yay for 1up bringing panzer back into the limelight!
a massive feature dedicated to the panzer dragoon series with interviews with Andromedites.
Coolness!
So, I guess we now know the specifics of what happened in between Orta. She actually found Edge alive?
Nice recap of Team Andromeda’s most recognised game series. I really enjoyed how they talked about the atmosphere and game mechanics. The interview was also wonderful too. 1up even included Phantom Dust (several team members on PD were from Andromeda) which in itself has a weird and unique taste similar to Panzer Dragoon Series. And both game series’ initials are, coincidentally or not, the same.
[quote=“legaiaflame”]
So, I guess we now know the specifics of what happened in between Orta. She actually found Edge alive?[/quote]
The question is whether it’s truly canonical or not.
[quote]YF: In the beginning, I was going to make it so that Azel and Edge wouldn’t meet at all, but in Panzer Dragoon Orta they meet up, it’s almost miraculous. But then they have a baby, Orta. But my original intention was for them never to see each other again.
1UP: Do you feel as if Smilebit, who developed Panzer Dragoon Orta after Team Andromeda disbanded, sort of betrayed the legacy, by rewriting the storyline like that?
YF: I don’t feel betrayed. There are a lot of gamers out there who wrote their own fiction about what they thought happened, using their own imaginations. So with Smilebit, I view it in the same way, like they wrote something new using their imaginations.[/quote]
Perhaps the plot of Orta can be seen as a kind of fanfiction that was then accepted by the developer? Or perhaps Yukio has no more information on this than we do and is interpreting the existence of Orta as proof that Edge and Azel met again, when it could have been some kind of sample of edge’s genetic information that Azel had retained, as someone on this site has suggested before.
Either way, I’m glad neither Azel nor Edge (properly) appeared in Orta and the mysticism remains.
EDIT:
[quote]1UP: A remake of Azel as a shooter? Or a shooter based on the events after the end of Azel?
YF: To me, the story ended with Azel, so I don’t want anything to continue from there. So I want to just create a shooter Azel. Or I want to create a Panzer without a dragon. [Laughs] You know, you’re not the person riding the dragon this time. You’re just a person, a nobody in the game, and you see a dragon flying in the distance, and you can’t even imagine riding such a thing. It might even appear to be an enemy.[/quote]
I’m sad he was so vague when talking about the dragons cycle but if anything I think it confirms that the dragon’s spirit was the same for all three Saturn games (which was kindda obvious anyway).
Hmm maybe the Divine Visitor’s spirit was present within Kyle and Lundi as well as Edge and that was the link that effectively helped the dragon-rider bond.I wonder how fleshed out the finer details concerning the PanDra world’s story are, in Futatsugi’s head…
Anyways I’m so happy to see that PD is still on his thoughts.And I’m kindda happy too that he also saw Orta with wtih differente eyes… Takayuki Kawagoe also mentioned how there were mixed expectations and how memories had some differences.It makes me feel at peace with Orta in a way.
yeah i agree with this 
It sounded like the creators are shedding some of the light about the future of Panzer Dragoon.
Very very cool feature, as well as being very agitating at a few points. James Mielke sums up the game scenario very frivolous and just plain skewed at times. Plus I was extremely saddened by how many individual times he beat the “Saturn was the weakest hardware” drum, without ever any qualification. Saturn was the “weakest” in about the same degree and manner as PS2 was the “weakest” of it’s generation, but you’d never see it represented as such in a commercial feature of course…
And my guess on Futatsugi-san’s comment about Edge and Azel meeting up, is simply that he doesn’t necessarily recall the particulars of something that was not his project and isn’t representative of his personal vision anyway. Unless it can be shown that the English translation of Orta radically changes the implication, it remains very clear to me that Azel never found Edge as such. Orta was the her only answer to her “search” after all.
>>Or I want to create a Panzer without a dragon. [Laughs] You know, you’re not the person riding the dragon this time. You’re just a person, a nobody in the game, and you see a dragon flying in the distance, and you can’t even imagine riding such a thing. It might even appear to be an enemy.<<
OMIGOD I’ve been saying this forever! the world and story is more interesting to me than the dragon. Save the dragon for the end or something …
I’m happy to hear that he kind of thought of PDO as being a sort of “fanfiction”, because that’s how I felt. After playing the Saturn trilogy, Orta didn’t quite feel “right.” Not bad, mind you. I found its gameplay to be absolutely phenomenal. However, its world design, atmosphere, and overall story just reeked of fanfiction. Not bad fanfiction by any means, but it certainly lacked the soul of the original three.
And though I’m obviously a “n00b!” to the series, I really have fallen head-over-heels in love with it, and I really enjoyed this feature. For the most part, I thought it was well written, and the interviews were glorious.
I really like the idea of making the dragon not as much of a focus, and isntead focusing on a “nobody” and going around exploring this incredible world as was described. In the end, I only hope that he is given the opportunity to have his wish realized.
By the way, since I tend not to post much (and have had a lot of computer problems until recently), I don’t think I got to thank everybody. A lot of people at this site really helped out with a lot of my questions with the series and the Saturn itself before I made my “risky” purchase, and I don’t believe I’ve expressed before how happy I am to have taken that risk. This series truly is something special, and I eagerly anticipate the day that we get another entry into the series. So yeah, thanks!
It sucks major balls that they lost the source code to PDS - it’s no wonder there haven’t been any ports to other consoles, etc. I wonder what the story is behind the lost code? I thought companies usually archived old source code to be reused later? It’s absolutely insane that they lost or disposed of it.
They could still port it without the original source code. All the emulation packs you see out there are usually done without original source code.
As a side, it looks like they have some art I haven’t seen before. Also it is nice to see some of the art I made (like the orta creatures) up there like it is official artwork!
[quote=“lagi_webmaster”]They could still port it without the original source code. All the emulation packs you see out there are usually done without original source code.
[/quote]
True, but I meant actually MODIFY things within the game, itself. Such as graphics, text, function calls etc. With the source code, they wouldn’t need to create a remake from scratch.
I’m pretty sure SEGA lost the sorce Code from Daytona USA Model2 , and the Team had to play the Arcade version to death, when making the Saturn version becasue they lost the sorce code by mistake . I’m sure I remember an interview with AM#2 talking about it .
Great feature on the Panzer series , Part 1 is still the best for me . I wonder if any of the Team left inthe SEGA group want to make another games inthe series ?
Even though this may seem selfish, and it’s not that I don’t wish more people a chance to fully experience Azel, but it’s somehow fitting that it should never get released again. It’s too specific an experience, and as progressive as the storytelling and content was, a major part of the experience was also undeniably how stunning it looked for it’s time. To me the most immersive and beautiful game of the generation.
I agree to an extent - however, the atmosphere, the story, and the amazing soundtrack have yet to be surpassed by ANY game, and I doubt they ever will.
If it’s never emulated isn’t there the danger that it will one day be unplayable by anyone? There can’t be a much worse fate than that for such a masterpiece.
Hahaha, Kawagoe-san has a new hairstyle as it seems. And they all gained some weight as well. I guess that’s the fate of late-working beer-drinking developers, right Abadd?
I still remember Kawagoe-san from when I first met with the panzer/smilebit team and Abadd in Shibuya. Everyone was losely chatting and drinking, but when Kawagoe-san came in he became quite the leader of conversation, he’s a pretty entertaining person. He gave me the nickname “pantsuke-kun” , a mixture of “panzer” and my family name.
The PD 1UP feature had been planned for over 2 years now! I met with Futatsugi-san and a freelancer for 1UP.com when the first interview was held.
Originally we thought it might be interesting to have some Genos information in the feature as well, but since James took so long writing the article (2 years!), I kinda lost contact. James is such a Panzer geek. 
I’m currently building a reference website with stuff I made, and I will probably include an article about how SK and I made Genos 
So maybe some people can learn and make something even better than Genos.