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Panzer finally comes to the masses

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 20 / 22
Date: January 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

While Sega's Panzer Dragoon franchise is beloved among gamers who have played the earlier games in the series, it's always been confined to the relatively small audience that actually puchased a Sega Saturn. Finally, the rest of the world can see what those who've experienced the series have been raving about, with Panzer Dragoon Orta, the series' first installment on a non-Sega console. While Panzer Dragoon Saga brought the series into the RPG genre, PDO returns to the shooter-on-rails genre where the series began.

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.

An aquired taste...will only appeal to every xbox owner

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 17
Date: January 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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.

Just amazing.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: January 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

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).

Panzer Dragoon ORTA --- a tour de force

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: February 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It's hard to describe the Panzer Dragoon series (Saga aside) without upsetting someone. At it's heart they are a cross between Space Harrier and Rez, viewed third person and directly into the screen. Orta is a direct follow up - although not necessarily in terms of storyline - and doesn't move too far from the tradition. You're still on the back of a dragon and you're still up against thousands of enemies.

Your dragon has 3 freely-interchangable types. Firstly, you start out in Base mode, which has a large number of lock-on targets, a decent rate of fire for your normal gun, and average defense. You can also store up to two glide moves which work a little like the brake and boost in Starfox for the N64. A tap of the Y button switches to Heavy mode which is a bulkier version of the dragon, with fewer lock-on targets and a slower firing rate, although both missiles and the gun dish out higher damage; your defensive capabilities are lower, though, and you can't glide. Finally, you have the Glide Mode, which is a small, nippy model, with a automatically targetting machine gun, up to 3 glides, heavy armour (oddly enough) but no lock-on missiles. As you can tell, selecting which mode to use at any given time is a requisite, and it's a skill you'll need to have mastered by the end of the first of ten levels.

The game's split into ten levels, although Sega like to call them 'episodes', and within each of these is the level boss. Brilliantly, the bosses don't always appear at the end of the level leaving you to delicately nurse your post-boss battle wounds through other scraps before you get to the end of the section. Whilst early on in Orta the tale follows something of a rudimentary storyline, later on in the game the various cutscenes dissolve into a sub-Rez level of storytelling: ultimately, of course, the whole thing revolves around 360 degrees and the final boss shouldn't really come as any surprise, but to get there you'll be led through some fairly preposterous levels. This shouldn't cause too much concern, though, as graphically, well, Orta is a thing of beauty.

People often like to link games with art, but this truly is the next generation. Without a solitary doubt, Panzer Dragoon Orta is the single-most visually impressive videogame in existance - it really is that good looking. Everything from the liquid smooth 60 frames a second to the gorgeous models, the amazing graphical effects like smoke and fire, the way the game effortlessly throws hundreds of things at you at once without a single stutter - it's breathtaking, and the only downside is that nothing is going to come anywhere near for a long time yet. If you've seen the screenshots (especially those from level 2 that are full of trees, water and plants) and you impressed then wait until you see it in motion. kick-....=D
Those worried about the lack of first-run gametime need not be too troubled, though - whilst you can reach the end in under 3 hours, it's a different story entirely on the higher difficulty levels - Sega really do cater for the hardcore and this reviewer was forced to re-... his gaming skills after facing the final enemy on any level above easy. Of course, this being a Panzer Dragoon game there's plenty of things to see and do once the main game is over - the Pandora's Box in Orta features not only a complete sub-game (with multiple levels, cutscenes and it's own storyline) there's also a number of side-quests featuring episodes that run concurrently alongside those in the main game, but with different characters and so on. Glossaries and encyclopedia's make for essential reading for PD fans, too.

Orta stumbles slightly in the presentation stakes though. Whilst the English subtitles, menus and appendices are greatly appreciated (despite this being a Japanese release) the menus themselves aren't as attractive as the rest of the game, and the Pandora's Box feature becomes far too messy to really appreciate fully without wading through realms of text and menu options. There's also loading delays that tend to get in the way slightly.

However, it's not my intention to let these niggles get in the way of what can only be described as the finest on-rails shooter in existance. Panzer Dragoon Orta is most definitely the best of it's genre and for shooter fans it's absolutely unmissable. Those with even a passing interest in Sega's most commercially underrated series, though, will already have it pre-ordered, and if you haven't, you're going to be missing the ride of your life. Orta oozes playability and style, and is a real graphical tour-de-force for the Xbox. Enjoy.

p.s. orta's pretty hot too. =P

Incredible.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: January 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

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.

Borrowed it 4 days ago, brought it today

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: January 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is simply one of those games that are must own games on the Xbox. This game that seemed like it was dead on the saturn, just bursted alive with alot of life on the Xbox, this game has superb gameplay, and it's also very fin as well. The graphics take control of the Xbox's power and introduces stunning graphics. The replay value, well I dunno, I'm like half-way on the game, and it's quite a bit hard cuz I keep dyin to those..., but I'll get through em' eventually. Overall this game can't be missed out on, and if u have a Xbox, u shouldn'd hesitate to get this game. It's one of the best games you'll find this year

Extraordinarily Entertaining

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: May 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I rated this game 5 stars despite 2 major cons: (1) I beat this game after owning it for less than three hours; (2) the story mode makes about as much sense as The Red Wheelbarrow. The 10 short missions in this game have provided me with hours of fun, although I do not understand the idea behind any of them. For example, there is a mission where you fly the dragon across the back of a gigantic sawbug-like animal who has forests and villages on him. The enemies you shoot down are extremely weird. I would expect to see the aliens from Halo walking around my town before those crazy fools. Also, one of the bosses appears to be a giant forest that floats around in the water and shoots "cells" at you when bulbs suspended from his body burst. These unusual levels, wacky enemies, and indescribable bosses are nonetheless comprised of the best graphics I have seen. Maybe the oddities of Panzer would have bothered me less if it were intentionally funny. Nonetheless, Panzer Dragoon Orta is an absolutely beautiful game, and has good replay value. However, don't expect to think the story will make sense unless you dig that "My heart is heavy because I envy your honor." garbage. Even though the story was so bad, I watched all of the cutscenes and the credits just because I liked the pictures so much. If you own an xbox, buy this game because shooting things down is fun, even if you have no clue what the enemies are.

Loving It!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

If ever you have enjoyed an arcade type "shooter" then this is the game for you. Also this game is for anyone who enjoys fast, intense action.

PDO delivers in all the areas a game needs to: amazing graphics, awesome story (unless you dislike Japanese animation), intense gameplay, and to provide longevity are a lot of extras.

As you can see many reviewers have given very long reviews and I feel that is a testament to the passion with which this game inspires some people (I am such, but don't feel the need to be redundant).

Some have complained the game is too short--if you don't die much you can probably finish it in about 6 hours. But there are a lot of extras to be unlocked such as about 15 sub-missions and the original Panzer Dragoon game. These additions at least double the play time. And if you are like me you will play the main game several times over to try to get better scores. The player is graded on each level based on the percentage of enemies killed, hits taken, and how fast you can kill the boss. There is even branching pathways in each episode that encourage replaying each level.

I guess shooting games aren't for everyone and you should know if this is you...

Orta Rocks!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: December 24, 2002
Author: Amazon User

If you have ever played any of the previous Panzer games, then you are anxiously awaiting the release of Orta just as I am! From what I have seen of the game (I live in Japan, so I have seen the game already at the Toys R Us) it promises to be just as good, no, better than the previous 3 games! The reason I chose an Xbox over PS2 was for this game alone! If you ever come across an old Saturn console, then I seriously suggest you find and play the first three Panzer games before playing Orta. You will be glued to your tube for days!

The greatest rail shooter ever made...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

For those of you wondering what all the "Panzer Dragoon" hub-ub is about, don't come in expecting a revolution in gameplay the way something like "Metal Gear Solid" revolutionized gameplay. The game is a rail shooter. You go down predetermined paths, and for the most part you aim your cursor at bad guys and shoot. That's the basic gist of it. It may not sound like much...but the whole package, in looks, sound and gameplay, is truly an experience you don't come across too often.

Like I said before, it's a rail shooter. You get to fly your dragon around an avoid enemies, and you can rotate around to look in all directions to kill bad guys, but that's as far as the freedom goes. You get to go down 1 of 2 paths in each stage, but it's no free roaming game. But some cool features add intence stratagy to the game. Your dragon has 3 forms, one for power, one for speed, and one balanced one, and you're gonna use 'em all. Switching between the forms takes only a press of the Y button, so it's easy enough (You cycle through the forms) and wise choices on the form you use is the difference between winning and losing. You may be using the Power form to kill enemies, but when they let off a barrage of shots, you'll want to VERY quickly switch to your Speed form and dodge and shoot down their shots. Each form also has it's own Berzerk attack, and depending on what kind of enemy you're fighting, you'll want to use different attacks. It's a real test of reflexes, especially in the laters levels (Which you'll never get to if you're not switching between forms correctly) The controls are very straightforward. Shoot, aim, special, change forms, glide, stop, and more than enough buttons to go around. One skim through the instructions, and you'll never need to ask what any certain button does.

The soundtrack is wonderful. The music alone will make you feel like you're all powerful and are a real-life Harbringer of Destruction. This is one game that makes you realize how far video games have come from the 8-Bit days. Hell, the soundtrack for this game makes you realize how far we've come from the 32-Bit days of 4 years ago, even. Eventually, orchestrated wil be the only way to go in video games...

The graphics...wow. As good as everything else is, the graphics make this game a must have. Sure, you buy games for the fun of playing them, but the graphics set the entire mood for the game. Even the animation of the words "Now loading" looks impressive. Not really, but you get the picture. Flying through canyons and shooting down evil looking dragons, flying through the clouds and finding a fleet of giant airships fade into your view from the other side...honestly, you can't realy can't fathom just how good this game looks from anyones words. It has to be seen. It's really, REALLY impressive...

This game is a complete package. While it may not have the most unique gameplay, it's highly enjoyable, VERY hard, easy on the ears, and an amazing visual achievement. You should at least rent it once just to see the game in action. Trust me, you'll be glad you did.

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