Hello and Happy New Year! Drew here – let’s start 2025 right with some big reveals for yall as part of the ongoing Dragoon Fest celebration. Last night I hosted a community livestream featuring these reveals, so let’s get all that goodness in text form. Not sure if this applies to everyone or just diehard fans, but you might need a bib as some of this stuff is drool-worthy.
Script Modding – New Projects!
First up, it’s time to talk about one of the next types of modding that will come to the Severed Chains port for Legend of Dragoon. Script modding has been done a handful of times for emulation in the past. With SC, making edits to the game’s script will be much easier. This will include support for proper fonts as well as additional languages. Fans will be able to create script mods big and small in English, the EU languages Sony covered, or additional languages. Very soon, we will bring various translators together to begin discussions and interface with the SC devteam.
One of these projects is led by André Tavares. His team is working on a Portuguese translation of the game for emulation, and later SC. It’s rare that we see new emulation-based mods! They just released a beta script mod for Disc 1, available on their project website along with instructions. Note that it does not provide official game assets – users must provide a legal copy of the North American game version.
André also made an announcement video sharing this news (it has decent English captions to follow along). In addition to revealing the mod, he also took out time to comment on the PS1 30th anniversary and LoD’s 25th anniversary. I had asked him about sharing the official developers’ 25th anniversary messages to fans, and I am grateful to say he obliged. The messages were translated into Portuguese and read aloud! What a treat. We hope this helps inspire more fans to create translations and script mods in general.
New Lore Unearthed from the Past!
Following up on the recent acquisition of old Japanese magazines, there is new information to reveal. Let’s look at a 2-page spread from Famitsu issue #578. This special coverage was focused around the idea of “Henshin” heroes, or heroes that transform. Some key aspects of transformation were discussed with LoD’s director Yasuyuki Hasebe, to see what LoD has in common with other transformation-based stories. We will post the full contents soon, but for now the highlights:
In LoD, the heroes unexpectedly gain the power of dragons, allowing them to transform into legendary warriors called Dragoons. When told this sounds just like a Henshin story, the director laughed, saying “That’s exactly what we had in mind.”
Unlocking Transformation With An Item
When asked about the Dragoon Spirit, the director says: The Magic Eye is made from a dragon’s eyes after its death, storing incredible magical energy. A Dragoon transforms by fusing with this powerful relic. The Magic Eye is only compatible with select individuals, meaning only the chosen can become Dragoons. Without a suitable host, it remains dormant, waiting for thousands of years until its next wielder appears.
Transformation Comes At A Cost
Director Hasebe expands on the concept of madness as the source of a Dragoon’s power. The Magic Eye is essentially a dragon’s spirit, so those who fuse with it become half-human and half-dragon. While transformed, they face an internal struggle between human reason and the dragon’s primal urge for destruction. The more they embrace the dragon’s madness, the stronger they become—that’s where their true power comes from.
However, if they lose control and let the madness consume them, they’ll enter a berserk state, ultimately leading to their body’s collapse. That’s why Dragoons can’t stay transformed for long. This is also why they are only able to transform into dragons for a brief moment.
Powers Gained As A Dragoon
When transforming into a Dragoon, the fastest ones can fly at speeds of around 1,200 km/h. Some Dragoons could even teleport, breaking the limits of physical speed entirely. While flying, their bodies are protected by a membrane-like barrier, allowing them to travel beyond the stratosphere for short periods.
In LoD, Dart gains control over fire, while Lavitz commands the wind. However, these powers depend heavily on the wielder’s experience. Just because someone becomes a Fire Dragoon doesn’t mean they can unleash world-destroying flames from the get-go. Incidentally, the Dragoons who defeated the Winglies 10,000 years ago had far more experience and thus significantly greater power than the current generation of Dragoons.
Using Ultimate Moves
Who are the dragons summoned by the Dragoons’ most powerful magic attacks? The dragons summoned through attack magic are, in fact, the very dragons with which the Dragoons are fused—their bonded dragons. When a Dragoon disappears right before an attack, it’s because they’ve transformed into the dragon they’re fused with.
When a Dragoon sheds their human form, the dragon’s consciousness materializes visibly to unleash the attack. However, this state places immense physical and mental strain on the Dragoon, so even the most experienced Dragoons can’t keep up this form for long.
I hope this coverage was exciting to read! This and more will be documented in our ever-growing Resource Archive, a comprehensive collection of LoD knowledge both common and rare.
Backstory for the North American Commercial
This research is years in the making. I was fortunate to get in touch with one of the original creators of LoD’s North American commercial. Yes, the weird 30-second spot featuring FMV footage followed by Dart and Lloyd having a goofy fight and a Hollywood Film joke. It was funny, but it didn’t represent the game well. How did this happen? I’ll share the first part of the story now as recalled by Mike Wellins of Will Vinton Studios, with a full reveal later. He also shared a still frame from the production.
“I remember it was a rush job, and we had a very short amount of time to do it. It was helmed by the Ad Agency Chiat Day, from LA, who were notorious for having crazy jobs and crazy problems. I think we might have had like 2 or 3 weeks, which was unheard of in those days. We used to spend 12 weeks on a single M&Ms ad back then. We were also using a software package through out the shop called Lightwave, but it wasn’t the standard so the studio was switching to Maya and it wasn’t going well. Lots of hiccups and lots of people who were experts in Lightwave were struggling with Maya.
So I remember that we said that if we had to create the characters from scratch, we’d need more time, and we weren’t sure if we’d be able to import the characters from the game, but with some technical stuff we were able successfully load their models and rig them for our animation without too many issues.
It seemed like we were waiting to see if we could load the models before even agreeing to do the job, because the turn around was quick. There were two young men, ‘creatives’ from Chiat Day who came to Portland to work with us. At this point, we didn’t know what their concept was, we were just waiting to see the models first before even accepting the job. Ultimately I think we also agreed that the footage from the game had to take up a certain amount so that we only did the shortest bit possible. And all of this was because of the short schedule. I had done another hairball spot for Chiat day before, so kept getting these, and delivering so I became the guy who got the really broken stuff.
So once the models worked, some other execs from Sony and the game company came into Portland for a conference call with Chiat Day people and our people. So these two guys then pitch their concept to everyone: the Sony people and their superiors in LA who are on the conference call and us.
It didn’t go well. Everyone is keenly aware of our insane time constraints, and these two young guys start describing something with all these sets, and set ups, and other monsters, and our producer is turning white…” (to be continued)
Okay, that’s all for now. I hope this announcement has left you feeling excited and eager for more. Enjoy, take care, and Happy New Year!
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