Panzer Dragoon Saga: A brief review
Dragonsphere Report
It's a charming game. It has weaknesses and limitations, particularly narratively. Whether these stand out only in hindsight of consuming countless media works subsequently or whether they were always present is of course difficult to detect. What the game exceeds at is world building, gameplay, and atmosphere. The sound design is also nice. The characters are somewhat generic. Again, this is said with hindsight though, so who knows. Azel in particular has more or less the exact same character arc as the girl from Outlaw Star, and Edge is the same protagonist we get in every JRPG.
I completed the game finally, in 2021, after first picking it up sometime in the late 00's. It's been quite a journey for me, but this would be the first time I made it to discs 3 and 4, and I only made it to the second disc sometime in the 10's. It was worth playing through. It may even have some replay value, as the gameplay is charming and distinct, even by modern standards.
Thematically the game is all over the place, offering a critical look at empire that merges the dual targets of Japanese and American Imperialism in an interesting way. By word of mouth from the creator, the game was originally supposed to have been the dream of a salaryman. This sort of helps to place the overall tone of it. It addresses a lot of anxieties and imports a lot of concepts which are common to metaphysical parables, including some to gnosticism. The idea of circular time, of archons (in the form of AI and biologically engineered chimeras left behind by unknown ancients), of doomsday weapons and humans being used as meat puppets by higher spiritual forces: these things owe a lot to traditional modes of thought. They are used here in a way which is mostly intelligent and measured, except for the ending perhaps which is somewhat abrupt (though not unjustified).
The ending is not so different from what was done later with Mother 3, and even with Undertale. Since this game came first that proves there must have been something to it, although it doesn't hit as hard as the endings of the other two games. There are advantages and disadvantages to being a first mover, unfortunately. Often the best uses of a trope comes after there has been some time to develop it.
It is a flawed, important, beautiful game. If it had more flesh it might even approach the standard of art that some other games manage to reach. Ultimately it is a well crafted gem that is imperfectly polished, and that's ok. It hits above its weight. It's worth playing.
Thus ends another Dragonsphere Report