This is the first post in a new section I’m making called Time Machine. In this section I will talk about and review old, long forgotten classics that time has hidden away in our dark and dusty closets. First up is Panzer Dragoon II Zwei. This was a truly amazing game for it’s time; the soundtrack was a feature film quality orchestral backing, which was quite impressive compared to the beeps and boops of that day and age. The gameplay was a spectacle of it’s own; nobody had really done a forced movement path shooter like that before–most certainly not that well. The graphics, of course, for the time were great…but over a decade later they have aged quite a bit. Nothing to squint at and look sideways to be able to tell what’s going on though.
Basically you play as a guy named Jean-Luc Lundi, who lives in a small village where these things called “mutant coolias” are killed. One day Lundi finds one with wings and a glowing green throat which he decides to keep and name ‘Lagi’. Lundi tries to take Lagi out regularly to try to get him to fly and on one occasion a huge Sestren ship called ‘Shelcoof’ destroys Lundi’s village in an attempt to kill Lagi, who is apparently possessed by something called the Heresy Program. Lagi’s green glow grow’s brighter and it starts firing arrows of light from it’s mouth, which is an attack known to be used by the dragons from the ancient age. The arrows of light do not reach Shelcoof so Lundi tries to chase Shelcoof on Lagi’s back. The ultimate goal of the game is to take down Shelcoof.
The gameplay consist of you running around this unusual desert like planet shooting light arrows at just about everything that moves because you are in enemy territory…so basically everything not bolted to the ground is trying to kill you. It’s a pretty simple idea, but the limitation of being on a set path that Lagi follows make for an interesting challenge. The action in this game never ceases. It’s just a constant stream of awesome from the minute the game starts until the minute you get your long awaited revenge on Shelcoof for turning your village into a parking lot.
If you’ve got a Sega Saturn kicking around you should definitely give this game a try. Heck, even if you don’t you should buy a Saturn and try it. There is plenty of really great games on the Saturn…it saddens me that Sega dropped it before it got a chance to make a decent stand. 
I decided pictures don’t really do this game justice, so here’s a nice big, shiny gameplay video.
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By the way…you can still buy the Japanese version, which is plenty playable by you English speakers, at Play-Asia!
Podcast: Download (12.6MB)
