Sorry if this is a slightly random post, but I’ve just noticed something in Panzer Dragoon Zwei that seems a little odd.
I’ve owned the game since the year it came out, but when I was playing it just now I came across something in Pandra’s Box which I don’t remember seeing before. On the “episode” option, I can now select two more episodes: “8th” and “Special”. (If this actually is news to anyone, don’t get too excited; these are apparently debug / testing versions of Episode 7 and Episode 2, which are almost indistinguishable from the finished versions.)
My first assumption was that these test episodes had probably been in Pandra’s Box all along, and I’d just been overlooking them. When I checked my GiriGiri save-game file on my PC, though - which as far as I know has the Box 100% unlocked - these test episodes weren’t available, just as I’d remembered.
I assume I’m not the first person to notice this, but I’m curious: what have I done to unlock these test levels, when everything seemed to be unlocked already? Are they unlocked on your own save-game file, and if they are, what made them appear?
Hmm, very strange… I’ve done some save-game file swapping between my system and cartridge memories, but as far as I can tell this doesn’t seem to be something that’s unlocked by PDS save-game files, including ones where the game is finished. Unless there’s something specific that you have to have saved on your PDS file, like 100% completion (or perhaps the Aronak Unit)? The only PDS files I have at the moment are from my speed-run game, so they only have a minimal amount of items collected and things done on them…
Has anyone else seen this stuff, or is this something that’s relatively unknown?
I’ve seen them before. How I unlocked them, though, is another matter entirely. I just assumed that they showed up in Pandra’s Box once it was completely unlocked.
Hmm, well I just thought of one thing that might unlock this stuff and surprisingly enough it looks like I guessed right. All you have to do is perform the trick that lets you watch PD1’s teaser FMV at the beginning of Panzer Dragoon Zwei, and these test episodes become unlocked.
(It’s the really random trick where you have to start playing a Panzer Dragoon Saga disc, quit to the Saturn’s CD player menu, then switch to the Panzer Dragoon Zwei disc without turning the Saturn’s power off; I wrote it up in a bit more detail on this page for the site, so I’ll update that description to include this info at some point.)
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, Gehn. (I always thought that complicated trick should unlock something more than just a PD1 movie.)