Panzer Dragoon Is Being Ported to the Sega Dreamcast! — First Level Available to Play

Artwork mockup by Frogbull.

When the Dreamcast was unleashed upon the masses, Sega seemed determined to create brand-new, never-before-seen experiences for adopters of the console. As a result, the system spawned a wealth of new franchises, with far fewer sequels to the staple titles of Sega's previous console - the Saturn - than you might expect. You could find NiGHTS in a capsule toy in Shenmue, but you couldn't actually play a game starring the genderless purple harlequin on the Dreamcast itself. Another example of this was Team Andromeda's dragon-riding rail shooter Panzer Dragoon. Akihiko Mukaiyama was quoted in an interview with Famitsu that the eventual sixth-generation return of the franchise - Panzer Dragoon Orta on the original Xbox - was originally slated for release on the Dreamcast, but the console "didn't meet [...] technical specifications". Oof.

Perhaps this is why Frogbull, the King of proving things once thought impossible possible, has been reverse-engineering the original Panzer Dragoon and porting it to Dreamcast. He's previously showcased proof-of-concepts demonstrating that Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty could have run on the Dreamcast, as well as Crash Bandicoot and Final Fantasy VII on the Saturn, and that's just a small selection of his work. While those projects were primarily created as proof-of-concepts, Frogbull does hope to port Panzer Dragoon to the Dreamcast in its entirety one day.

He showed off footage of Panzer Dragoon's first level (or "episode 1", as the game calls it) running on Dreamcast via his YouTube channel on Tuesday, and it's looking great. A far cry from the original Saturn visuals, Frogbull's port looks closer graphically to the 2006 Japanese-exclusive Sega Ages 2500 PlayStation 2 version of the game. There is some quite obvious slowdown in busier sections of the level, but I'm sure this is something Frogbull will be working to improve as this project continues. 

Frogbull has also made a cool video that compares his port to the original Saturn version, so check that out below.

At the moment, only the first level is ported and playable, with limited access to the version 0.1 build available through Frogbull's Patreon for those wanting to play it for themselves. This build is expected to be made publicly available at some point in the near future. Frogbull's long-term plan is to release more levels gradually, as and when he reverse-engineers them.

Are you excited for this port? Let us know in the comments below, or on our social media pages.