PDS Development Facts

Panzer Dragoon
1

The Developer Interview translated by Shmuplations gave me some new insight into the development of PDS, I never knew about:

  • PDS was planned right after the first game (3 years of development)
    originally developed at the same time as Zwei but put on hold until
    Zwei was completed

  • Edge was originally going to be a an imperial soldier, a silent
    protagonist and have no character development

  • Azel originally had a hole in her torso like Abadd and a more
    menacing/intimidating look; as well as a tentacle for hair

  • Craymen was the least fleshed out character and there was more back
    story planned but not possible due to memory limitations

  • Complex realistic movement was implemented for the dragon’s tail

  • Dragon morphing wasn’t originally planned to be in the game

  • Edge and Azel spend the span of one night escaping underground Uru

-In each game, only 1/5 of the Panzer Dragoon world is ever shown

-There was going to be a female officer in Craymen’s fleet but was scraped early on


Are there any other interesting development facts not mentioned in this article?

2

Even though Azel was the heroine of PDS, she was given an enemy role in the beginning of the game, to distinguish her from the dragons (the real heroes of the Panzer Dragoon series).

There’s a mistake in the last caption. Futatsugi did not return for Panzer Dragoon Orta.

3

But how was there a distinction separating her at first as an enemy and the dragons as heroes, when Atolm dragon was also an enemy
?

4

By “dragons”, I think he means the dragon in it’s different incarnations - Lagi, the Sky Rider’s dragon, and Edge’s dragon.

5

I see. She is the heroine of the game but not the main theme. She is very similar biologically to the dragons but not the main focus of the series.

To differentiate the two and direct more attention to the dragon, They wanted to point out this difference, centering more importance on the dragons as the saviors. Defeating Azel at first made a point concerning her imperfect creation while very similar, wasn’t the games main focus.

6

I also know one of the developers committed suicide I believe. Is that right?

Aside from that: Azel never explicitly stated in the Japanese version of PDS that she loved Edge


7

I can see how Edge wasn’t meant to be much of a main character. I did find it odd that Futatsugi stated that Edge didn’t have a lot of lines in the game in a different interview, since that obviously wasn’t true. I guess he was thinking about Edge’s original role, and forgot how much he actually evolved. This in part explains the problem I have with the ending. Had Edge not had much of a personality, it would have been better in a lot of ways. As cliched as it would have been, perhaps Edge should have just suffered from memory loss when he awakened after this fall, and the real Edge could have been really been considered dead all along. But the way it turned out, Edge was basically a zombie that was acting as a puppet for the player, without him or us even realizing it.

It wasn’t needed, and I think it was poor writing on the part of the person who rewrote the script for the English version. Her not being able to accurately convey what she was feeling makes a lot more sense. I guess the writer thought people wouldn’t be smart enough to figure out what Azel was thinking. I never understood why the writer tried to force the pairing to begin with. “She’s beautiful” is an equally nonsensical thing for Edge to say when he first sees Azel, given the situation he was in. I’d have to check it again but I do believe the Japanese translation just has Edge say something along the lines of “a human?” or “a person?”. A lot of the mysteries about the game wouldn’t have been mysteries to begin with if the writer had stayed true to the original Japanese-to-English translation.

8

I’m so glad they actually got the dragon morphing to work; the game wouldn’t be the same without it! Now that I think about it: for 1998 and for Sega Saturn; this is still a pretty amazing feat within such limitation!

9

Futatsugi confirms in this interview that the Team Andromeda member who died was killed in a motorcycle accident, not a suicide.

Regarding Edge, I actually like that he was given more of a personality. It makes what happens to him in the end more significant because we’ve grown to care for the character. He wasn’t exactly a zombie (in the modern, brain dead sense anyway), but an autonomous character with his own views and goals. It was his own quest by choice to find Craymen and Azel. Edge chose to side with Craymen in the Tower and fight against the Empire, he chose to rescue Azel and go with her to Sestren, even though they both weren’t sure what they would find there. These decisions occur during the full motion video sequences, meaning that they are choices made by Edge, not the Divine Visitor. So the character certainly has some agency, even if the Divine Visitor also used him as a host. The Divine Visitor giving Edge a second life (where he accomplished many great things of his own choice) might be more optimistic way of looking at it.

The Divine Visitor itself is the more controversial story element for me. The way I see it, Edge and the Divine Visitor parallels the relationship between Lagi and the Heresy Program. Was it wrong for the Heresy Program to occupy Lagi the coolia? Perhaps, but if that had not occurred, the villagers of Elpis would surely have killed him. Instead, Lagi the coolia got to become the dragon of legend, a transformation he (seemed) happy about in the end. If the Divine Visitor hadn’t saved Edge, he surely would have died/remained dead from Zastava’s shot.

10

I think the whole Divine Visitor thing was just a cool gimmick. Its only purpose was for a twist ending to further connect the player to the game as well as Edge!

And in the end we as the player sort of took the role of Edge; just like the developers originally wanted


11

It’s a popular view that the Divine Visitor was merely the player. I’m of the view that the Divine Visitor was also part of the Panzer Dragoon backstory (as well as us taking on the role of the Divine Visitor). The Divine Visitor’s back story is left vague, allowing the player to fill it in with their own story.

Gash spoke of ancient records of the Divine Visitor. You could say the records were just the developers putting the records there for Gash to find. Or that Gash never saw the records; the developers just made him say that. But that seems a bit too close to arguments that say the fossil record was some of kind of supernatural trick to get people to believe in an old Earth. These kinds of arguments jump to external reasons without first considering internal reasons. That’s not a method of evaluating evidence that I would like to use; I would much rather use an evidential approach based on other findings in the world. Of course, this is a fictional world we’re talking about, not the real one. But looking at a fictional world using internal evidence allows us to discuss that world the same way we would think about other questions, e.g. why did Craymen attack the excavation site? It wasn’t just because the developers planted the motivation in Craymen’s mind. There was an in-universe reason: to find Azel.

Which brings me to why the Divine Visitor is a questionable plot device. The inclusion of the player in the story pulls the player out the secondary world. Tolkien is one of my favourite authors, and a large part of the reason for this is due to his incredible ability to make you hold a secondary belief, that of an internally consistent secondary world. If the inclusion of the Divine Visitor is implying that the secondary world is all just a game, that breaks the player’s belief in the secondary world. So, for the Divine Visitor plot device to work and still allow me take the secondary world seriously I would need to consider the Divine Visitor to be an actual character with a back story that is consistent with the events of the Panzer Dragoon world as-if it were real. E.g. the Divine Visitor could be a god travelling to the Panzer Dragoon world, or perhaps a similar being to the starfish shaped Heresy Dragon with god-like powers. In Panzer Dragoon Saga, players become this character the same way you become Gordon Freeman or any other silent protagonist.

12

Looking back on Iva’s story from Orta; look at the artwork.

It seems the idea of Edge being an Imperial Soldier was realized or reused for Iva’s story. Looking closely at the artwork, Iva even looks very much like Edge


13

I don’t see the Divine Visitor as an actual character. Even the way the link with the Divine Visitor is broken in the old “television shutting down” screen and the “push the button” line is clearly meant to convey that we are the Divine Visitor, and we’re directly interacting with the game’s universe through Edge. The fact that we’re asked to use our real name and not a nickname is again confirmation that we’re the Divine Visitor. So we’re not assuming the role of the Divine Visitor, we simple are it. The legends were talking about us. Edge even looks at us directly in the ending.

I agree with Solo that this makes it a questionable plot device. I really don’t like it since Panzer Dragoon Saga had one of the most immersive worlds ever created in a video game, so intentionally breaking the fourth wall really throws you out of the game world. It was not needed, and even damaging.

[quote=“Solo_Wing, post:9, topic:7618”]
The Divine Visitor giving Edge a second life (where he accomplished many great things of his own choice) might be more optimistic way of looking at it.[/quote]
I’d agree if Edge had been aware that he had been revived temporarily. But he wasn’t. That makes his final promise to Azel all the more tragic. A main character dying in a video game is unusual enough, but if it does happen it’s usually in a heroic way where he/she is fully aware of the sacrifice they’re making. Edge’s death was nothing like that, I don’t think he ever even realized he was going to die. And that would probably be for the better, because he’d have been horrified if he realized what was really going on.

Iva’s story had a lot of parallels to that of Edge. I think I listed them once on these forums, I’d have to look it up. But like Edge, he started out wanting revenge but ended up fighting for a greater goal. His fate was also similar to that of Edge, but with the very big difference that Iva knew that he didn’t have a lot of time left, with no Divine Visitor nonsense taking anything away from the sacrifice he made. And it was also a lot more peaceful. If Edge had died in Azel’s arms it would also have been tragic, but it would have given a lot more closure to the story and he also would have kept his promise. If I were to remake Panzer Dragoon Saga, I’d probably have it end like that and scrap the Divine Visitor altogether.

14

I always took the impression Edge knew the risk, or knew he didn’t know anything for sure, when he makes the decision to go to Sestren. I wouldn’t change anything essential about the story - I do wish the “I love you” line had NOT been altered - and I agree the Divine Visitor is the player, but that doesn’t even break the fourth wall in the standard sense. It brings the player / audience into the world, rather than breaking the characters out of it. Personally I love the matter of fact tragedy of the story, no more-clichĂ© melodrama for me thanks.

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15

Just like we have our belief in some kind of external force or god; “we” as the player got to be their literal deity! I guess to me it sort of drew me into the world and made me feel like an even more integral part of the story. I actually, literally made a difference in this world!

It kind of breaks the forth wall in a minuscule way; but we’re still pretty much an external force looking in on their world as a whole


16

My point about the Divine Visitor appears to have been misunderstood.

Consider these two statements:

  1. The Divine Visitor is the player or the Divine Visitor is a character with a history inside the Panzer Dragoon world
  2. The Divine Visitor is the player and the Divine Visitor is a character with a history inside the Panzer Dragoon world

The logical operator matters here. In his Divine Visitor Theory, @Geoffrey_Duke explored the idea that the Divine Visitor was a character with a backstory instead of the player, that we play as the Divine Visitor, an “altogether different entity that then occupied Edge”. This would fall under statement (1). The idea that the Divine Visitor was the player and not a character with a history inside the Panzer Dragoon world appears to be what the majority are saying here. That view also falls under statement (1).

I’m saying that statement (2) may be the case. Indeed, based on the in-game evidence, it appears most likely that the Divine Visitor has a history inside the Panzer Dragoon world. Of course the Divine Visitor is the player! I’m saying that the Divine Visitor is not merely the player.

The ancient records about the Divine Visitor were meant to literally be from the Ancient Age. But no Panzer Dragoon game takes place in the Ancient Age meaning that the Divine Visitor couldn’t have existed in the Ancient Age if he/she was only the player without a further backstory. So how would these records have come to be? This would make more sense if the Divine Visitor has a history beyond the scope of Panzer Dragoon Saga, appearing in multiple stages of the Panzer Dragoon world’s history.

I wonder how the Seekers came to believe that the dragon was the Divine Visitor? The belief in the Divine Visitor must have originated from somewhere, from a time before the player entered the Panzer Dragoon world.

I think the monitor shutting down at the end of Panzer Dragoon was meant to represent the Divine Visitor disconnecting from the Sestren network which the Divine Visitor had just shut down. The shutting down of Sestren disconnected the Divine Visitor from the Panzer Dragoon world. The Sestren network and everything in it was destroyed (“the Divine Visitor must destroy me”). Smilebit changed the original ending by making it so that the network and physical dragon somehow survived, but that’s not the interpretation I had when I originally played Saga (before Orta had been released).

I agree with @The_Ancient that the matter of fact tragedy of Panzer Dragoon Saga makes the story appealing. It doesn’t need to have a positive ending to have an impactful ending.

By the way, there is a scene when Edge considers that he may not survive, it takes place in a cut scene before Azel and Edge enter the final elevator in the Tower:

Edge: This is it

Azel: Yes
 But are you sure we should do this, Edge? 
? Even I do not know
 what horrors live in Sestren, or what surrounds its location
 I don’t even know if it exists
 Even if we get there, there is no guarantee that we can return. 
 It is you
that must make those choices. You can still go with the seekers

Edge: And leave you behind?
Azel: 
!?
Edge: You’re determined to go no matter what happens, right? Well, so am I.
Azel: 
You are right. To do as Craymen wished was the sole purpose of my existence
 But now, I want to do something of my own free will. For once in my life, I will decide my own fate.
Edge: 
I see.
Azel: Thank you, Edge. 
without you
 Because of you, I came this far.
Edge: We did it together.

17

I recall exploring the idea of a Divine Visitor with an active backstory before, I think the only basis for that was considering why the Seekers believed the Divine Visitor and the Dragon to be the same. Like if an earlier attempt at the same action had been made, and a “Divine Visitor” had declared itself to another rider or something along those lines. That line of conjecture didn’t resolve to much for me, and I think I’m settled on the Divine Visitor precedent as more strictly a prophecy thing. That’s basically how Gash first terms it anyway.

I don’t mean this as any sort of counterpoint Solo, I think we’re in full agreement on this issue of the the DV / Player dichotomy being ‘problematic’ - and there’s no problem as I see it. I just got thinking about the connotation of “backstory” there, and I don’t expect there’s any active story beyond the prophecy, and I don’t think there needs to be. As per my main enduring hypothesis / interpretation of the whole Divine Visitor subject, in some essential way we (it) are needed precisely because we are from outside the system, everything in the system is bound by the Will of the Ancients. :slight_smile: :wink:

18

If by active backstory, we mean that the Divine Visitor was present in the Ancient Age - I wouldn’t neccessarily go that far. If we mean that the belief in the Divine Visitor was present in the Ancient Age, that appears to have more grounding.

The belief had to have originated somewhere. In the Ancient Age, or sometime after the Ancient Age ended.

The Divine Visitor may never have visited the Panzer Dragoon world before, but the dragon’s recognition of the player as the Divine Visitor gives grounding to the view that the Divine Visitor’s role in destroying the will of the Ancients had been planned for some time. Perhaps not planned by the Destruction Faction, but by the dragon. The Ancients who created the dragon speculated that the dragon was more than sum of the parts that they built (“a messenger of the gods?”). Perhaps the Destruction Faction did not fully understand the nature of the dragon; something else may have given the dragon the purpose of guiding the Divine Visitor.

One other possibility is that dragon himself was a believer. E.g. there was a prophecy that a Divine Visitor would come and the dragon saw that the player matched that prophecy when the first encountering Edge (occupied at that point by the Divine Visitor). The player became the Divine Visitor, but the Divine Visitor discussed by the characters in the game was nothing more than a legend. But this seems very
 accidental. The dragon’s purpose was to lead the Divine Visitor.

I agree with the hypothesis that the Divine Visitor was needed because we were from outside the system. The scope of the Towers stranglehold appears to have covered the whole world; the world itself was bound by the Will of the Ancients. The dragon took control of the Will of the Ancients but couldn’t end it on his own; the dragon was part of the same closed system. Nor could the dragon control the world in a better way - that would have been too close to what Craymen wanted. The theme appears to be that the power corrupts, and even if someone defeats the current power they may be unable to give up the new power that has transferred to them
 unless an external force comes along that is not bound by that system. It’s a bit like Lord of the Rings in that respect. I knew there was a reason why I like both of those stories.

19

Recall Kimimi’s transliteration as “Absolute Guest” I think? From that I take a less defined sense of the Divine Visitor, it seems a more direct and subjective reference to the player and our ‘adventure’ if you will.

It’s interesting that Futatsugi apparently saw Edge initially as a pure avatar for the player, I think things assumed the right balance, but it could have worked with the silent protagonist thing as well I think, more like classic style western RPGs basically.

I also got a kick out of Futatsugi calling Craymen his favorite character, since he’s always been the most interesting character to me. The last few times I started the game or watched the opening, I had to cringe a little at the maniacal grin look of Craymen for his big first impression, that may be one of the few missteps taken in the whole production, he’s set up like such a classic melodramatic villain, and I think that might have blinded some people to the later nuances of the character.

It’s too bad there wasn’t a “Craymen’s Journal” entry in PDO’s Encyclopedia eh?

20

The terms “guest” and “visitor” are similar. I’m not sure that these slight semantic varations matter too much here - the Divine Visitor is literally a guest in the Panzer Dragoon world. It’s how that link between observer and presence is established which bothers me. The white orb is an aspect of the Divine Visitor’s presence (similar to the protective orbs of the dragon), which makes me think the Divine Visitor and the Dragon are supposed to be similar beings, but both not quite of the world. Perhaps the Dragon program and the Divine Visitor represent two spiritual beings that control the two parts of the Panzer Dragoon; they represent the agency of the dragon/rider unit, as it applies to completing the mission, while not taking away agency from the coolia and Edge outside of that mission.

I think Team Andromeda made the right decision by giving Edge more of a personality. I recall a topic on this forum where Edge was voted the most popular character. Edge is certainly a relatable character, but I would agree that Craymen is more interesting - and quite relatable too in the respect that he was a (big) thinker. I would like to have seen more of Craymen, although perhaps that would be spoiled some of the mystery of the character. Regarding Craymen being set up as a more traditional villain, that seems to be in line with Panzer Dragoon Saga subverting the player’s expectations; in the end, Craymen wasn’t really a villain.