Panzer Dragoon Genos Story Ideas

Arcie suggested in the “Would anybody actually like to make Genos a real game?” topic that someone should make a thread where people could suggest ideas for the story of Panzer Dragoon Genos. Since I volunteered to Feveth to work on the game’s storyline, I thought I’d post what Lance, Geoff, and I have come up with so far. These is our current plans for the story, although if anyone else would like to input their ideas here they’re most welcome to do so. Also, any objections (with reasons) to what we have here so far would be worth posting as well… I’d like to see the storyline become a good quality one.

Below are a series of emails that Geoff, Lance, and I have exchanged (I hope they don’t mind me posting their emails here):

[quote=“Solo Wing Dragon”]Okay, here are the ideas that I have so far for the story of Panzer Dragoon Genos. They’re not much so far, but more are likely to come to me as time passes:

Main Character: Azel

Theme: Azel’s search for Edge.

Enemies:

  • The failing Old Empire (those who are left of the Old Empire).
  • Biomonsters that have been let loose by the Towers (the game will be set over the time

of the Great Fall, so the Pandora’s Box descriptions will come in handy here).

  • Maybe a drone/dragon enemy as well, but it depends if there is room.

Locations:

  • Sestren. Considering that Azel’s quest takes her to Sestren in PDO, I think that would be an ideal location (it would be different from Panzer Dragoon Saga if it actually had free flight bits as well - so the dragon could fly into different memory cells at the player’s desire).
  • Desert. Another location I had thought of is a desert level. Panzer Dragoon Saga ends here, so it would seem logical to maybe start the game here.
  • Ruined landscape/structure. One other location I thought might be interesting is a “collapsing environment/ruins” type level. During the Great Fall the landscape changed dramatically. I’m not sure how possible this level would be for Feveth to create, but I’m just tossing around ideas here. A ruined Tower of Uru could be interesting too.
  • Seeker base. For a town location, a Seeker base would probably be the most appropriate.

Dragon: I have three ideas for the possible dragon that Azel could ride.

  • Firstly (and this probably quite far fetched) the coolia that Azel rides at the end of PDS could mutate into the dragon. This could be an excuse for ground battles to take place.
  • Secondly, our old friend Lagi could reunite with Azel after leaving Sestren. “Watch over our friends”. Lagi could lead Azel to Edge’s remains in Sestren.
  • Thirdly, Azel could be reunited with Atolm. Some dragons, such as the Guardian Dragon, could never truly die until their purposes had been fulfilled.

I personally like the second option the best. Maybe a coolia riding level could take place first in the desert, and then Azel could be reunited with Lagi after that (to add variety).

Feveth said that game couldn?t be too long (and I agree with her on this point - if the story is too long the game is unlikely to see the light of day). The game would have to be no longer than a few hours (about the length of one Saga disc), so we’d have to keep the story quite short and straight to the point without too many alterations from Azel’s main goal (to find Edge). So, no more than about 4 locations and one town.

So these are my ideas. I haven’t really touched on what could happen in the actual plot, as I’m still trying to think of exactly how it could work. I think the next step is to hear both of your ideas so we can put them all together and decide which ones would be appropriate for the game and which ones should be excluded. Geoff came up with an idea “some remnants of the Empire will need to exist to try to kill Azel or even succeed.”

That’s an interesting idea worth adding to the idea pool.[/quote]

[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]Ok, how about instead of Atolm coming back from the dead, Azel finds a new dragon? She would know the location of all the ancient ruins/Towers and their dormant guardians after all. Unless Atolm and Azel were originally meant to be the Tower of Uru’s guardians, a dragon guardian must exist something, sleeping, waiting, and indeed, begging to be found.

A desert full of tornadoes sucking sand up into the air sounds like a cool idea too.[/quote]

[quote=“Lance”]Ok, here are my ideas based off Chris? first email. All shorthand, so forgive the absence of grammar. All just basic suggestions, too:

The idea of doing it with Azel is great, as it lets us tie this in with a known character without contradicting what official game(s) may come in the future. Just for reference, my other idea would be the Sky Rider, as his story would be conveniently quite short :slight_smile:

ENEMIES:

  • If we?re having only a few areas, each one could have a specific ?set? of enemies ? i.e. one with mutated monsters, one with pure-type, one with the Old Empire, and one in Sestren as Chris suggested, with Sestren enemies.

LOCATIONS:

  • I think the Sestren system being the free-flying final area would be great. We could have enemies similar to the ones in PDO in it, and maybe some “computerised” versions of past Panzer favourites (along the lines of the Sealance Images and Sandworm sub-boss in Orta, but other classic monsters instead).

  • Prior to the Sestren bit, we would need to have Azel enter the Episode 6 ruins from Orta. (I think the implication is that she entered Sestren from there; she made Orta in those ruins using the data from Sestren, so that would make sense.) We don’t have to necessarily devote a whole area to that, though, or even use it at all if we can explain things some other way.

  • We could also try and do some kind of location that has never been done in a Panzer game before ? i.e. not desert, not forest, not sunken ruins, not open sea, not generic ruins interior. I?ve no idea what that could be at the moment, though - and we?d have to make it ?Panzery?.

  • For the Town, a Hunter caravan could also make sense, as Azel was last seen heading out into the desert. It could be a little bit bigger than the Saga caravan, too, and give more insight into Hunter culture (?)

  • Could have a section where Azel has to go out and destroy the approaching Imperial fleet, which want to take out the Town she has befriended. Maybe something like Saga?s Imperial Air Force Post, but in a desert / forest setting instead?

DRAGON

  • I actually came up with a fourth idea regarding what the dragon could be. Given that Azel seemed to have decent control over Ancient Age technologies, could she seek out and reactivate a dormant Ancient Age dragon? Something like the Dark Dragon, Guardian Dragon or Atolm. That would give us (maybe not us personally, but whoever designs the dragon) absolute free reign over what it would look like, too. Here is one way in which this could basically be incorporated, so tell me what you think:

BRIEF SUGGESTION FOR START OF GAME

  • Starts in the town, a desert caravan (something like the one in Saga). After asking around a bit, Azel hears legends/folklore regarding a “sleeping dragon”, which resides in some ruins to the east, through the wasteland. Obviously, none of the Hunters will go there. Azel understands the truth behind these legends (possibly reminding her of information she knows from the Ancient Age?) and sets off to find this dragon, which should be of great use to her in her quest if she can reactivate it.

  • Alternatively, could be a Seeker base - run by Gash, who set it up after Edge never showed up? - and he could direct Azel to a Compiler, who directs her to the sleeping dragon.

  • First “main area” is a short ride through a desert on the Coolia (which Azel still has). No real puzzles, akin to the simple “Valley” levels at the beginning of Saga. Mutated monster battles.

  • Second part of the area is the interior of the ruins. Azel could explore this on the Coolia. (Or even on foot - on foot battles?) Some very basic keys/switches puzzle-solving here. At the end, cutscene shows the Coolia unfortunately getting squashed by some kind of pure-type monster, but Azel is able to escape, reaching the chamber with the dormant dragon, which she reactivates.

  • The dragon is obedient to her, and will help her in the quest to come. After this, she could return to the Seeker settlement for the next bit of plot to take off.


Just the first stream of thoughts that entered my head, so tell me what you think.

Either way, I think riding the Coolia for the first ?introductory? area before you find whatever dragon we decide on would work well. This would be good for continuity, and easily allow for ground battles :slight_smile:

In terms of game length, we could just incorporate very short side-quests into the Town, which would net you some items. Apart from that, maybe keep it all on the same plot.

So what do you guys think?[/quote]

[quote=“Solo Wing Dragon”]It all sounds pretty good so far. I think from what both of you have suggested so far, the idea of Azel as the main character with an all-new dragon will be the idea that we go with. Also, having a new dragon instead of Lagi (which we’d have to use if the Sky Rider was the main character) gives much more freedom of design like you say. I like what both of you have suggested so far.

I’ll briefly go through what I think of Lance’s points:

The game could start off with Azel travelling west through the desert on the coolia. If we made the caravan/town in the desert a Seeker base (perhaps a temporary one, since they would have only just left the waterfall base from PDS) that would save on having to make the location later on (we know that Azel must at some point make contact the Seekers because they have her daughter). Other than that, I think what you’ve got here is a good intro.

That sounds good. I think coolia battles would be the best option, as Feveth would otherwise have to program a separate game engine for on foot battles; coolia battles would be simular to dragon battles except that the coolia wouldn’t be able to attack, but Azel could have a handgun. Maybe the boss for this ruins stage (some sort of Guardian would no doubt be protecting the ruins) could be the one that destroys the coolia, but then the sleeping dragon could awake and help Azel defeat the guardian (the dragon could have be created/modified by the Ancient rebels to obey her or other drones stolen by the rebels).

Azel could return to the Seekers to find that the Empire has appeared again, which could set the stage for the next stage. At some point I think it would be cool for the Seekers, or some of the Seekers, to doubt Azel’s motives. I can imagine some Seekers thinking “Ever since she awakened the Tower things have gotten worse, there have been more biomonster attacks and now that the Towers have been deactivated nothing better has happened, the Great Fall has only caused the deaths of millions of humans”. There could be lots of reasons why some of the Seekers would doubt Azel’s true motives and it would be great to show their lack of faith in the drone.

I think this would be a good idea too. If there are only four areas it could go something like this:

  1. Desert Level - Mutated enemies
  2. Ruins of the Sleeping Dragon - Pure Types
  3. Fight against the Empire - Imperial ships
  4. Sestren - Sestren enemies.

Yeah, this seems like a great idea to me too. A fused-Atolm maybe?

We could have the ruins of the Sleeping dragon as the same ruins as Episode 6. After the third stage (fighting the imperial fleet), Azel could find out a way to enter Sestren via those ruins, from the Seekers. Reusing these ruins would mean that the same textures, etc, could be used so it would be easier than developing a whole level.

How about a larva/volcanic stage? Before I mentioned that the world was constantly changing and there were many earthquakes after the Great Fall. Panzer style ruins sinking into patches of larva would create the feeling that there had recently been a volcanic eruption, or a great shifting inside the earth due to the Towers not holding the landforms together any longer. Merging this level with a fight against the Empire (and the odd rock monster like the Hellions from Geogious) could be quite dramatic. What do you guys think?[/quote]

[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]I like the basic outline of the game so far. Azel
would have no trouble synchronizing with another
Ancient Age dragon since I doubt it would have the
free will to side with Sestren (drones were created to
control them, or keep them in check after all). The
sleeping dragon itself could wake up once the guardian
of the ruins both creatures call home reaches
half-strength, at which point the dragon would
obliterate the guardian and thus bring the battle to
an end.

I have some ideas about how the Empire could feasibly
be introduced into the story, even temporarily. We
know the Empire only sent its command fleet to capture
the Tower of Uru, which means at least a fraction of
the Imperial fleet would still be lingering in places.
A few ship battles could logically be incorporated
into the story after Azel takes control of the dragon
that once slept within the ruins. Here’s the real bulk
of this idea: we could explain what happened to the
remainder of the Imperial armada by having it wiped
out by some kind of natural catastrophe, like being
destroyed at the hands of lightening bursts
originating from a sudden electrical storm. What do
you think?

Anyway, the Empire (or faction thereof) would be just
as keen to acquire an Ancient Age dragon, if not more
so, than Azel (even at this point in time), so this
sole motivation could lead them to Azel at some stage.
The following encounter with the Empire could be set
against the backdrop of cloudy, followed by stormy skies.

G Duke
[/quote]

I apologise for the huge length of this post, but I felt that it was important to post of our thoughts on what Panzer Dragoon Genos should be like.

1 Like

I think that some of these ideas are really good, and I personally would like to add my own thoughts, but unfortunately, I don’t think my ideas can be implemented within a 2-3 hour story plot.

I do think, however, that if Azel had the knowledge to genetically create Orta out of simple DNA, then she also would possess the ability to bring Atolm back to life in some form. The idea of Azel with a different dragon just isn’t very appealing…unless, of course, she takes control of the Heresy dragon…that would be something else entirely.

The reasoning behind not bringing Atolm back to life is that Azel is only going to use those production-plant ruins (from PDO) to make Orta at the end of the game. She won’t discover those ruins straight away, but we would like her to ride a dragon in the meantime. Also, I think we’re trying to avoid the Heresy Dragon so as not to invite any potential continuity errors. But it’s still very early on, and all this could change. The idea of it being the Tower of Uru’s absent guardian dragon (Geoff’s idea) seems like a very good way to, erm, “kill two birds with one stone” (I never thought that figure of speech would come in handy…)

All the ideas are pretty good. Man, the more I hear, the more exciting it gets.

Yeah, I’d personally love to help create a story the length of Saga (or even longer :)) too but I’m trying to be realistic here so that this game will actually be able to be finished in a reasonable time period. Considering that there still aren’t a lot of people who are going to work on other parts of the game apart from the story, it would cause a lot of problems if it was a long game and one or two people had to do the whole thing themselves. Arcie also had some good ideas he posted in the other thread but it would be difficult to fit of all them into a game this short.

I know we can’t have rendered cut scenes but we could get our awesome 2D artists from here to draw up some story sequences instead :slight_smile:
Just a pretty picture with text generated on it by the game to tell the story sections :slight_smile:
Is that possible in Dark Basic? I think the result could be really great considering how cool art some ppl here can do :slight_smile:

4 areas are too few for an RPG, should this be an action adventure game instead? I mean what kind of character development can exist in 4 areas, or even say 10 areas visited tops (considering there can be going “back and forth” plot tricks to make the game feel longer than it is…)

Or if anythin how about an adventure game without combat at all and instead just exploration and riddle solving in the style of games like Gabriel Knight or URU: Ages Beyond Myst (did I say this title right?)

Just throwing ideas around because I don’t think such a short story with so few areas is enough to even give an RPG feel to the game.

How big can those 4 areas be? And will it be just a matter of going from A to B like in Saga? That way four areas wouldnt provide more than an hour of play depending on the battle system really… Thoughts?

Another thought: Is it possible to create this game similar to Lagi’s idea and make it possible for people to take what is created and create their own adventures from it and even if possible import their own areas and story sequences and characters/monsters?

I like all ideas u’ve written so far… I just dont really know how much fun gameplay u can squeeze out of so few areas…the game could end up feeling as little more than a demo teaser if it’s too tiny… Atleast try and make a lot of back and forth things and also a lot of dialogue in the cities and such to make the game feel like it’s got a little more depth.

I still think you should start with just ONE test area and work on the gameplay mechanics to get them as good and fun as possible. Since the game will be very short it should atleast control well. After that’s done you might even realise that u can make the game longer since it will basically be up to the artists to create the areas and then built in the story… (though I assume coding all the quests and such will be tedious and that might be the reason it has to be small)

Hmmm.I haven’t read it all but from what I red it was good.A sugestion (and this ain’t just cause I’m it’s fan) :

The Empire could try and give a new life to the “drowned” corpse of the Dark Dragon.You know you want a dragon VS dragon battle :wink:

Dragon sugestion : I think some new forms would be good.But this time and unlike Orta, we would have some panzerish dragons.The dragon classes in the Solo Wing form have commmon points and mixing them and adding something new could produce some very cool looking dragons.

Oh and I don’t know if you have such a thing in mind but I urge you to consider at least one forest level.It’s part of the PD mystique in my opinion.

What other characters are you thinking of?Paet is a must if you ask me.

My 2 cents for now :slight_smile:

The four areas should (I believe) vaguely resemble Saga areas in size. Four flight areas, that is - there will be a full-sized town and probably some other on-foot areas as well. To be honest, I’d love to make a game the length of Saga, but we need to be totally realistic from the start.

We’re already kind-of discussing having return-to-previous-areas-to-find-that-things-are-different-and-do-new-stuff puzzles, as this would increase the length of the gameplay without greatly increasing the amount of programming.

Also, the level desing should be far, far less linear than Saga’s, which should make the areas much more interesting, and both longer and more varied at the same time.

I think I’ve put forward the idea of an Imperial base in a forest setting. I think the game will end up with a mix of old and new areas - I know we’re trying to think of completely new “styles” of location which could be made Panzery, but which have never been done before. While the game needs to be recognisable, it also needs to be unique.

Paet was joining the Seekers at the end of Saga, if I remember correctly. I think he could put in an appearance at a Seeker base if we end up doing one.

An objection : Have you considered the fact that dragons are suposed to eb bound to their riders and won’t obey anyone else?How is Azel getting a dragon just like that?

Here’s my idea.
Main character: someone new
Main villian: Orta & “son of Lagi”

A few years after PDO, Orta become more and more drone like. Her baby dragon has matured and she’s flying around on the dragon of destruction killing tons of people. She destroys the empire in the first cut-scene. The Genos comes from the fact that Orta’s Genos goes from “human” to drone.
The main character gets the spirit of the gold dragon within some creature (mabye not Coolia) and turns into it’s giant form by the end.

Possible plot twists include Orta recreating the towers and resurecting Abadd’s imfamous “ancient masters”. Eventually, Azel’s body could be found preserved and she could be “resurected” per say by downloading her brain from Sestern.

I remember reading in Saga that there were MANY Towers across the world - not just the Tower of Uru and Shellcoof. I think the story should again focus on the Towers - because, that’s what made Panzer Dragoon Saga so interesting. I also think that Orta was a failure because the Towers were not seen or mentioned anywhere…that was one of the disappointments of Orta for me, anyway.

They were all destroyed at the end of Saga.

No, they were not destroyed - Sesten’s ability to control the Towers was removed at the end of Saga. The Towers now remain dormant.

This isn’t a truly ‘story’ element, but more of gameplay element.

I’m not sure what you all are considering the style of game to be, and even though Saga was a AWESOME game, I think the new game should keep true to what started Panzer Dragoon and be another railshooter.

That said, some elements of Saga should be incooperated. For example, when using your dragon, you will have a berzerk bar, but when achieving it, you will be able to morph your dragon into one of 3 or 4 forms. Each one having a special attack for the time needed. The berzerk attacks will not do as much damage because the bar will be able to change faster, but one will be able to heal, one will create high speeds to dodge/fire faster, one is a giant one blast attack and one is a classic multi-beam attack. These could evolve with the more use of them.

This creates a sort of ‘Action RPG’ element to the game, maybe be interesting?

Well, the entire Tower network was totally deactivated at the end of Saga: that aspect of the story had kind of come to a logical conclusion. PDO’s Pandora’s box confirms that the Towers are now lifeless and no longer having an effect on the world.

Though the Towers were certainly a cool design element, I feel it would have been a lot worse for Smilebit to dig up a plot element that had already seen closure. I guess the Cradle replaced them, but I personally don’t think that it was as well-realised.

Whether or not a Tower can be included in PD Genos will come largely down to which time period it ends up being set in. With the proposed between-Saga-and-Orta timeframe, a Tower would probably not make sense - unless it was an abandoned, empty Tower, and then it might not be particularly interesting from a gameplay point of view… but all these ideas deserve contemplation.

So, you want an extra PD Orta episode? :

Though you definitely have some interesting ideas there Sade, I would suspect that this will end up being an RPG. This project was started by Feveth, who should also be heading up the programming side of things; and I believe the intent is to make a Panzer RPG rather than a Panzer game in general. However, I can’t speak for Feveth, so I hope that she’ll post on this subject at some stage.

But yes, gameplay suggestions should probably be posted here as well; they generally link to story elements, anyway.

[quote=“Lance”]

Well, the entire Tower network was totally deactivated at the end of Saga: that aspect of the story had kind of come to a logical conclusion. PDO’s Pandora’s box confirms that the Towers are now lifeless and no longer having an effect on the world.

Though the Towers were certainly a cool design element, I feel it would have been a lot worse for Smilebit to dig up a plot element that had already seen closure. I guess the Cradle replaced them, but I personally don’t think that it was as well-realised.

Whether or not a Tower can be included in PD Genos will come largely down to which time period it ends up being set in. With the proposed between-Saga-and-Orta timeframe, a Tower would probably not make sense - unless it was an abandoned, empty Tower, and then it might not be particularly interesting from a gameplay point of view… but all these ideas deserve contemplation.[/quote]

I would personally like to see the Towers reactivated again…though they are now lifeless, considering they don’t have Sestren controlling them, it is possible that they could be activated again through human intervention. I think the Towers were so well thought out, that it would be a shame to just keep them in their current lifeless state.

I’m quite certain the ruin in Episode 6 was a Tower.