Panzer Dragoon Saga PC?

[Barc0de]

alright. I know PD:1 and 2 were released on SEGA PC CD-roms, along with Virtua fighter 1 and 2, Sonic CD, a Sonic Collection thing, Sonic R, Bug! and Bug!Two, Daytona USA( ? ) so anyone knows anything about Sega making an effort to port the one and only legend of Dragon-related-RPGs and one of my personal favourites of all time, Panzer Dragoon Saga?

If yes, is there a copy floating?

[Anthaemia.]

Panzer Dragoon Zwei and Saga were never released for the PC, though I wouldn't be too surprised if Sega had considered porting them. Now that I think about it, could somebody provide a complete list of what exactly did appear in the SEGA PC range between 1996 and 2000? I've been trying to collect as many of these titles as I can over the years, but some (like Virtual On, BUG! and its sequel, for example) are notoriously difficult to find now as they were never reissued - unlike Sonic R, which I now own several differently packaged versions of!

Also, can anbody think of a reason why Sega never ported Virtua Fighter 3 to the PC? Could it be they were planning to simply convert the Saturn version with little or no changes, as they did with previous installments in the series? Since that never materialised, it's not exactly surprising AM2 didn't bother just releasing the Model 3 game - would most affordable computers in 1998 have been up to handling such a fantastic looking piece of software? As for a quick port of the Saturn version, that might have been more realistic, yet at the same time nothing has ever been seen of it so how can we know for sure? Since the whole SEGA PC range of this period was so reliant on (badly ported) fighting games, could the non-appearance of a Saturn version also explain why an ideal title like Sonic The Fighters was never given a chance on the PC as well?

Sorry for ranting, but it's great to know that somebody out there might share my enthusiasm for Sega's PC output!

[Barc0de]

I could have sworn i had a copy of Zwei for PC. Seriously.

[Alchy]

I've been trying to collect as many of these titles as I can over the years, but some (like Virtual On, BUG! and its sequel, for example) are notoriously difficult to find now as they were never reissued - unlike Sonic R, which I now own several differently packaged versions of!I can't be certain, but I think I saw BUG! alongside a bunch of other mid 90's Sega games in a re-release series called "Xplosiv" last time I was in Toys'R'Us. I got Panzer Dragoon and Sega Rally for £2.50 new... shame they couldn't be bothered to make the games NT compatible.

EDIT: just checked the Xplosiv website, BUG! isn't there. Memory playing tricks on me again.

[karsten]

i have panzer dragoon PC :)

[Thiago_Simoes]

When the house of the underdogs was in activity, I downloaded Virtual On... not a great game, though. Probably some other titles may be easily downloaded as well. The question is... do you want the complete package? If so, good luck...

[Barc0de]

I used to have Bug!two , some sega sports titles, sonic CD, virtua fighter 1 and 2 blah blah blah and a whole lot more from SEGA PC series. I m just wondering why SEGA never made the effort to port panzer dragoon saga "as-it-is" to another platform. Seeing crappy games getting re-released one after the other, it is disapointing to see SEGA not making an extra buck from a game that really hit the spot back in the day. Retro is big nowadays anyway, so I pray someone will make sega release the game on PC or Wii.

[Perkunas]

I used to have Bug!two , some sega sports titles, sonic CD, virtua fighter 1 and 2 blah blah blah and a whole lot more from SEGA PC series. I m just wondering why SEGA never made the effort to port panzer dragoon saga "as-it-is" to another platform. Seeing crappy games getting re-released one after the other, it is disapointing to see SEGA not making an extra buck from a game that really hit the spot back in the day. Retro is big nowadays anyway, so I pray someone will make sega release the game on PC or Wii.

Sega AGES 2500
^^

[Barc0de]

googled SEGA AGES 2500 and came up with a ton of japanese text. What's included in 2500? O_o

[TheRedEye]

I could have sworn i had a copy of Zwei for PC. Seriously.

Did you install it in the same folder as your Ace Harding NES ROM (http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10574)?

[GaijinPunch]

The producer of the Sega Ages 2500 remake said he would love to remake the entire series. Whether that happens or not is a completely different story.

[Taemos]

When the house of the underdogs was in activity, I downloaded Virtual On... not a great game, though. Probably some other titles may be easily downloaded as well. The question is... do you want the complete package? If so, good luck...

Home of the Underdogs is still around, although they've had to switch sites a few times and there hasn't been a recent update (www.the-underdogs.info).

A few of the Sega PC ports weren't so bad. I forget the name of it, but there was a superbike game that was pretty fun, and didn't look half bad with a 3dfx card.

[Barc0de]

Did you install it in the same folder as your Ace Harding NES ROM (http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10574)?

Not cool. I ve got tons of games and I've played through many versions etc, it's only natural to doubt things I'm uncertain of. To say that one is under the impression he has played something doesn't make him guilty of lying or being unreliable. I've had the saturn versions and many SEGA PC games, it's only natural to confuse or to be uncertain.
Your comment relating to Deja Vu II, on the other hand, is moot. I might have seen a version of the rom in question something like 5 years ago on warez sites etc. I honestly can't be certain if I have for sure or have not played the game, as it wasn't something that really interested me 5 years ago, and it still doesn't. Not a big Deja Vu fan.

Next time if you haven't got something useful to add, there's no need for the attitude here. Nothing personal I should add, but your sentence felt kind of offensive and ironic.

Motorbike game? MANX-TT superbike? that game wasn't half bad! Wasn't there an arcade version of it as well?

[Fabrizo]

Their were 2 or three high res fmv renders from PDS floating arround some years ago (could probably still find them) that I remember giving me the impression their was a version of the game for PC. And their were a ton of rumors about Zwei being ported over to PC as well back then. Sadly none of it was ever true.

Virtual On being ported to PC is news to me though.

[Mr.saturn]

Just wanted to add that just because a game isn't listed on Xplosiv's site doesn't mean it wasn't released by them. They did re-releases of Sanitarium and a few other old pc games that are not mentioned on their site and never have been.

Your memory may well be correct.

[jp.]

Panzer Dragoon II Zwei did not get a PC release.


As for Azel Panzer Dragoon RPG on PC:

If memory serves me correctly the very first Sega released "mini-OST" for Azel Panzer Dragoon did have a second disc that featured a demo of Azel Panzer Dragoon that ran on the PC. Mind you, I'm referring to the first Sega pressing of the mini-OST, not the cheap re-release by a 3rd party, not the main 2-disc album, and not the Memorial Edition. (Of course, panzerdragoon.net only lists 3 of the releases, and only one of the original game's soundtrack releases, *sigh* that site makes me sad, I don't think any of them have even figured out the PDS plot yet... -_-).

At any rate, I'll pop back on tonight after work to confirm this, supply catalogue numbers, etc.

Edit:
Actually, I can show you a picture of the CD:
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a389/pzykotikjp/panzer.jpg


OK, on the row showcasing the Azel PD soundtracks, it is the second one from the right.

And yes, I know the original OST is missing from the picture. For some reason I left it at my parents' house. :( Only PD soundtrack I don't have ripped to my 360, though it doesn't matter because the Full Sound Version slaughters it.

[Barc0de]

demo for PC? wow, would I love to get my mits on that! PM me if anyone has anything for pushing , even if it's a copy.

[Taemos]

Motorbike game? MANX-TT superbike? that game wasn't half bad! Wasn't there an arcade version of it as well?

Yeah, that was it. It was a nice game - shame I don't have a copy. Virtual On was a pretty crappy port, though, if I remember correctly. I used to know someone that had a copy...

A demo of Panzer Dragoon Azel would be a very nice find. Keep us updated.

[Barc0de]

Yeah, that was it. It was a nice game - shame I don't have a copy. Virtual On was a pretty crappy port, though, if I remember correctly. I used to know someone that had a copy...

A demo of Panzer Dragoon Azel would be a very nice find. Keep us updated.


Used to have a SEGA compilation (pirate) CD with trimmed versions of MANX-TT, Flickie's Island, Marble Madness (the puzzle one), Sky Target (nice airplane action), a SEGA soccer game (not Virtua Striker, the other one), Virtua Fighter 2, Garfield(awesome platformer), House of the Dead (1) , Virtua Cop 2 and a few other games I can't recall from the top of my head.

SEGA PC games, most of them at least, deserve some respect as they re usualy PC ports of addictive games, MANX TT being one of them. Having said that, I m definetely on the track of finding SEGA PC games from now on.

[Alchy]

Has anyone figured out a good way to get the older titles running well under XP? Panzer Dragoon won't run at all, and Sega Rally runs but does this speed-up-slow-down thing all the time, which makes it unplayable. VDMS doesn't help and DosBox is a hassle to get running well (I gave up last time). There's got to be an relatively easy way of doing this without needing to install an older version of Windows/scraping together an "older games" PC?

[Barc0de]

Win98 emulator, WINE style?

[Alchy]

Never heard of one for Windows XP (virtual machine for other platforms, maybe), got a link?

Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure all those Sega games are Windows-only, so it's no surprise I didn't get far with DosBox...

[Barc0de]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx give it a read and tell me what you make of it

[la-li-lu-le-lo]

Virtual PC doesn't support DirectX, which most likely all those games require. What you ought to do is just set up a dual boot with Windows 98 and XP simultaneously installed. I used to have a system like that, if I remember correctly.

[GaijinPunch]

Nice collection, JP. I have the memorial album. It is good cracker... one of the few game soundtracks that I really like.

[Alchy]

Virtual PC doesn't support DirectX, which most likely all those games require. What you ought to do is just set up a dual boot with Windows 98 and XP simultaneously installed. I used to have a system like that, if I remember correctly.Well yeah, that'd probably be close to ideal, although my system's speed might be too high for some games. That's not the problem though, the problem is that my drives are NTFS, so 98 won't recognise them, and all my IDE and SATA ports are in use so I'd have to buy a PCI IDE card, which I'd then have to get Win98 to recognise to install on, etc etc etc. That's a good day's work at least, not to mention money I'd rather spend on more vital stuff, all for a few games I'd probably only spend an hour or so playing anyway.

I guess there isn't a quick, easy way of playing older PC games. Just seems like the kind of thing someone would've figured out by now.

[Borman]

Partition magic ;)

[hl718]

Virtual PC doesn't support DirectX, which most likely all those games require. What you ought to do is just set up a dual boot with Windows 98 and XP simultaneously installed. I used to have a system like that, if I remember correctly.
The hell it doesn't. ;)

Virtual PC emulates a S3 Trio64 video chip which has no problem with DirectX.

Now, unless you've got a high end machine, you might run into framerate issues with VPC running Win98 under XP, but the games will run. I just installed VF2 and it fired up right away. Used the DX3 (yes, version 3) that was on the CD.

-hl718

[Alchy]

The hell it doesn't. ;)

Virtual PC emulates a S3 Trio64 video chip which has no problem with DirectX.

Now, unless you've got a high end machine, you might run into framerate issues with VPC running Win98 under XP, but the games will run. I just installed VF2 and it fired up right away. Used the DX3 (yes, version 3) that was on the CD.

-hl718To save me a lot of time/effort, could you let me know whether VF2 ran full speed, and what specs you're running?

[hl718]

CPU on the host machine was a P4, 3.0.

VPC had Win98 with a 1 gig hard drive and 128 meg RAM assigned.

VF2 ran in demo mode just fine (didn't bother trying to play) with the occasional framerate hiccup. I'm guessing that if I had Win98 installed on a standard VPC drive file (usually use differencing ones for work so I never have to worry about damaging the base OS install) or on a real drive and tossed a bit more RAM at it, it would have run a peach.

-hl718

[Alchy]

Should be good to go then, thanks.

[APE]

I can confirm Bug! completely. It was on an old machine in a special ed class in my High School. Shame the Win95 install was fubar and only bootable with safe mode.

I believe Panzer Dragoon came with whatever video card it was that was supposed to have the saturn controller port built in. I have pictures of the card local but I can't remember the name. Want to say Nvidia made it.

[Alchy]

A few early Sega games were designed to run on that card, the NV1 chipset as I recall. Was quad- rather than polygon-based, like the Saturn. It did have a Saturn controller port built in, and also had a sound chipset of some kind too.

[Anthaemia.]

I'm not sure this list is definitive, but here's most of what Sega released during the Saturn era for PC:

Baku Baku Animal
BUG!
BUG TOO!
Daytona USA
Daytona USA Deluxe
Enemy Zero
Formula Karts
Last Bronx
Manx TT SuperBike
NBA Action '98
Panzer Dragoon
Sega Rally Championship
Sega Touring Car
Sega Worldwide Soccer
Sonic 3D
Sonic R
The House Of The Dead
Virtua Cop/Virtua Squad
Virtua Cop 2
Virtua Fighter
Virtua Fighter 2
Virtual On

The majority of these were later reissued on the XPLOSIV label, while others have become increasingly rare over the last few years. I've never heard of a Panzer Dragoon Saga demo being included with early copies of the soundtrack, though it's always possible. Considering it's the first time many of us have read about the existence of such a thing, I presume this must be incredibly hard to find. If only somebody could provide further evidence or, better yet, the demo itself for undeniable proof...

P.S. Were there any more games other than Virtua Fighter and Panzer Dragoon that had NV1 support?

[Alchy]

Just checked the wiki on NV1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NV1), it says Nascar Racing was too. Not a Sega game as far as I can tell.

[Druid II]

I can verify Bug!, the first episode. I only had a demo of it, and it didnt run properly (like every other SEGA port from the time), but I did have it. The about menu had a "Yikes" and "Wow" button next to the "OK" and you could activate cheats by clicking on Bugs right pupil while holding Shift.

I also have Virtua Cop 1/2 (not sure which), Sonic R, Sonic 3d, Baku Baku (a very bad and basic port) and I played Daytona USA. Saw Panzer Dragoon and Sega Rally in action too.

[dvdmike]

vf 2 runs fine on my machine (win xp pro 2x xeons 2 gig ram 6800gt)

and for Panzer : http://www.gamestation.co.uk/product.asp?id=101097122949695
8 English Pence :) brand new

[Anthaemia.]

I've been trying desperately to collect the whole SEGA PC range for years, but so far I'm only able to find the "usual suspects" and a few rarities once every blue moon when browsing in the second-hand bargain bins of my local games stores. What's the chance of ever finding a boxed copy of BUG! or Baku Baku out in the proverbial wild? Come to think of it, do these - or Virtual On, for that matter - show up on eBay very often? At least there's always the free demos I can find in the download sections at most Sega fan sites worth their salt...

P.S. The reason most of the SEGA PC titles are so bad is due to many of them being direct ports of the Saturn versions, and we all know that few games were truly "arcade perfect" on that system. Still, that doesn't excuse console-exclusives like Panzer Dragoon or BUG!, which really could have benefitted from all the extra power that the PC format allows. In fact, the only game superior in its PC guise is probably Sonic R, but even that's now (arguably) been superceded by the PS2 edition!

[hl718]

And don't forget, there's the gold version of Virtual On. ;)

Back when these games shipped, CDs were still being hyped up like mad and gold plated CDs (vs just plain aluminum) were another hype factor. The amount of gold required to do the plating was miniscule, but hey, it looks good and it was another way to market the game.

IIRC, Virtual On was the only game to get the gold treatment.

As for the NV1, a good number of the Sega games supported the NV1, even if it was not announced on the box. I keep meaning to rebuild a proper NV1 box and test out the collection, but it's a project that (as always) keeps getting put off.

There were also a number of non-Sega games that had NV1 support including a version of MechWarrior II and an unreleased version of Descent.

-hl718

[Anthaemia.]

I didn't know about the gold version of Virtual On - as if this game wasn't already obscure enough! Also, it's good to hear that NV1 support extended beyond just Sega titles.

[Druid II]

NV1, or how the card was called, Diamond Edge Multimedia, was one of the powerful competing cards out there at the first generation of 3d accelerators - games aimed for full compatibility probably included support for it, although most games of the era just stayed with 3dfx Voodoo, and then anything that was Directx compatible.

Man those were the days... Different video card for different game!

[WolverineDK]

NV1, or how the card was called, Diamond Edge Multimedia, was one of the powerful competing cards out there at the first generation of 3d accelerators - games aimed for full compatibility probably included support for it, although most games of the era just stayed with 3dfx Voodoo, and then anything that was Directx compatible.

Man those were the days... Different video card for different game!
Oh yeah, and Virtua Fighter remix being the first VF on PC with that card, and I thank you for the information about the card, since I have been searching in other ways to find out what card it was. So I thank you :)

now we just need a wrapper to the games.

[Druid II]

Sure, np. Someone at the SegaXtreme board posted pics of the actual card itself (box too), but you would need to dig a bit for those.

The card had actual Saturn joypad slots on the back too, and was initially planned to be used for Saturn ports of course.

[hl718]

Of course, the Saturn controllers could be used for just about any game that supported a Windows joystick. Pretty much all of the Sega games supported the controllers and Virtua Squad even recognized the Saturn Stunner (lightgun) though it was unusable on a monitor due to the different refresh rates between a TV and VGA screen.

-hl718

[madhatter256]

I remember that card being talked about here. Was going for pretty cheap on ebay. Good luck finding drivers for that...

[dvdmike]

Just ordered this :
http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/904613/Xplosiv_Top_10_Volume_1/Product.html

[hl718]

I remember that card being talked about here. Was going for pretty cheap on ebay. Good luck finding drivers for that...
It ran great under Windows 3.1 as well as Win95, IIRC.

I wonder if that bad boy would fire up under XP or not...

-hl718

[Druid II]

Honestly I would be surprised if it worked in Win98Se, yet alone XP.

[Anthaemia.]

Well, I've finally been able to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding a possible PC demo of Panzer Dragoon Saga that was supposedly included with the first print run of the soundtrack album. According to a sticker on the front of a sealed copy currently up on eBay, the second disc is for the Saturn. I guess this is yet another myth we can lay to rest... though since the soundtrack was released before the game it's always possible there are some differences in the demo to the final game, but that's for another topic!

P.S. While it lasts, here's the link:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AZEL-PANZER-DRAGOON-RPG-LTD-SOUNDTRACK-SATURN-DEMO_W0QQitemZ160017923014QQihZ006QQcategoryZ38588 QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem