A fan-led recompilation project is trying to drag one of Sega Saturn’s most unique RPGs into the modern age: Panzer Dragoon Saga is now running natively on PC, at least up to a point. For a game that’s been stuck on aging hardware and spotty emulation for decades, that’s a pretty exciting prospect.
The project, titled Azel on GitHub, is a reverse-engineering and recomp effort by developer yaz0r, targeting a native Windows build. Time Extension reports that the current state is “semi-playable,” with the game running up to the Arachnoth boss battle before things fall apart, and the last update landing around six months ago. It’s all open source, though, which means anyone with the skills (and the patience) can jump in and help push it further.
If you’ve never played it, or are only familiar with the other entries, Panzer Dragoon Saga is the odd one out in its own series. While the other entries are rail shooters, Saga is a full RPG built around a hybrid battle system that mixes turn-based commands with real-time positioning as you circle enemies on dragonback. Instead of just blasting targets down a tunnel, you’re roaming 3D environments, hopping off to explore on foot, talking to NPCs, and managing a short, lean 20-ish hour campaign with a heavy emphasis on story and worldbuilding. It’s also brutally expensive to play legitimately now, as it was released in fairly limited quantities and has never been rereleased.
Though the first game got a serviceable remake and a remake of the second game is rumored, Saga‘s status as a unique RPG take in a mostly shooter series, on a failed console from a bygone era has made the likelihood of a rerelease unlikely. Azel is early, fragile, and absolutely not a fleshed out remaster, but as preservation work and a proof of concept, it could be the most promising development the game’s had since releasing in 1998.
Source: GitHub via Time Extension
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