Panzer Dragoon Orta

While its core gameplay is the very definition of old school, Panzer Dragon: Orta is much more than a shooter on rails. The dragon that Orta rides can shift into three forms: light, medium, and heavy. Success depends on a player's ability to quickly shift between forms in order to take advantage of the particular abilities of each. The medium form is useful in most situations. The light form is fast and maneuverable, ideal for quickly shooting down swarms of projectiles or attaining a favorable tactical position. The heavy form presents a slow, big target, but sports the most damaging weapons in the game. The shape-shifting aspect adds depth to the game, especially considering that each form can be upgraded with power-ups and enables a unique special ability.

Clever shifting strategy and a sharpshooter's eye earn a player much more than victory and power-ups. Skilled players are rewarded with extras such as passages of Panzer Dragoon fiction, concept sketches, additional playable characters, extra missions, and even the original Panzer Dragoon game from 1995. The goodies celebrate the rich history of the Panzer Dragoon series, and fill in the background of the game's unfolding story.

The story is worthy of praise. The game tells the tale of Orta, a young woman who is freed from lifelong imprisonment at the beginning of the game by a wondrous shape-shifting dragon. You play as Orta as she and her dragon blast their way through an oppressive empire's legions of soldiers and bioengineered monsters, all the while seeking the truth behind Orta's imprisonment and destiny.

Disappointingly, the genuinely interesting story is told through subtitles instead of spoken English. Subtitles would be fine for slow sections or noninteractive cutscenes, but Orta's text is displayed during pitched battles. The frantic pace and constant action demand the player's full attention, making it difficult to read text when you're desperately gunning down 20 incoming missiles while dodging around a cliff wall and trying to draw a bead on a flying battleship's weak point. In other words: the game is so good, you shouldn't be forced to take your eyes off the action for even a second.

Challenging, rewarding, and beautiful, Panzer Dragoon: Orta stands with Halo as one of the must-have Xbox games. --Mike Fehlauer

Pros:

• Gorgeous graphics
• Varied gameplay; three dragon forms add depth
• Excellent extras

Cons:

• Subtitles
• Easy mode isn't

While its core gameplay is the very definition of old school, Panzer Dragon: Orta is much more than a shooter on rails. The dragon that Orta rides can shift into three forms: light, medium, and heavy. Success depends on a player's ability to quickly shift between forms in order to take advantage of the particular abilities of each. The medium form is useful in most situations. The light form is fast and maneuverable, ideal for quickly shooting down swarms of projectiles or attaining a favorable tactical position. The heavy form presents a slow, big target, but sports the most damaging weapons in the game. The shape-shifting aspect adds depth to the game, especially considering that each form can be upgraded with power-ups and enables a unique special ability.

Clever shifting strategy and a sharpshooter's eye earn a player much more than victory and power-ups. Skilled players are rewarded with extras such as passages of Panzer Dragoon fiction, concept sketches, additional playable characters, extra missions, and even the original Panzer Dragoon game from 1995. The goodies celebrate the rich history of the Panzer Dragoon series, and fill in the background of the game's unfolding story.

The story is worthy of praise. The game tells the tale of Orta, a young woman who is freed from lifelong imprisonment at the beginning of the game by a wondrous shape-shifting drag

While that might initially scare off some gamers, don't be fooled - though PDO's confined to "rails", the degree of freedom the gamer feels, and the sheer sense of scale and majesty that a fixed camera offers the developers makes PDO one of the grandest, most impressive xbox games available to date. Easily more beautiful than any other game on any system available, PDO's graphics live up to the hype. Huge, detailed worlds are filled with huge, detailed enemies, and the sheer size of some of the things in this game, from an airship easily ten thousand times the size of Orta (the girl you control), to a squadron of "Dragonmares", similar to Orta's steed, but pure evil, the environments in PDO have to be experienced to be believed.

In terms of gameplay, it's substantially more complex than either the previous installments of the series, and even more complex than the sum of the individual parts. Orta can shoot her gun, or lock her dragon onto a number of enemies, and her dragon can speed up, slow down, or change between three forms. The base wing, heavy wing, and glide wing. The base wing is the all-around form, the heavy wing has fewer lock ons, but does twice as much damage, and the glide wing can move faster, and rapid-fire in such a way that you can shoot missiles out of the sky with relative ease.

Each form also has a unique berserker attack, and each is useful in different situations. What these controls allow is for a tremendous amount of stratey and depth on top of the standard shooting game format - you'll find yourself changing forms often, and using the strengths of the various forms to your full advantage. You'll need to, because in anything other than easy mode, the game is *hard*.

On top of the standard game, there's a whole gallery of things to unlock, from almost as many sidequests as there are main missions, to volumes of information on the Panzer Dragoon world, and the events that took place in the past games. There's even a complete version of Panzer Dragoon, for those that never played the original (shame that Zwei and Saga were not included, but I suppose the Saturn conversion is tricky (the original was ported to the PC some time ago, and thus, was relatively trivial to convert to the xbox).

Overall there's simply no reason not to buy this game. Classic gameplay, tons of extras, combined with the best graphics in any game to date make for an entirely worthwhile purchase. I can only hope that this game reaches a huge audience, and drives Sega to make a Panzer Dragoon Saga II.


A Fantastic Game, but Much Too Short   January 28, 2003
Jason Waldman (Laguna Niguel, CA, USA)
19 out of 20 found this review helpful

"Panzer Dragoon Orta" is the kind of game that makes you thank god you have an Xbox. It is hauntingly beautiful yet filled with enough action to keep you interested.

The game is the latest installment in the "Panzer Dragoon" saga, which was about the only decent thing on the Sega Saturn. You basically fly around on a dragon, killing enemies and fighting huge boss battles. In this game, your dragon can assume three different forms, and you can switch between them at will. Each form has its own strengths and weaknesses, meaning you actually have to employ some strategy to get through most of the levels.

The gameplay is very strong. This is a rail shooter, so you move along a path for the whole level, like "Star Fox" The controls are also simple to understand. You hit one button to shift between forms, another to use your special "berserk" attacks, another to dash and brake, and another to shoot your gun or use your homing lasers. You also can easily move the camera around with a tap of the L or R buttons to face enemies faster. The enemies are widely varies and provide enough of a challenge to engage, but not frustrate, the average gamer. The boss battles are really things of beauty. You have to find the weak point of each boss by flying around using your dash abilities while dodging attacks. In later stages, this requires a lot of work, as the weak point shifts and you have to use different forms to beat a boss.

Graphically, "Orta" is as good as it gets. Each level is like a piece of art and each individual enemy is extensively detailed. The bosses are simply huge and well-designed, providing enough eye candy to almost make you forget that you're about to be fried by a huge energy beam. Soundwise, "Orta" is a little disappointing. The music sounds very much like the music in the original "Panzer Dragoon". Even some of the sound effects remain unchanged.

Speaking of the original game, it's include on here, along with five short bonus missions and a sub-scenario about a boy who's father was killed by the dragon. They're fun to play, as you get to pilot different vehicles and go through new storylines.

The main reason I didn't give this game five stars was because it is much, much too short. I appreciate all the extras, like the encyclopedia and still art, but a lot of that memory could have been used to add more gameplay. I beat this game in less than a week, and I wasn't even playing as much as I usually do. If Sega comes out with a second game for the Xbox, it needs to have at least twenty levels. You also come away from this game at the end feeling a little unsatisfied at the ending.

Overall, this is an outstanding game that deserves to be a part of your library just so you can say you have it. But, like a "Far Side Gallery" book, it doesn't take very long to finish.


An aquired taste...will only appeal to every xbox owner   January 30, 2003
D. Baker (Atlanta, GA)
17 out of 17 found this review helpful

Nostalgia aside, Panzer is a top notch experience from every angle. In a nutshell, you pilot a girl and her dragon against
some incredible bosses, make some freinds, and blast your way through a deep story about a race of humans in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world that may or may not be a future earth.
If you appreciate good science fiction and dig very cool, very strange graphics then you will not be disappointed.
Lots of awesome unlockables round out a very polished production. The cut scenes tell a well-crafted tale and the game world is extremely detailed in it's execution.
Pandora's box is where you open the goodies you have earned and they are sweet and plentiful. Everything from an encyclopedia
to extra missions to production art is there for the earning.
Not to mention an entire first Panzer game that came out for the Sega Saturn.
This is a game you put on to blow away your freinds but it is also mega-tweeked gameplay that will keep you coming back for more.
Those who dismiss it as simplistic need to give it more time to sink in. This is a shooter at heart, but the action, artwork and level bosses elevate it beyond the norm.
This is not an easy game, but not too difficult. The controls take some mastering, but a few hours in and you will be at one with your dragon girl.
Between the great graphics and tense action-the challenge is keeping your tongue inside your mouth while playing.


Incredible.   January 9, 2004
A.N. Roman (Hillsboro, OR)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Having never played a Panzer Dragoon game before, I didn't really know what to expect. All I knew was that it was a "rail-shooter". Since it was made by Sega though, I knew it was going to be good. Once that opening movie kicked in, I was amazed. After hearing so much about how good the graphics are, I agree- this is the best looking game out to date. But as we all know, it's not the graphics that make the game (or the story/plot for that matter), but how fun it is. Is this game fun? Yes. In fact, this is one of the best games I've played in my life.

Within the first 20 seconds of playing, you're thrown into a frenzy of shooting. In fact, there aren't many times where you don't hold the trigger button. The dragon you ride has 3 forms- Base, Heavy, and Glide. Each one has its own special features. Base can lock on to multiple targets, and shoot quick bursts of rapid shots. It also has 2 speed boosts or slow downs that it can use before recovering. Heavy locks on to 3 enemies at a time, but damages them more...but it also doesn't have a boost/break feature. And Glide is the smallest, most manuverable having 3 boosts/breaks...but it is also the weakest, having only a rapid gun. Luckily, you can switch between the three forms in a split second as much as you want by tapping 'Y'. With all the combat that goes on, you'll be doing a lot of switching. Also, each form has its own unique special attack. The Glide form is the only one that can recover itself by destroying enemies with it. Oh I guess I should mention- there are no ways to recover your health otherwise (unless you play on Easy, where you heal after every level).

The world of Panzer Dragoon Orta is probably its best quality in addition to being pure action. The lands and creatures you see are breath taking, and quite an achievement. Only Sega could deliver something with this much effort put into it. As for the length of the game, yes, it's pretty short. You could beat it in one sitting if you had 2 or 3 hours probably. But there are also normal and hard difficulties to beat, and then wanting to beat your records for each level. The story was nice as well. Orta is/was a captive in an Imperial prison, when the legendary dragon rescued her. You'll learn more after you beat the game through the Pandora's Box- a collection of tons of extras.

Pandora's box includes picture galleries, an appendix of the Panzer Dragoon world, records for the levels, the original Panzer Dragoon for Sega Saturn (after you beat the game on any difficulty). What I thought was coolest though, was the side-story you can play as a boy whose dad was killed by the dragon. It was pretty emotional when you read his story. The lack of voice overs for it and no music drives it through you even more.

There are just two things I want to clear up from the previous, ignorant reviewers. The game isn't in Japanese. It's a combination of Japanese, Spanish, Latin, German, and a few other languages combined. If you can't take the sub-titles, then I don't get what your problem is. And the cutscenes can be skipped. Just press 'start' and you can go straight into the action. It's that simple.

There's just so much to say about the game itself: music, action, design, replay, extras, etc. It's a pity that it didn't sell very well here in the states. But that's Sega for you- bringing the best quality games, and never getting what they deserve. You'd never see a game like this on GameCube or PS2...or any of their other big name titles (Shenmue in particular). You won't be disappointed with this game, I guarentee it.


Just amazing.   January 11, 2004
Jack Wade (Austin, TX, USA)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

This game is flat out amazing, in every department. Graphics are the best I've ever seen in a game, still. The gameplay is extremely fun and rigorously challenging.

As most people know, Panzer Dragoon has a long and arduously thought-out history to it. Its world is incredibly detailed and unique, so much that the makers even half-created a new dialect for it. (That is the reason for the subtitles. They're not speaking Japanese, they're speaking Panzerish, a modified version of the language.) I've heard complaints about these features, and all I can say is, if you can't appreciate the level of dedication these people put into their games... then don't play them. Simple.

On to the gameplay. The Panzer Dragoon series has almost always been an on-rails shooter, and Orta is no exception. You ride a dragon around on a predetermined path, taking out enemies and obstacles in your way. Sounds boring, right? Well, it can be... if it's not done right.

Thankfully, Smilebit found a nice formula. There are three forms of the dragon that you ride. For simplicity's sake, I'll call them "Light, Normal, and Heavy". Each form has its own special ability, as "Berzerk" attack. The Light form is, obviously, the most nimble one and has the least firepower, with no ability to lock on. It has three bar meters for Gliding/Braking, which recharge by themselves over time. Its special attack can recharge your health when you destroy enemies with it. Normal form can lock on to multiple targets, with the number increasing as your dragon progresses throughout the game. It has two bar meters for Glide/Brake. The special attacks all enemies on screen. The Heavy form can only lock on to three targets at first (this number also increases, but not very much). However, it deals heavy damage, of course. It is the slowest moving of the three forms, and has no capability of gliding/braking. Its Berzerk is a concentrated beam which deals big damage. Pressing Y quickly and easily cycles through forms during gameplay.

As for gliding and braking... these are new features added for Orta. Pressing X will glide, B will brake. Gliding and braking can be used for many things, such as avoiding attacks, maneuvering around bosses, and a ramming attack (glide only). They add much depth to the game, along with the form-switching.

Put these two gameplay features together, and you have an extremely challenging and addictive game. Then there is the Pandora's Box feature. This "Box" contains tons of unlockable features and articles about the history of the Panzer Dragoon world. One of them is the original Panzer Dragoon game, which is very cool that Smilebit included it.

BUT - and I emphasize this but - if you are a gamer who gets bored quickly, or aren't interested in digging out and getting swallowed in a game's world, or just hate rail shooters, this game is NOT for you (and only you).