After selling most of my gaming stuff back in 2005 on Ebay, i never thought i would revisiting gaming ever. again. My PAL trilogy set of Panzer Dragoon; 1, Zwei and Saga sold for no less than 101 bucks back then. Little did i know ;-(
Well, 2019 hit different and i've seen myself looped back to retro games since; to the refreshingly different catalog of Saturn releases in particular. Learning about ODEs and the latest progress on handheld devices and software emulation made it even easier to access some unique games. But what i find most stunning is that, after all that time since Saturn starting its rather short lifespan on the market, there is still such an alive DIY-scene and fandom around this complicated piece of HW... some 30 years after! Much love goes out to the people localizing some games that would never hit the western market!
Long story short, when learning about hints for a debug menu in Panzer Dragoon Saga & after replaying it multiple times over the years, i wanted to investigate further and see if theres something left to see behind the curtain. Spoiler alert, the game developers seem to have used every last drop they had, no "junk DNA" waiting to be uncovered.
But still, there are two quite deep debug menus to explore:
1) Extra Start Menu - via hacking the Image files
2) In-Game Debug Menu - via placing a specific save game file in the Saturn Memory
while 1) is kind of a Stage Select Option which lets you enter any Level/Town/Camp/Battle of given PDS CD#,
2) is more complex; God Mode, an alternative way to move your Dragon around the enemy, all items unlock, camera offsets, tweak graphics, custom Field Editors, plot flags....
too long to repost it here; but i documented a good portion of these features here, with only a few questionmarks left:
Even though keyboard support on emulators is rare, i had quite some fun revisiting some epic boss battles on my handheld device just by using the Extra Start Menu; grinding around, independent from the plot! Such an awesome & unique game and score!
cheers & happy gaming 😀
Well, 2019 hit different and i've seen myself looped back to retro games since; to the refreshingly different catalog of Saturn releases in particular. Learning about ODEs and the latest progress on handheld devices and software emulation made it even easier to access some unique games. But what i find most stunning is that, after all that time since Saturn starting its rather short lifespan on the market, there is still such an alive DIY-scene and fandom around this complicated piece of HW... some 30 years after! Much love goes out to the people localizing some games that would never hit the western market!
Long story short, when learning about hints for a debug menu in Panzer Dragoon Saga & after replaying it multiple times over the years, i wanted to investigate further and see if theres something left to see behind the curtain. Spoiler alert, the game developers seem to have used every last drop they had, no "junk DNA" waiting to be uncovered.
But still, there are two quite deep debug menus to explore:
1) Extra Start Menu - via hacking the Image files
2) In-Game Debug Menu - via placing a specific save game file in the Saturn Memory
while 1) is kind of a Stage Select Option which lets you enter any Level/Town/Camp/Battle of given PDS CD#,
2) is more complex; God Mode, an alternative way to move your Dragon around the enemy, all items unlock, camera offsets, tweak graphics, custom Field Editors, plot flags....
too long to repost it here; but i documented a good portion of these features here, with only a few questionmarks left:
Even though keyboard support on emulators is rare, i had quite some fun revisiting some epic boss battles on my handheld device just by using the Extra Start Menu; grinding around, independent from the plot! Such an awesome & unique game and score!
cheers & happy gaming 😀
