This game upsets me. I wasn’t expecting to like it, and I won’t pretend like that wasn’t the case. Even so, I still had hope that I would see value in it. I looked everywhere, and found almost nothing to appreciate. The game was everything I feared it would be; pointless, disrespectful, inconsistent, and soulless. There are a few bright spots that shine through the cracks, but on the whole this entire product comes across as a desperate cashgrab that banks off of the steadily growing cult audience around a fan-favorite series. Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series exemplifies everything wrong with computer game remakes. Because of that, and the insulting pricing and technical issues I experienced, this is one of my most hated video games… ever. I hardly even know how to talk about it because of how baffling the whole experience was. Might as well start from the top...

For those not in the loop, this is a compilation remake of the two main Klonoa games, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile and Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil, which are puzzle platformers released in 1997 for the PlayStation and 2001 for the PlayStation 2 respectively. The former had already received a full emake for the Wii in 2008, renamed to simply Klonoa outside of Japan. This new Phantasy Reverie Series’s iteration of Door to Phantomile is based off of the Wii version. New changes include new bloom lighting, likely made to address complaints of the Wii version being desaturated, new character models that attempt to more closely replicate that of the original PlayStation version, higher-resolution texturework, and the removal of the Wii version’s English voice acting in favor of the original voices. The rest of this review will be assuming that you are fairly familiar with these games already, though I will avoid full-on spoilers. I will only compare this new remake to the original versions, as they are the only ones that are relevant.

The complete overhaul of the visuals of Door to Phantomile from the original demonstrates a complete misunderstanding as to how the original was designed. It’s the developers thinking that “making it all super duper detailed 3D” means that the games look better. Video games’ inherent reliance on technology has resulted in the change from low-poly 3D to detailed HD graphics for remakes like this to be interpreted as an upgrade simply because it is, by definition, technically better. Of course, this doesn’t take into account that everything about the original was made to be displayed at a specific resolution for specific displays. But, it is technically “better.” Moviegoers seem to understand that a new movie with digital cameras isn’t overtly better than an old movie shot on film, because, believe it or not, that doesn’t actually matter. What’s important is what the artists are able to do with what they are designing for. I personally don’t think I should have to explain this, but video gamers don’t seem to understand this. Sorry to break it to you, the Shadow of the Colossus remake is no different than the Lion King remake. These aren’t passionate reinventions of classic games, they are cynical cashgrabs conceived by studios to capitalize off of existing fans. Of course, this would be absolutely fine if they were accurate representations of their original iterations. Unfortunately they aren’t. Oh well.

The geniuses behind this remake thought “the old game had sprites for characters so we need to change them to models because expensive modern games use 3D models. That will make the game better because this isn’t what the old version would do.” I would argue that this is a cynical ploy of making a game look more technically advanced and modern instead of accurately representing the original intention of the game, though a more charitable view would be that the developers of the remakes saw new creative opportunities that could be brought to fruition by implementing 3D models. Unfortunately, this remake fails to follow-up on the possibilities of this change. The game tries to recreate every scene and animation basically beat-for-beat with the models, and as such fails to accurately represent what the original was doing AND it fails to provide a substantially different interpretation. The artists’ thought that doing the same thing as the original but NEWER and SHINIER and MORE EXPENSIVE would work. It doesn’t. This is exemplary of every other decision made in the remaking process for both Door to Phantomile and Lunatea’s Veil; they try to update their original incarnations without understanding why the decisions that made those games what they are were made. Take the walk cycle, for example. Instead of using the one from Klonoa 2, the Door to Phantomile remake utilizes a new one that is more similar to the walk cycle in the original. It looks… wwrrrooonnnngggg. The developers thought that they could replicate what the original accomplished by simply implementing the original thing in a new context, which does not work. At all. A sprite can animate like that, a 3D model can’t. Everything in these remakes is like this. A pivotal scene at the end of Vision 4-2 in the first game was phenomenal in the original. This new version is just cheap and lame, and knowing that this is what some people will think the game was like in the first place is embarrassing.

Klonoa 2 isn’t a complete overhaul in the collection like the first game is, but it still makes many changes. Too many. Way too many. I don’t understand what was so wrong with the visuals in the original version that they had to change so much. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY would have complained if they simply updated the original texturework for modern displays, slightly edited the 2D elements for widescreen, and bob’s your uncle. Garish bloom lighting, baffling texture changes that don’t feel like they’re even based on the original, additional foliage and background details, etc. What confuses me the most about all of this is the thought process behind it, what it’s meant to achieve. Ultimately, the visual style is still trying to simply be the original, while disingenuously parading around as more technically advanced than the original was. Because of this, it meets an in-between that doesn’t satisfy those looking for a creative new take on the original, nor does it accurately represent the original. It is a failure. A complete failure.

The obvious response towards criticism of unfaithful remakes is that the original “will always exist” so it doesn’t matter anyway. First of all, that would mean that remakes can literally be whatever they want as long as they happen to share the name of the source material. More importantly though, the computer game industry just doesn’t work in a way that facilitates two versions of one game having the same amount of relevance at one time. This new version of Klonoa is now the default for all future releases. It is very unlikely that Bandai Namco will backpedal on the decision to release and market this as some “definitive” version by releasing the originals untouched. If this collection had the option to play the originals, this wouldn’t be the case at all. But, of course, they couldn’t have been bothered to include them. If they did, everyone would be happy. Sure that wouldn’t change what the new version does wrong, but I sure as hell wouldn’t care because I wouldn’t have to play it. Once the publisher decides to not include the original versions, they have effectively killed off the preservation of the original. If you’re reading this review then you are most likely a dedicated gamer who likes cult classic puzzle platforming games, so you can play the original releases in some form. Unfortunately, most consumers aren’t like you. Humans are inherently lazy, so we will naturally play the versions of these games that are the easiest to obtain. Eventually, Phantasy Reverie Series will be older than the original games are now. On top of that, every subsequent release of these games will most likely be based off of these ones. Games only truly exist for as long as they are relevant. In 100 years, a very small percentage of players will choose the PlayStation version of these games to play over the new versions, and they will have to go out of their way to do so. If the first releases of both of these games were included, this never would have been an issue. I’m not upset that the new versions exist, I’m upset that the originals get their future cut off.

So what do these new versions add? Non-intrusive features like unlockable bonus materials can add a lot to a collection for returning and new players. Well, there’s basically nothing to speak of here. By far the best inclusion is the new “Pixel Filter.” I thought that this would be some sort-of CRT filter, but instead it’s a weird lo-fi filter that distorts the colors a bit and makes the visuals more “retro.” It looks really cool, when I play with it I try to pretend that it’s some unrelated 32-bit throwback platform game with cute characters. It only goes so far, but still a cool addition. I like it because it is optional and it looks different than the original in a way that isn’t trying to just look more technically advanced and modern.

Difficulty selections have been added. They don’t take away anything, though I don’t think I can exactly “praise” them either. Because of their tacked-on nature, I can’t imagine a new player feeling incentivized to go up from them to the higher difficulties. Still, they’re harmless. Audio balance options have been added alongside fully customizable controls, which are always great to see. And… that’s it. That’s really it. These options are presented through a new menu that looks fine but the way it awkwardly pops up on the screen rubs me the wrong way, like a late-90s pop-up ad or something. The game selection screen is similarly amateurish with a misaligned logo and awkward scaling. The way the music just suddenly starts and stops is bad too. The game in general oozes a rushed, budget aura and feels consistently unpolished. I guess that leads me into my next big thing…

I was mostly expecting this game to be disrespectful and lazy, but what I wasn’t expecting was for it to be an absolute technical disaster. For full transparency, I played the Xbox version of Phantasy Reverie Series on an Xbox One S and on a technical level it was horrendous. I recognize that a very small portion of the audience for this game are on Xbox, so it likely got the short end of the stick, but that does not excuse it for being nearly unplayable at times. Of course, I haven’t been recording anything so you’ll have to take my word for it. I’ll run down the list of minor issues that I encountered in Door to Phantomile now:

• Consistent audio crackling throughout the game. Most of the time it wasn’t that bad, though 6-2 became literal earrape at two points.
• Klonoa’s shadow would sometimes disappear for seemingly no reason. Most noticeable in 4-2.
• There were two times that I was hit by an enemy that flew me way to far away, leading to me falling to my death.
• Sound effects would repeat and cut out. Happened most often with Klonoa’s “Wahoo!” double-jump sound. This happened during a pivotal scene.
• The audio mixing made it nearly impossible to hear certain sound effects. Of course, you could go into the options menu and turn the music down, but then the sound effects that aren’t messed up will destroy your ears.
• I’m not sure if the input lag is really bad or something else, but movement in general felt very delayed. I could press the jump button in the middle of Klonoa’s flutter and he would jump when he hit the floor. The delay made later sections far too difficult.
• Sometimes elements in the background would pop in. This is very minor, and most noticeable during 3-1.

Alright, as for the major issues, I’ll start with the less damaging one: the load times are pretty bad. Loading a stage takes too long, loading in the world map took like 30 seconds one time, and load points during a stage are absurd at times. Loading in the room where Klonoa meets Balue in the first stage took over 20 seconds to load. That’s awful. I even copied the game over to my internal hard drive in the hopes of fixing this and it was still awful.

The big issue is stuttering and strange frame… skipping? I don’t even know what it is, but I swear sometimes the game will straight up not render frames which causes me to fall to my death. The frame rate itself is mostly consistent I think, it isn’t all that bad. The stuttering, however, is painful. It is horrible. The game will stutter like every five seconds if not more and no matter what I never got used to it. It makes the game hurt to play. I played the game in one sitting, but I had to pause the game often just to save my eyes from the stutters. I can’t even adequately explain this in words, it is horrendous. This is simply unacceptable, and the fact that Bandai Namco and Monkeycraft released this and aren’t getting ANY criticism for it is extremely disheartening.

Klonoa 2, by contrast, was significantly more polished. I didn’t notice audio or visual issues, there was no stuttering and the load times were very quick. It still isn’t quite at the place it should be, there are quite a few performance drops and the game still feels a bit unstable and janky, though I can’t exactly describe that with examples, it just felt that way. This gives me the impression that this is simply a rushed and sloppy product squirted out to fill up a release schedule and bank off of the critical acclaim of a beloved franchise. There are some signs that the developers cared about this project, such as the completely remade scrapbook images for Klonoa 2, but the project on the whole lacks care and feels unfinished and unpolished. It’s especially unfortunate because these games were technical marvels on PlayStation and PlayStation 2, with very brief load times and a locked 60fps.

Phantasy Reverie Series exudes cheapness, so of course, of COURSE it is retailing for $40. This is downright inexcusable considering how little content is on offer here. I am and have never been one to judge games based on their price. I recognize that the corporate bigwigs are ones who make the price and that doesn’t necessarily reflect the artistic integrity of the game, nor do I think that a short game should have a low price because it is short. Those arguments are absurd and anyone who makes them without some other justification needs to shut up. The problem here is that this game has no artistic integrity in the first place because it is a corporate product manufactured in a lab that is riding on the acclaim of the original games. And no, “it’ll go on sale” is not an excuse. First of all, it says a lot about the product itself that you would justify its existence by saying that it’ll be super cheap eventually, but we should also always judge a product based on the price that it was designed around in the first place, not the price that it might have a year down the line. This is a cheap collection with barely any content that is retailing for significantly more than most other comparable releases.

For comparison, the Mega Man Zero Legacy Collection contains 6 games and retailed for $30 at launch. That collection certainly isn’t perfect and is not the ideal version of those games if you like proper scaling but it is a good value and is much more polished than this. On top of the games themselves in that collection, they also feature a jukebox to listen to the music, tons of visual options (even if there’s no integer scale for the DS games), and loads of extras that fans can get a real kick out of.

Phantasy Reverie Series doesn’t feature any of this. Well, kind-of. See, this rerelease of 20 year old games has a DLC Digital Deluxe Edition variant that contains, you guessed it, an artbook and music player. You know, features that are supposed to be in a collection like this in the first place. This is insulting. This is extremely greedy. This is awful. And this costs $70. The fact that Bandai Namco released this for $70 is… I… I can’t even comprehend why this hasn’t stirred much of any controversy. Does nobody even know about this? This is one of the most transparently greedy things I’ve ever seen in a package like this. Features like this are SUPPOSED TO BE A PART OF THE COLLECTION IN THE FIRST PLACE! Even with these features, the collection would still be pushing it in price, but at least it would be… something. Instead, us who saved the money, us worthless cheapskates who bought the standard version which is already overpriced, we don’t get anything. Relative to the amount of games in the collection, this is just as much of a value as Super Mario 3D All-Stars, which stirred tons of controversy. Hell, even THAT collection had digital soundtracks. This has nothing. Nothing!

You know, I’d be perfectly fine with a $40 price tag if they had done more with this. Instead of allocating resources to nonsense like adding garish, disgusting bloom lighting that overpowers the image, or changing the character models in Klonoa 2 even though there is no reason to do so, they could have spent that time and money on throwing together a GBA emulator and including the Klonoa games for GBA. Or even better, they could have released the first officially localized version of Klonoa: Moonlight Museum for the Wonderswan. Or maybe they could have gone even further than a simple art gallery and instead made an interactive room that the player can explore to observe the art and other bonus material like dev materials for the games, akin to the Insomniac Museum in the Ratchet & Clank games. That’d be awesome!

But, no. None of this. There are additional costumes, at least… oh wait those are locked behind the Deluxe Edition too. Wait a minute… the first remake on Wii had unlockable costumes. And THOSE were in the game at no additional cost. They were harmless extras that were unlocked as a reward for players who finish the game. That means that Bandai Namco took previously made content and sold it for extra as DLC. Why, WHY is nobody on their case for this? Why??? This is horrible! Jesus Christ, this is a scam! A scam! They are selling even the base version of Phantasy Reverie Series as definitive iterations of these games, meanwhile they are literally TAKING CONTENT AWAY AND SELLING THEM AS DLC! I don’t like the Wii version at all, most of my criticisms for the fundamental design approach to these new versions also apply to that game, but it doesn’t pull a fast one like this.

So this is the part where I beg you not to buy this, and where I say that if you buy this, you will get more products like this. Unfortunately, it’s probably a lost cause. If you are interested in reading this in the first place, there’s a high likelihood that you’ve already purchased this. It is #3 on Trending on Steam right now, and the user reviews are “Very Positive.” So you more than likely don’t care about how this is disingenuous, or lazy, or a ripoff because you’ve already bought it. Even if you haven’t but are planning to, I doubt this lackluster review from a pretentious dickhead is going to convince you otherwise. So, you speak with your wallet and tell Bandai Namco that you want more of this, because clearly lots of other people do too. Of course, it is possible that I’ve swayed you, or that you never planned on getting this in the first place, and in that case I’d like you to walk away knowing that this is nothing more than simply another entry in the long list of cheap cashgrabs banking off the success (this time mostly critical success) of an acclaimed work. Hopefully, if we manage to get the word out that we don’t want more of these, we’ll stop getting them.

In my ideal future, every game ever will be available on all relevant platforms. In that future, we will be able to buy the original version of this game right alongside the new version. Most signs point to that not being the case, which I’ve come to accept. As for now though, I’ll just ask for you to play the originals instead. The PlayStation version of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile is currently available on PSN for PS3 and Vita, at least in America. It is my understanding that it was taken down from the store alongside many other Namco classics. It is $6 and well worth that price. Get it as soon as you can if you are interested because it is only so long before the shop goes down. If you can’t get this, emulate it. If after playing the game you want more, buy Klonoa 2. You’ll want to import a PAL copy if you live in North America since the game is expensive over here. It supports PAL60, so you should be good. If the price is still too steep, you can always emulate it or use an application like OpenPS2Loader to play it. On OPL 0.9.3 it plays perfectly with the right modes turned on. Load times are long with USB (about 15 seconds to load a stage, thankfully no in-stage loading and the levels are lengthy to boot) but plays fine otherwise and that’s obviously not a problem with SMB and HDD loading.

So in conclusion, how screwed is Klonoa now? Well, this seems to be selling well if the Steam Trending page is anything to go by. Plenty of people are talking about it. It upsets me but there’s nothing I can do about it. Bandai Namco has stated that this may lead to future collections down the road, and considering the quality of this one, I highly advise not buying them. I sure as hell aren’t. If there is a “Klonoa 3” of some kind, I’m not sure if I’m even going to buy and play it. A part of me is repulsed by the idea. Hopefully, my cries for something better are heard, and the next time Bandai Namco releases these games they’ll actually include the original versions alongside the new ones, but considering how game rereleases usually go that is very unlikely. Oh well. Goodbye Klonoa. Goodbye...

One of those games with no conclusion. In a literal sense, yes, there is an ending, but I mean the actual experience of playing the game and understanding the game. Devil May Cry 3 reels you in with one of the greatest first impressions I've seen in a game, entices you with a story that shows you what you'll become if you master the game, and then asks you to keep going. The game is an endless cycle of improvisation, applying your ideas, usually failing, and trying again. That point the game wants you to get in, the zone in which you are making all these choices, trying all these strategies, playing all these different ways, it never stops moving away from you. This should be frustrating, but the way the game entices you to keep pushing towards that point is what makes it great. It's an endless cycle of discovering new ways to get in that zone, getting booted out, and trying again. Once you're in that zone at the game's apex, not worrying about whether or not you'll have to reach it again, you begin to realize what really defines an action game. It all ticks, like clockwork. Truly a game that never stops giving.

This made me really upset. Inevitably, some people will think that this is an accurate representation of the original Ninja Gaiden 2 which is so unfortunate. In a vacuum, Sigma 2 is a decent action title but in the context of the series as a whole, this kinda sucks. The original Ninja Gaiden 2, for all it's faults, did still absolutely succeed in it's attempt to make the most bat-shit insane, challenging, absurd, and intense action game ever. While Sigma 2 does smooth over some of it's faults, it also lacks the direction and intent of the 360 version. On top of that, it makes a few baffling changes that only serve to undermine what it's going for. How unfortunate.

One of few games that manages to overcome any cynicism and let you simply indulge in its entirety. It may not be perfect or anything, but Napple Tale doesn't have to be. Purity is something that our mean-spirited industry can only use more of, so I think a few more of these couldn't hurt. It says something that on a console defined by ambitious genre-defying gems, this relatively basic little 3D platformer manages to stick out in the way it does.

When you play a game like this, the part of your brain that let's you rationalize what you just played goes off. Instead, all you can think about is how wonderful the experience was. Even if you can't make out the details, you'll always remember how it made you feel. Almost like a forgotten dream, floating in the wind...

There’s something exciting about playing obscure or rare games, especially when you’ve been aware of them for a long time. Many years ago I played Tempo for 32X, a platformer developed by Red. Soon after, I discovered that it has a Saturn sequel called Super Tempo, boasting more of the amazing animation from the original in a more refined, straightforward title. Unfortunately, I didn’t exactly have a powerful computer and Saturn emulation wasn’t quite there to begin with, so I couldn’t play the game. Despite this, I would go online to watch the intro on-loop and listen to the soundtrack a bunch. It seemed like such a strange game, one that would be forever out of the reach of my quaint little world. I am now a mildly fat man who owns a Sega Saturn so I can now speak to the quality of the game… er, I can speak to the quality of the first fifteen minutes of the game, and it is, uh, definitely a game. It exists. If you couldn’t tell, this is a convoluted way of illustrating how big of a deal that playing fucking Panzer Dragoon Saga is to me. THE illusive hidden masterpiece of the medium… and I’ve played it! If you’ll forgive my pretentiousness (and forget your jealousy of my now endless street cred), I can’t help but look back on not only that Super Tempo experience but also my entire history with games. It feels like I’ve gone so far playing something that there was simply no chance for me to play earlier.

Panzer Dragoon Saga itself reflects its legendary, mythical legacy perfectly. I’m not sure if I would call this one of the best games ever made, but it is certainly one of the most exemplary pieces of the art form out there. You can feel every bit of blood, sweat, and tears that were poured into this game at every level.

The Panzer Dragoon series started with adapting an overtly direct, arcade-y genre to a concept album art show. Despite this, it was still quite a humble game; 6 stages, average in length, decently challenging. Zwei would expand significantly with a far more mechanically robust game that relied less on the original’s innovative perspective-based turning and beautiful environments which had driven the experience. Saga sticks out in this regard because it was made from the ground-up in a genre that is better suited to this kind-of experience.

The previous titles had always laid their inspirations bare, but Saga is the most explicit in that regard. It often feels like a direct adaptation of the ideas and images depicted by the likes of Dune, Star Wars, Evangelion, et cetera, with the freedom to do whatever the hell it wants with it to best suit this medium. The game cuts down their ideas to only the bare essentials, expands on them in wonderfully gamey ways, and allows the rest to exist by implication. I am especially fond of the reticle system carried over from the other Panzer Dragoon games. Super unique for a game like this and it offers a very tangible, interactive element to the world without being disruptive or confusing like many other games that do something similar. It supports the atmosphere and beautiful visuals perfectly. Speaking of which…

The original Panzer Dragoon had set an amazing first impression with a beefy FMV intro and beautiful visuals. Zwei boosts the frame rate and environmental detail even further, and Saga is probably the most impressive game of the generation. The Sega Saturn is often derided for being weaker in terms of general 3D rendering than the PlayStation and N64, which I can now say is kinda bogus. Yes, it is different, but just like the other two consoles of the generation, your impression of the machine’s capabilities are dependent on what games you play for it. The first two Panzer Dragoon games perfectly utilize the system’s infinitely-scrolling background layers to create vast stages that do a great deal in selling the atmosphere. Saga is interesting in this regard because it is the kind-of game that the system is simply not made to run, yet it still manages to not only compete with games on other platforms but even outmatch them in several ways. The lighting in particular stands out as something that likely isn’t possible on other platforms. The world features the vastness of the previous Panzer Dragoon series while being navigated on a much smaller scale. Other Saturn games tend to have a weird problem where objects layered on top of the background/floor layer tend to look like they are floating when the camera moves, and sometimes this is noticeable with 2D elements in Panzer Dragoon Saga, but for the most part weird anomalies like this are entirely absent.

Before I mentioned that someone’s impression of a platform’s capabilities is dependent on what games they associate with said platforms, and a luxury the PlayStation and N64 had was a long enough lifespan to where late releases could truly take advantage of their power. I bring this up because Panzer Dragoon Saga released in January of 1998. For reference, N64 classics like Banjo Kazooie and Ocarina of Time were still many months away. I suppose I don’t really have a point here outside of pointing out how astonishing it is that a game released before the competing platforms’ biggest heavy hitters dropped still managed to technically outpace them in several ways.

The soundtrack follows suit, though I’m even less equipped to speak on the matter and to be honest a lot of it just didn’t resonate with me. Don’t get me wrong, I love the instrumentation and general tone of it; it supports the game superbly. I think that it is mostly that I hold it to the standard that the original game established, which it wouldn’t ever be able to match anyway. I imagine this will change on subsequent playthroughs, and for all I know that is the only reason why the music from the previous games left a bit more of an impression on me. The final dungeon features a very grating piece which may be why I’ve walked away from it with a lesser impression than others.

One of the most unique features of the original Panzer Dragoon is the innovative turning system that took full advantage of the wide-open 3D environments. Saga being a fully 3D RPG where the player can freely explore their surroundings, so the novelty is diminished. Saga compensates with a strategic, movement-based battle system.

The game features a charging mechanic comparable to that of Chrono Trigger (and probably Final Fantasy, though I haven’t played any of them to know). The player has three gauges that will automatically charge when staying still. When one is filled, the player can expend it to open the menu and select one of several actions. The player has a standard Laser attack which will lock-on to multiple foes. There is also a Gun attack that will target a specific enemy. Some enemies are immune to one or the other, which creates an interesting dynamic in more complex fights. The Laser is stronger overall, but you might want to focus your attack on one specific target to prevent enemies from reflecting it. Laser attacks are also upgraded by simply leveling up, whereas the Gun is upgraded by purchasing equipment at Item shops. Guns are much more specific in their application, particularly the one that will deal massive damage to a single weak spot but lackluster damage otherwise.

The Berserk ability from Zwei is expanded here to become limited-resource actions ranging from elemental attacks to healing. The Berserk abilities that the player earns are dictated by the Class that your dragon is in, which is another inventive mechanic. Basically, the player can customize their dragon to emphasize Attack, Defense, Agility, and Spiritual Power, each of which directly takes away from another class. Other games have similar customization options, but Panzer Dragoon Saga’s confidence in its sheer breadth can’t help but encourage the player to experiment as much as possible.

What really tips the battle system over the edge is how movement around the enemy is tied into charging. Basically, the player can rotate around the enemy in four different increments to aim attacks. Enemies can sometimes only be attacked from specific directions, or are weaker in different directions. The enemies will attack the player in patterns, forcing you to move around to dodge incoming fire. A radar is displayed at the bottom of the screen to help with this.

I am particularly fond of the Drone enemies, who will spin an oval-shaped… thing around themselves that prevents attacks from certain directions. The oval thing is thin, so the player has to pay close attention to the rotation to determine how to attack the enemy. Thoughtful enemy design like this is littered throughout the game. It always feels so considered and meticulous, despite how many possibilities are rendered with the customization system.

Even though the battle system is as engaging as it is, I would be lying if I said that it didn’t partially fizzle out in the final fourth or so of the game. The back half of the game in general has been criticized for featuring far more basic dungeon design than the earlier parts of the game, which is understandable. I think that the more straightforward design works given the tone and pace of this part of the game, but that doesn’t mean that the battles within the dungeons don’t get a little uninteresting after a while.

It is unfortunate that the level design gets more bland in the late game because Panzer Dragoon Saga otherwise appeals to non-RPG fans as well as you could hope. My description of the battle system may make it seem more convoluted than it actually is, as the game forgoes many tropes of other RPGs. While it is technically turn-based, the heavy reactionary elements give it an action game-like flair that many will find attractive.

The game also doesn’t fall into the trapping of overly long openings that these kinds of games usually fall into. The opens on with protagonist Edge, a “hunter,” asking one of his commanders (question mark?) why they are guarding some random excavation site on the outskirts of nowhere. And suddenly they are attacked by a leader of their own Empire by the name of Craymen, who went rogue to capture a mysterious girl who has ties to ancient times. After being knocked unconscious by Craymen, Edge wakes up to find all of his friends dead. After trying to chase after Craymen’s ship, he is shot into a canyon and supposedly killed, but is somehow resurrected and finds himself alive in a cave. In said cave he comes across a powerful dragon who helps him escape and has some sort-of strange bond to Edge. He then sets out to find Craymen and enact revenge for his fallen comrades.

Outside of the action-packed opening, the presentation of the story in Saga is surprisingly subdued. That isn’t to imply that there is any lesser production value than other, more bombastic games. Far from it! The animation, both in-game and in the 90 minutes of FMV cutscenes are great, though I can’t help but feel like the decision to mostly have the dialogue voiced in Japanese is unfortunate. The fictional language is featured for the opening and ending, and I’d honestly rather them just stick to that or the actual language. Despite this blemish, the voice acting is phenomenal across the board and most impressively, the game features voices for every piece of dialogue exchanged between characters.

Edge’s quest for vengeance is overtly morally questionable, which applies to all of the other characters as well. The plot revolves around an ancient macguffin known as the Tower, a great, uh, tower that can bring peace or destruction or whatever else to the world. The two main parties looking for the Tower, Craymen’s fleet and the Empire, are really interesting to contend with in the story. Little details like logs mentioning Craymen from the Empire that Edge obtains, to the different fleet’s progress towards finding the tower being displayed on the World Map really sell the idea that you are navigating all of these different morally ambiguous parties to untangle a big conspiracy.

(This would be the point to click off to avoid spoilers!)

In the late game, once all of these have been dealt with and Edge is left unsatisfied after fulfilling his original mission, the grander plot begins to reveal itself. Removed from all of the extraneous elements, the character dynamics and suspense that the game had built up for the last fifteen hours is unleashed in a beautiful display. It perfectly sets up the final dungeon, where the player must tumble down the location that the entire plot had revolved around, with the only character that Edge can place his full trust in. Yeah, the romantic subtext is laid on pretty thick in the late game, and I think it’s fine. It gives a certain distinctly human purity and heart to the game that helps propel the back half’s pace.

That is, until the final (for real this time) ending segment where Edge confronts Sestren, an ancient being held within the center of the Tower. Edge is subjected to 20 doses of hallucinogens and must fight Sestren. It is implied that he stops him, but well… Sestren explains that the “Divine Visitor” has brought a human along with him. Turns out the human is not Edge, but the player!

I understand that the twist here might come across as pretentious or corny, or lazy given how well the game otherwise establishes its world, but I think that this doesn’t really apply to this situation in particular. The rise of risky, pulpy indie games has left the act of fourth wall-breaking in games to be predictable and lazy. The thing is though that I don’t really feel like this game is just acknowledging “oh, isn’t it quirky that this is a video game?” It is more like the game acknowledging the player’s place in the game; the player’s place in the art. How you interpret the story is challenged by the game recognizing that you are just as much a part of this interactive work as the work itself is. It even makes perfect sense from an in-universe perspective, so it can’t just be written off as a cop-out. I’d say that it is brilliant and I highly respect the confidence in its execution.

When I play Panzer Dragoon Saga, I feel like I’m playing a classic. Not just a classic, but one of the defining games of the entire genre or medium. Something like this just feels made to be an all-time classic that is held up as “one of those games that you need to play before you die,” yet it isn’t. In an alternate world, the Saturn might have sold gangbusters in the states and Saga would be remembered as one of the greats. We do not live in that world. In a way, the game’s inaccessibility makes it even more special. There is something almost bittersweet about knowing that I played a game that, if released in a just ever so slightly different landscape, would have become one of the most legendary ever made.

Played on Sega Saturn via the Sonic Jam compilation.

It’s always seemed odd to me that Sonic 3 is the fan favorite when, in many ways, it is the least exemplary game of what Sonic actually represents, at least out of the trilogy. In the process of pushing the supplementary elements to their peak, I can’t help but feel that it lost a bit of what made the previous games special in the first place.

Stages are now more segmented than before, stressing the core facets of Sonic in set increments based on what the game wants you to experience at any given point. And that isn’t a bad thing at all in and of itself, but it creates a strange mismatch between the loosey-goosey mechanics that are meant to be stretched in wide-open stages with several different ways of traversing them and the new more fixed way the levels are designed. And no, having a bunch of different pathways doesn’t exonerate the game of this, because those pathways don’t naturally lead in and out of each other in ways that dynamically interact with the mechanics. They just sort-of… exist for their own sake. They exist to make the characters feel more distinct from each other and to stress the inherent enjoyment of exploring, which is fine! I’m just trying to say that it doesn’t feel like Sonic in the same way the other games do. Take Mushroom Hill for example. You can move around the stage in a lot of ways, but they aren’t systemic; they don’t naturally interact with the mechanics. You go fast because the game has taught you to go fast at these specific times and you explore because the game has taught you to explore at this specific time. Compare this to Emerald Hill, where most paths offer gameplay that is fit to purpose for their location and naturally lead to each other.

I think that because of this, Sonic 3 is much more focused on the situational interactions, which, again, is perfectly fine. But, again, it isn’t really fit for a game that plays like this. Launch Base is a fun zone because you speed through these amazing setpieces and roll under lasers. Lasers are cool! My point here is that it is fun because of what it is on its own, and not because Sonic is in it. It is often elevated by fantastic narrative design that naturally weaves the player through a believable world full of super impressive sights and some of the best sounds produced on the Genesis. Sonic 3 is a well above average platformer that stands its ground, but the definitive Sonic experience? Not a chance. I hope this doesn’t piss anyone off. When I was younger this was like my favorite game ever but, well, people change. It was probably a good thing that I had distanced myself from these games for a bit. While I’ve played them so much in the past that I still remember them thoroughly, the time has allowed me to re-evaluate how I really feel about them.

One thing that I find unfortunate about the influence of popular games like Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time is this belief that, while there was indeed 3D games before them, these were still the only ones that really mattered. I say that because Panzer Dragoon proved on a console that was as hard to develop on as the Sega Saturn, talented developers could still put out games which showed the value of 3D in a time where Super Mario 64 was still well over a year away. Even without the subtlety of an analog stick, Panzer Dragoon is a shining example of why the 3D revolution was one worth jumping on.

Contrary to what the title of the game may imply, you don’t actually control a dragon. Instead, you very explicitly control a man riding a dragon, and because of that you can feel the consequences of a creature like this. It reacts naturally to sudden movements with phenomenal animations. Seriously, I have no idea how they nailed the visual aspect of the dragon so well! The design and animation is elegant and beautiful but also gritty and down-to-earth. The game wants you to feel the majesty of the creature and the feeling of being whisked away into a grand alien world, while managing to feel grounded enough to where it doesn’t feel like a Disney whimsy adventure; the amazement is only heightened by the feeling that the game won’t pull its punches. And that adventure sure is amazing! I just can’t stress enough how beautiful everything in this game is. From the rippling water of the first stage that stretches as far as the eye can see with immersive reflections to the rough sands shortly after, the game never lets up on the sights and even more so the sounds. Nothing beats actually being there, in the experience of Panzer Dragoon.

The particularly exceptional part is how effortlessly the mechanics weave you through the adventure. All 3 main face buttons will shoot at enemies and lock on to them if you hold down the button. You should know what to expect. The main element that sets Panzer Dragoon apart is the aforementioned tangibility of the dragon and the dynamic way the player switches their view. X, Y, and Z will zoom the camera in and out, and the triggers will cause the player to enter a first-person mode and rotate in the corresponding direction. A lot of rail shooters since have had the player shoot in different directions via a scripted setpiece, but Panzer Dragoon is confident enough in its own level design to permit the greater degree of freedom. It creates a sense of one-ness with the player and the character, which is what I think is truly great about this game. It just isn’t something you can accomplish in 2D games and likely wouldn’t have happened if the game didn’t need to prove its worth over its forebears.

In an industry that continues to blindly chase accessibility, I can't help but appreciate a game that unabashedly tells you to play "its way." Funny to imagine a game as acclaimed as this coming out today and being regarded as "dated" for being like it is. We no longer accept games that simply want us to play "their way," because "some people can't play that way!" Even funnier seeing the medium doggedly pursuing the status of "real art" even though they keep compromising it for the sake of appealing to all audiences. You know, even when the game is a violent action title. Ninja Gaiden Black hasn't endured in the same way that other action games have for a reason. Maybe "the game's way" is too hard, maybe the checkpoints are too far apart, maybe it doesn't have a manual lock-on feature. But it wants you to play "its way" for a reason. Too many checkpoints may trivialize certain encounters or make them blend together. Some encounters are intense battles which would be made far less threatening and engaging if they had the same stakes as a casual brawl while exploring an exciting new area.

This is just one example of Ninja Gaiden Black teaching you to play "its way." Once you've begun playing "its way," you become one with the systems. Every attack is punishing so dodging them is always satisfying. There aren't rigid attack windows, you must dynamically react to every enemy to begin your ultra-crunchy violent massacres. You need to be committed to your decisions, every move has weight and can determine whether you live or die, but everything is so quick that the amount of possible decisions is never compromised. The game becomes a simple matter of reacting and attacking, pushed forward by a perfectly paced campaign through an intriguing world with the best visuals of the entire generation. It becomes almost hypnotic...