and crucially missing from people’s character; or perhaps it is accepted as a de facto sign of weakness in this whole arena of petty opinion wars.
I hope you didn’t see any of that previous post as an accusation Solo, the connections made were all general and (to me) natural. Yet the subject is itself a controversy, and you proposed a notion that attracts partisan impulses, as indeed it did. So as one final comment on the innate nuance that is typically glossed over…
Sony also, with the rarest of exceptions, never funds or publishes anything they do not own outright, especially if it is a major release. Is that a good thing then as long as it gets us another PD game? If Sony buys it they’ll NEVER let it go either, unless they are actually pushed to the brink of bankruptcy or something. That’s just how they operate, how they always have. But to me that’s what the whole argument seems like anyway, if one thing, anything somehow should go to Sony then the same could be said about everything. So why not just drop the pretense and give everything to Playstation if it’s the only machine truly worthy, that’s basically the mentality that informed the marginalization of SEGA, with some real mistakes and disadvantages that get promoted to very certain black and white answers through the chain of rhetorical repetition.
I wonder what we would have seen if the Dreamcast had lived longer. Apparently it’s not healthy to live in the past… unless the present has lost something that cannot be precisely defined. This goes way beyond nostalgia before anyone brings that up.
I hope that people can rise above console fanboyism and be fair to all sides.
I don’t know why it’s too much to ask for people to simply be fair. It is possible to see things purely from an objective point of view with relevant frames of reference.
Bah!
Hey Heretic, I bet you are a demon in debates. Whenever I try to have a discussion with people they think I’m evil, so there’s really no point trying to remain civil. It’s really frustrating debating with the brainwashed masses. Console fanboyism is a weaker manifestation of tribalism it seems, but one thing I have noticed with most people is that they only respect strength. The best character assassins will receive the most support.
Sony are experts in that department. It makes me wonder if Sony is run by the devil, or maybe one of Lovecraft’s old gods.
We need a company run by MD Geist. He’d enjoy the challenge I am sure.
To the best of my knowledge, certain members of the first 3 games still worked on Orta. Furthermore, this game was made when the old Sega was still around (or at least fragments of it). Sega Sammy are completely different company with a different mindset and sensibilities. I don’t see them as capable of making a half-decent PD.
I disagree with this. Depending on how you go about it, it does affect the older games if they mess with the lore. I’ll use two examples:
1.)Broken Sword. The first game is magical because you get a sense the main character, George Stobbart, is an ordinary guy whom happens to have been caught up in a very epic, once-in-a-lifetime event.
When the sequels are released, they undermine how special the first story is by making it a reoccurring theme of him getting into adventures. He goes from a relatable ordinary person to someone who gets into several adventures on the drop of the hat.
Another more obscure one is ‘Still Life’. The first game made the killer unknown throughout the entire game. Whilst this created controversy, it also created fun as people dissected cryptic clues throughout the game as to find hints for who the killer was. When the sequel was made by a completely different developer, they lazily just named the killer of the first game as a very typical character with shallow reasons as to why.
[quote]
If Hideo Kojima had your had your mindset about this(leave it in the past), he would have never revived Metal Gear from the NES and made Metal Gear Solid for PSX after all those years.[/quote]
Accept he didn’t drop the franchise. It simply moved onto newer systems. Furthermore, it’s the same mastermind working on the franchise. It’s not a completely different team of people.
I think you’re missing the point though in that there’s nothing to gain from a new PD. The story in those games are wrapped up. Why make a new PD, which would constrain creativity in both the story and the gameplay, when you can create a new franchise that takes things to new directions i.e. Crimson Dragon. Crimson Dragon is our revived PD game, for better or for worse. Just print out a PD title and cellotape it onto the TV screen when you play that game, and you’ve got the experience you want.
As for the comparison with Nintendo games, I reckon they’re moot because those games often have almost zero plotline around them. Whilst the gameplay in PD is a factor as to why we like the games, it’s the story that’s the real issue here. It doesn’t need to be messed with.
People often like to feel part of something special, and serve elitist views to filter out those with a remotely different mindframe. Yeah, Sony has a lot of rabbit followers as of late, and I’ve no doubt some of them get more satisfaction in feeling that they’re part of a family, or an elitist group, than actually playing games for the PS4.
Terramax that echoes my own perspective in detail, I always have to add that aesthetic concerns are equally important to me; as I’ve talked about animation and other nuances many times, I also know it’s lost on most people so I won’t dredge the same details up here. It’s essentially a matter of how all factors reinforce the suspension of… not so much disbelief even, as it is a suspension of abstraction. A more responsive and intuitive interaction is a more personally validating one. Or another indirect perallel: Minecraft is perhaps so compelling to people both because of the hook of personal creation, but also the psychological reinforcements that suspend abstraction; when you are made to be aware of each one of those blocks as a resource and individual piece of matter, then what you make from them is imbued with a more tangible property.
I have attempted to articulate this before, and it connects to the comments I have made about how superficial most games have become as well. There is an appraisal made of music - I think it is a specific quote but I’m not quoting - that what is most important is the arrangement of silence. I think this has probably been translated to (or even from?) architecture as well, so it is an obvious step to translate it to virtual material. The most compelling trick is the construction of space, rather than the details of filling it in. Which is the best I can come up with, extrapolating that to other properties that increase a sense of tangibility. And yes that even includes the quality of purely abstract exposition, and emotional, dramatic properties. The idea being that all of it is a composition with every part reinforcing the quality of the others.
Which is perhaps the best way I can frame my discontent, and the paradox of it, how games have become superficially more ‘realistic’, and substantially less real. The spaces in which action happens have become largely meaningless. I might offer that as a major part of why the GTA games remain so phenomenally popular, yet it is largely overlooked, beneath the “sandbox” label is the texture and quality of the sand itself. Or something.
And also as a loose parallel to the theme, perhaps even more paradoxical, is my sense of what has been lost from the arcade era. As Geoffrey mentioned Virtua Fighter 2, it’s sort of an exception to prove the rule example: it’s neither flashy nor realistic, but it had a perfectly executed aesthetic for the manifest remit. It’s like a combination of ergonomic and psychological factors, VF2 is a long term investment aesthetically, because the characters reveal a substance, you can see every position in space very clearly, and that generates a very deep, enduring feedback reinforcement. But more generally, even the overtly flashy arcade games still needed to prioritize the play hook over everything, which has the effect of ensuring the aesthetic hook is in service to the interactive engagement. And I could go on and on trying to qualify that, as I’m sure some here already expect from me…
And you summed it up well about the “Sony rabbits”, I have always tried to be clear about how I react to them, it is not against their opinion or preference, only their obliviousness and privilege. The one direct connection to Sony itself, perhaps the only one, is the simple reality that Playstation platforms have been deliberately marketed as ‘THE BEST machine’ and enthusiast media channels have generally accepted that party line, which guarantees that anyone who has that sort of insecure susceptibility to totalitarian propositions - someone who wants to KNOW that they have chosen ‘THE BEST machine’ - will trend towards the brand; to my perception overwhelmingly so.
This time period has been depressing, there’s no one to cheer for at all really. MS dug their own shithole, no doubt, and so it’s up to them to figure out how to dig their way out if they can. But the sheer objective injustice of the gilding of the lily Sony benefits from is distasteful to the point of nausea. I even predicted that the PS4 might have significant build quality and reliability issues and we wouldn’t hear a peep about it from mainstream press channels, and sure enough… it’s back to the exact same script in other words, you don’t fuck with the Queen of consoles. Instead you cluster around that other shithole and jeer at the ONE trying to dig itself out.
And Geoffrey, I’m not sure how to respond to that… I have a complicated personal context surrounding the subject of argument and debate. I was precocious with language and logic, and in adolescence I had a number of experiences finding out how much negative reaction you can generate by confronting someone with their own fallacies, especially if you’re much younger than them. My apprehensive side gained dominance with the help of a lot of other negative circumstantial stimulus, and I greatly abandoned that aspect of my character for a while. One thing this internet context represents for me, is an arena of purer abstraction, removing much of the emotional distraction and baggage from argument. Or at least in personal terms, it distances me from direct empathic responses that translate to politic compromises and self censorship. Which is a part of why I have never been able to directly relate to how or why most people seem to drag the same baggage into this space, as though they really don’t want anything to change, what they want is a place that serves their desire to impose their identity on others, only with even less personal consequence. So they drag in rules that don’t really belong, only as it serves those immediate aims. Or, it’s just my own delusion because it serves my personal aims; it is clear enough that many people get much more emotional, take things much more personal, than I want to believe.
I may have lost a r/l friend or two even so, for being this implacable. But an irony for me is that I know how much more fun it is when the enemy is clear, and the goal is simply victory. Those Geist moments are actually a lot easier, to me, than trying to elucidate and educate / communicate and learn from a debate. 
I had been intending to reply in detail to this topic, but unfortunately I just do not have time for such long discussions at the moment. I did read all of the discussion here though.
Perhaps to sum up my thoughts on this, if the series is to continue I would like to see Panzer Dragoon continue as game, although not necessarily as one. As a shooter, I am less concerned, indeed I think Panzer Dragoon would be benefit from toning down the amount of action. Panzer Dragoon Saga being a step in the right direction from the Panzer shooters in that regard, but with still plenty of room for “improvement”. So that was my line of thinking when writing some of the previous posts; I am well aware that I may not have been clear. This is of course greatly subjective and opens up another discussion about games in general and their direction going forward which would be worthwhile discussing in another topic.