Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei
Sega Saturn
Before playing:
I first played Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei when I was about 15 years old. I had played the original Panzer Dragoon, and I only sort of liked it. Aside from Star Fox and Solar Eclipse, these types of rail shooters weren't really my thing. This game got much higher scores than the original Panzer Dragoon. I remember reading nothing but positive reviews in video game magazines. So of course I had to play it.
I rented this game from Blockbuster and came away unimpressed. To me, it was just more of the same, but with better graphics. Still, I continued to read about this game in various video game magazines. It was getting a lot of very positive feedback, often being brought up in the conversation of best Saturn games of all time. I rented the game a second time, thinking that surely I must have been missing something the first time around. Nope, still didn't like it.
So, I rented it twice and never bothered to even beat it one time. It was too difficult for me, and I just didn't have the patience for this kind of game back then. I moved onto bigger and better things, and I never returned to this game.
Until now, the year of our Lord, 2024; about 27 years since I last played the game. In that time span, I've played through the original game, the remake of the original game, and Panzer Dragoon Orta. It's always been my intention to play through all the Panzer Dragoon games before finally tackling Panzer Dragoon Saga, my personal Holy Grail of video games. I've been wanting to play that game for so long!
Anyway, I digress. Before I can play Panzer Dragoon Saga, I have to make it through this one first. So how did I like it, all these years later? Not to give too much away, but this may now be my favorite game in the series. Keep reading for the full deets.
Story:
These Panzer Dragoon games never make any sense to me. From what I could gather here, the world of the game is a post apocalyptic future where biological weapons have decimated mankind. The remaining factions of humans are furiously digging to unearth ancient weaponry to take out their foes.
They never learn.
You play as a boy names Lundi. He lives in a small village. Unbeknownst to the people in the village, he has taken in and sheltered a baby dragon creature - which are forbidden within the village. One day, he is out riding the dragon, trying to see if it can fly - when his village is attacked and destroyed. It seems like a squadron of Imperial soldiers are chasing something, and the village got caught up in the battle.
The game consists of you and your dragon, flying through seven different stages and fighting hordes of enemies until you get to the end of the game, where you catch up to the mysterious object that destroyed your village. You fight it, only to discover an ancient dragon within it. You defeat the dragon, and lose consciousness, entering a trippy 2001: A Space Odyssey-esque sequence. You wake up and enter a cave, where you encounter a picture of your dragon drawn upon the wall. The game ends.
I don't understand what really happened. I am not sure what the point of the story or the moral of the story is. I am not sure if I am even supposed to feel anything one way or another. Like I said, these games never makes any sense to me. I got nothing out of it.
Gameplay:
This is what we call an on-rails shooter. You have limited control of the dragon you are riding. You are mainly just moving the cursor around on the screen and pressing the fire button. You can tap the button for rapid fire shots. You can hold it down to lock onto enemies and launch heat seeking shots at them. The lock on attack will quickly become your dominant form of attack.
Unlike other shooters such as Star Fox, you are not just looking directly in front of you as you fly through these levels. You can tap the shoulder buttons to rotate the camera. Enemies can attack you from the side and from behind you, so being able to rotate and react quickly is key to success at this game.
On the bottom of the screen you have a health meter and a meter that charges for your special attack. Charge this meter by shooting down enemies. When the meter is fully charged, you can unleash a powerful attack to all enemies on the screen. You also can't be hit while this attack, which lasts somewhere between 5 and 10 seconds, is underway.
The game is comprised of seven stages. Each stage ends with a boss fight, where you have to find a boss's weak point and exploit it. You also have to get good at dodging enemy attacks and shooting down their projectiles.
That's pretty much the entire game right there. It is very straightforward. It is pretty challenging, though. The first few stages I passed with relative ease, but I started running into problems around the forest stage. From then on out, you are pretty much trial and erroring your way through these stages. You almost never get it on your first attempt, but once you've played through it (sometimes multiple times) it becomes much more manageable on subsequent attempts. It's all about memorization and pattern recognition.
I finished the game in a little under two hours. It's definitely doable if you put your head down and just do it. I don't think I was quite as patient (or as skilled at this type of game) when I was younger, which is probably why I gave up on it after renting it two times.
Before I forget, one thing this game does differently from the original is that it offers branching paths. I don't think these choices make too much difference in the long run, but they do give some replay value to the game.
Graphics:
This game was considered a real beauty back in the 1990s, but it clearly shows its age. The characters are very jagged and messy looking. The scenery flickers and has draw distance issues. Textures tend to look sloppy and overly pixelated. It's a very "Saturn" looking game. But it works.
The game just has a great vibe to it. It's very dark and brooding and atmospheric. I like the stage where the snow gently falls around you, or the stage where you are racing along, close to the ground in the forest. The battles are swooping and epic. The fight with the giant fish machine that jumps out of the water is epic. The water looks great in this game, for a Saturn title, by the way. Don't see that too often. If I had to compare the feel of the game to a more modern title that people know, it would be something like Shadow of the Colossus. Not exactly the same (this game has flying dragons and giant air battles), but there's just something about the mystery and magic surrounding you that feels the same.
Sound:
This game has a very grand, sweeping orchestral soundtrack. It really soars during battle and gets your blood pumping. It is also very serene during the game's quieter moments. As I've mentioned already, this game succeeds in its atmosphere, and the music and sound effects play a big role in that.
If I had to offer any criticism, it is that there are not any standout tracks to me like there were in the first game. Nothing that is going to go on any of my gaming music playlists. So this is a little bit of a disappointment in that regard.
Overall:
I had a pretty decent time with this game. I'm not gonna lie, I'm still not the world's biggest Panzer Dragoon fan, but I think this is probably the best game in the series so far. Better than the original and better than Orta. Even though I say it is better than the original, I am still going to give it the same review score, though. I just can't go any higher than a B+ for this game.
That said, I am glad I played this, and I think everyone should give the series a look. When I think back on the Sega Saturn, Panzer Dragoon is one of the first games to come to mind, and it is a shame that the Saturn was such a big flop and no one got to experience these games. As far as rail shooters go, this is a very good series that I think would impress a lot of people if they ever got to play it, because it is quite good. It's not my favorite genre of game, but I have to admit that it does what it does very well.
That's that! Now that I've played through all these Panzer Dragoon games, there is only one left for me: Panzer Dragoon Saga. Like I said earlier, this is like the Holy Grail of video games for me. I've been wanting to play it since it came out 26 years ago in 1998, but I've never been able to track the game down. This ends soon, by whatever means necessary.
THE GRADE:
B+
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