1998 was the end of the Saturn, and to me it felt like an end before it ever really started. Why you ask? Because 1998 was the year with the BEST releases for the damn system. Despite this, Sega completely screwed over its Saturn users during this year, and I will be doing so discussing the best titles of that sad sad year of '98.
Panzer Dragoon Saga
An RPG based on a shooter series. Sounds like a terrible idea, no? I certainly thought at first based on my early impressions of the game seen in magazines and what not. I mean, as you saw in my first Sega based post, I was a fan of the PD series, so I was at least willing to pick up a copy of the game once it came.
Sega never really gave me the chance. The release of the game came later in the month in which Sega announced the system would be discontinued. For some reason Sega made the decision to release the game in extremely limited quantities. This might not have made much of a difference, except for the fact the game not only released to fantastic reviews, but amazing reviews hailing it as a masterpiece (which it was btw). All this conspired against me. I looked everywhere I could for a copy. EVERYWHERE. Funcolands. Ebgames. Any place that sold Saturn games. Mail order places which I saw in video game magazines. I could not find a copy. The closest I came was a copy I found at funcoland, but it was only the first 2 discs, and they wouldn't even sell it to me in that form.
Thankfully (or so I thought) the same friend who let me borrow Shining the Holy Ark had managed to obtain a copy, which ment I would get to play it some point. Play it I did, and boy was the game amazing. The 3D exploration both on the Dragon and on foot was executed flawlessly, the graphics were GREAT (for Saturn), the story was very interesting, and the battle system. Let's talk about the battle system. Somewhat real time, you could use the shoulder buttons to move around enemies, somewhat similar to switching your view point in Panzer Dragon 2. Several bars fill up as you wait, and you can open the menu and choose actions based on how many are full (almost FF13ish, only you could take your time picking actions). The battle system was challenging, gripping, and there were some amazing boss battles in the game.
However this being a Sega hating post, you know something has to go wrong here, and my oh my did it ever. Did a lose my save game or something? Nope. Did I accidentally destroy my friends discs or something? Nope. Even worse actually. My friend had been unable to beet the game because the game kept freezing on him at the exact same point. I hoped that this was just an issue of a corrupted save, or perhaps just his older Saturn causing issues, or something. It was not. His fourth disc had some kind of issue where it would always freeze at the same point, and we never were able to complete it. By the time I got to that point and confirmed the issue, it was much to late to get a replacement disk from Sega and thus neither of us have ever completed the game. Thanks Sega. Had you just released more copies of the game, which clearly would have sold, maybe I could have had a copy that actually works. There's never been a re-release of the game on another platform, and the great but ill-fated Xbox Panzer Dragoon game wasn't an RPG.
That's right Xbox. Another reason I never got into the Dreamcast, the Panzer Dragoon series was fantastic and the fact that Sega has basically given up on it is saddening. If they do similar to the fledgling Valkyria Chronicles series I will not be pleased.
I manage to get my hands on a shiny game
After the debacle that was the release of Panzer Dragoon Saga there was no way I was going to let the next installment of my favorite Sega series pass me by. I was a huge fan of the Shining games that had been released in the US. Mostly I had played Shining Force 2 and Shining Force for game gear, and hadn't played much Shining Force 1 at that point as the copy I had found as a kid couldn't save games. Shining in the Darkness I hadn't played through, but did play a lot of, and Shining the Holy Ark of course I played the heck out of, being the superior first person dungeon crawler.
So yeah, Shining Force 3 was a huge release for me and I didn't miss this one, and was not disappointed with the game. It was fantastic. Though it was more like Shining Force 1 in structure, ditching the somewhat more open nature of Shining Force 2 (which played more like a tradition JRPG that happened to have Strategy type battles instead of playing like a Strategy RPG). I was hooked. The story was interesting with subtle ties to Shining in the Holy Ark, all the classic Shining Force classes and spell were there in glorious 3D. There were secret characters to find, long difficult battles to face, and a lengthy adventure to be had.
There was just a tiny little problem, which I did know about before the end of the game to somewhat blunt the impact:
The Shining Force series has not been good since, which of course I would blame on Camelot Software Planning no longer manning the series, but still, Sega could have done something with the series, as Final Fantasy Tactics happened AFTER this game, giving rise to the niche popularity of SRPGs here in the US. Sadly we would instead get an OK action RPG (Shining Tears) and two terrible ones (Shining Force Neo and Exa) and eventually a new SRPG that would never be brought to the states. More than any other Sega franchise, I really think Sega wasted the potential of the series. Thanks Sega.
Thankfully franchises like Fire Emblem, Disgaea, and Ogre Tactics have filled the void, but I still itch for a new Shining Force game.
A Swan song from a franchise I've never heard of
I had never heard of Magic Knight Rayearth. I guess its some anime series? Regardless, it was an Action/RPG from Working Designs, and looked to be the last game ever released for the Saturn in the US(it was). There were some other releases that year I skipped (Some game about putting out fires in space) and some somewhat recent releases I picked up (Some game about invisible aliens) before this came out, but they aren't really worth talking about. Magic Knight Rayearth (which I will now call MKR) was an odd little game. Playing somewhat like a Zelda like game in terms of action, it had kinda the standard RPG layout of town-dungeon-town etc. though there was no real leveling gaining, instead just some infrequent upgrades. You could switch between the characters on the fly, and there were some great challenging dungeons and boss fights. The story was pretty interesting, with some excellent voice acting and fantastic music, and of course the occasional animated sequence. It was a wonderful final game for the system, and though I had one close call (game got scratched which Working Designs thankfully replaced) I finished this wonderful game without any real issue. Thank you Working Designs (which no longer exists sadly, a story for another day) for still releasing the game for a basically dead system (one of the best Xmas gifts from my parents ever).
Screw you Sega for botching the Saturn so horribly!
The End
Thusly the Saturn ended in the US, and I was too angry to ever get excited for the Dreamcast. The Saturn continued for awhile in Japan, which I tried to ignore as it just meant more great games I wouldn't get to play. There was just so much wasted potential in the Saturn though, and the fact that the biggest franchises on the system basically died with it makes no sense. Why no Panzer Dragoon for the graphically powerful Dreamcast? No Shining games? No Nights? This is the essence of why I hate/love Sega. They come up with some amazing franchises and then totally waste their potential.
But if they ever re-release Panzer Dragoon Saga I'll totally jump back on the Love train.
Shinging Force II and III were great titles for sure.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. I don't think the original holds up as well, but II and III were amazing.
ReplyDelete