I like to think that Orta would definitely reconsider her terf bangs were she made aware of what the hairstyle implied
This review contains spoilers
when i had first beaten panzer dragoon on retroarch, i was hooked and deeply in love with the series. zwei kept me coming back, made me feeling like i was high on crack, and saga... my god no other game has left me THAT stunned and emotional by its ending, to say i was blown away would be an understatement. i was spacing out the games between 1-2 months so the time was right for each, and the wait for orta was incredibly anxious.
after my weekend trip i punched my light out, smashed my ass on the chair and was ready to engage with this. it started with the haunting and epic prologue, i hadnt felt this engaged in a while, almost as if i had been participating in a series (duh). the difficulty of the game quickly ramped up, the imperial ship put up the fucking fight of the century, my blood was rushing and my heart was PUMPING. i was gunning through this, not only was it a mental and physical workout but i was also having an absolute blast. after it was all said and done, i realized... holy shit THIS WAS THE FIRST BOSS?!?!? goddamn this game was pretty hard ngl but I actually loved that it was incredibly challenging, enhanced the feeling of reaping the skies. another thing that had me loving the game was the ost sounding like shpongle (which is probably my favorite band. gaining a huge bias in the process). i was in complete awe by the games imagination and scope.
a while before i played orta i was spoiled by the fact that she was azel's daughter. i was less confused and more curious how they would pull this off, in fact i was kinda stoked that i could potentially unlock her, but what they did with her was miles better than what i expected. her vague appearance and message was so sad yet wholesome i wanted to fucking cry ;_; azel is such an amazing character. my favorite part of the game was the imperial city, especially paired with its song. visually its bombastic, soaring through the top of the caves and blowing shit up, i sound like a dummy but yeah thats how i feel, a lad talking about the coolest shit hes experienced. my journey through panzer dragoon was coming to an end, but yet it wasn’t so sad, more optimistic than anything. i was finally closing the chapters, nearing the end of this chaotic and strangely beautiful world, needless to say it will forever hold a special place in my heart. i want these games injected into my blood stream
after my weekend trip i punched my light out, smashed my ass on the chair and was ready to engage with this. it started with the haunting and epic prologue, i hadnt felt this engaged in a while, almost as if i had been participating in a series (duh). the difficulty of the game quickly ramped up, the imperial ship put up the fucking fight of the century, my blood was rushing and my heart was PUMPING. i was gunning through this, not only was it a mental and physical workout but i was also having an absolute blast. after it was all said and done, i realized... holy shit THIS WAS THE FIRST BOSS?!?!? goddamn this game was pretty hard ngl but I actually loved that it was incredibly challenging, enhanced the feeling of reaping the skies. another thing that had me loving the game was the ost sounding like shpongle (which is probably my favorite band. gaining a huge bias in the process). i was in complete awe by the games imagination and scope.
a while before i played orta i was spoiled by the fact that she was azel's daughter. i was less confused and more curious how they would pull this off, in fact i was kinda stoked that i could potentially unlock her, but what they did with her was miles better than what i expected. her vague appearance and message was so sad yet wholesome i wanted to fucking cry ;_; azel is such an amazing character. my favorite part of the game was the imperial city, especially paired with its song. visually its bombastic, soaring through the top of the caves and blowing shit up, i sound like a dummy but yeah thats how i feel, a lad talking about the coolest shit hes experienced. my journey through panzer dragoon was coming to an end, but yet it wasn’t so sad, more optimistic than anything. i was finally closing the chapters, nearing the end of this chaotic and strangely beautiful world, needless to say it will forever hold a special place in my heart. i want these games injected into my blood stream
Panzer Dragoon Orta is another one of those games I mostly remember hearing about in magazines. It received a lot of praise at the time, but being as it was an Xbox exclusive, it was forever out of reach like other well-regarded classics of that generation, like Jet Set Radio Future and Blinx the Time Sweeper. You have no idea how much I longed to play Azurik: Rise of Perathia, there was a whole universe of games just beyond my grasp!
Unlike JSRF and its own predecessors, Orta is actually fairly accessible today thanks to the Xbox marketplace, and used copies are still reasonably priced. I've been thinking of grabbing one as recent delistings has inverted my prior (psychotic) belief that I need digital backups of all my physical games. Gotta cover all my bases, I need to be able to play this grungy-ass port of the PC version of Panzer Dragoon whenever I'd like, that's important.
In any case, it's nice that I finally got to check this game off my list after 20+ years of thinking "I really should play Panzer Dragoon Orta," and I'm happy that it lived up to years of continued hype. Orta feels like a culmination of Panzer Dragoon's narrative and mechanical ideas, borrowing from all three previous games in one way or another to create what I think is the most fully realized entry in the series.
Obviously, Orta models itself after the on-rails entries rather than continuing down the turn-based RPG path laid out by Saga. That's not to say it jettisons all of that game's identity, of course. Orta is similarly narrative heavy and makes good on Saga's world building and storyline by focusing on Azel and (presumably) Edge's daughter. Look, it's a little hard to say, Azel just downloaded some DNA and I'm not about to check the file properties on that. Orta also borrows from Saga's positional combat in a way that feels very naturalistic, so much so that I had to question if it was present in Zwei.
Speaking of Zwei, the dragon yet again has the ability to grow over time, but no longer does so based on end-of-level scores. Rather, it changes shape in real-time when enough power-ups are collected in a given form to advance it to the next stage of its evolution. This feels like a natural progression from Zwei, and though the effect might seem quaint today, that level of skeletal deformation and changes to texture mapping is one of Orta's most impressive features. Being able to swap between different attack types also adds a layer of depth, and the deeper into the game you progress, the more rapidly you'll find yourself flicking between forms in order to manage different enemy types. Though I found this a bit overwhelming initially, once you find the right flow and develop an eye for what enemy types you need to counter, it feels pretty good.
Unfortunately, I live in an imperfect, shitty, fucked up world where a sequel to Saga and the overall health of the franchise was solely dependent on how well Orta performed. Since then, we've gotten a remake of the first game that released 18 years after Sega put the series on ice, and people tore it apart for reasons I still can't quite wrap my head around. I think it's safe to say the book is closed on Panzer Dragoon, and that's a shame, but I do think Orta is a good note to go out on. There's no cliffhanger ending here to weigh down on me, though Orta's story is left open, and the gameplay is so tight and refined that I'm not left with a sense that they needed one more game to get things right.
Sometimes you just gotta be grateful for the Panzer Dragoons you got.
Unlike JSRF and its own predecessors, Orta is actually fairly accessible today thanks to the Xbox marketplace, and used copies are still reasonably priced. I've been thinking of grabbing one as recent delistings has inverted my prior (psychotic) belief that I need digital backups of all my physical games. Gotta cover all my bases, I need to be able to play this grungy-ass port of the PC version of Panzer Dragoon whenever I'd like, that's important.
In any case, it's nice that I finally got to check this game off my list after 20+ years of thinking "I really should play Panzer Dragoon Orta," and I'm happy that it lived up to years of continued hype. Orta feels like a culmination of Panzer Dragoon's narrative and mechanical ideas, borrowing from all three previous games in one way or another to create what I think is the most fully realized entry in the series.
Obviously, Orta models itself after the on-rails entries rather than continuing down the turn-based RPG path laid out by Saga. That's not to say it jettisons all of that game's identity, of course. Orta is similarly narrative heavy and makes good on Saga's world building and storyline by focusing on Azel and (presumably) Edge's daughter. Look, it's a little hard to say, Azel just downloaded some DNA and I'm not about to check the file properties on that. Orta also borrows from Saga's positional combat in a way that feels very naturalistic, so much so that I had to question if it was present in Zwei.
Speaking of Zwei, the dragon yet again has the ability to grow over time, but no longer does so based on end-of-level scores. Rather, it changes shape in real-time when enough power-ups are collected in a given form to advance it to the next stage of its evolution. This feels like a natural progression from Zwei, and though the effect might seem quaint today, that level of skeletal deformation and changes to texture mapping is one of Orta's most impressive features. Being able to swap between different attack types also adds a layer of depth, and the deeper into the game you progress, the more rapidly you'll find yourself flicking between forms in order to manage different enemy types. Though I found this a bit overwhelming initially, once you find the right flow and develop an eye for what enemy types you need to counter, it feels pretty good.
Unfortunately, I live in an imperfect, shitty, fucked up world where a sequel to Saga and the overall health of the franchise was solely dependent on how well Orta performed. Since then, we've gotten a remake of the first game that released 18 years after Sega put the series on ice, and people tore it apart for reasons I still can't quite wrap my head around. I think it's safe to say the book is closed on Panzer Dragoon, and that's a shame, but I do think Orta is a good note to go out on. There's no cliffhanger ending here to weigh down on me, though Orta's story is left open, and the gameplay is so tight and refined that I'm not left with a sense that they needed one more game to get things right.
Sometimes you just gotta be grateful for the Panzer Dragoons you got.
Poor Panzer Dragoon.
I only got into the series recently, and I've seen it has a dedicated fanbase, but between Saga and Orta, the Panzer Dragoon series is a strong contender for the most underrated game franchise ever. Orta alone puts rail-shooter classics like Star Fox 64 to shame, delivering both incredible gameplay and a universe to get lost in.
I only got into the series recently, and I've seen it has a dedicated fanbase, but between Saga and Orta, the Panzer Dragoon series is a strong contender for the most underrated game franchise ever. Orta alone puts rail-shooter classics like Star Fox 64 to shame, delivering both incredible gameplay and a universe to get lost in.
Orta stands out from its predecessors, not just because many of Team Andromeda's original members had already left before the start of its development, but also due to the series success being much intertwined with the Saturn's ambitions and limitations. The low poly fidelity of the Saturn funneled the devs creativity into the presentation of the world of Panzer Dragoon, buildinga unique universe of bright and strong colors, exotic soundscapes and sci fi fantasy backdrops that forced the players to fill in the blanks with their imagination. But that's not to say that Orta doesn't have the craft to make it a worthy successor to the Saturn lineage.
Now a child of the tech powerhouse that was the Xbox, Orta had the opportunity to fully realize the potential of Panzer Dragoon's world without having to take shortcuts in its visual fidelity. For an early Xbox game, Orta is still an impressive display of vast mountain, forest and open sky landscapes, filled with swirling ships, monsters and gigantic bosses that the console just shrugs off as you shoot homing missiles at eveything on sight. Complemented by a serene and subdued soundtrack, Orta is able to turn a genre known for its bombastic action into a somber and introspective adventure.
It is also the most accomplished and fully realized rail shooting experience in the franchise. Not settling with being a simple callback to the series, it builds upon the ideas of the previous entries, like the evolution mechanic of Zweii and the dragon morphing ability of Saga, to give a highly replayable challenging campaign with a plethora of maneuvourability and combat options to the player that make aerial skirmishes engaging and never frustrating to master. Orta was one of the last hurrahs of a company who rarely sacrificed fun for its artistic endeavours, a feat which the Panzer Dragoon series most exemplified and which Orta continued on.
While not being able to significantly expand on the story and concepts of Panzer Dragoon beyond what Saga had already achieved, Orta still manages to effectively embrace the themes of land ravaging warfare, the folly of playing God with nature and the price that comes with forgetting the past. The unwillingness to learn from the mistakes that were practiced by the Ancestors and that fuel much of the conflict that happens in these games has been a major throughline of the series, shackling is inhabitants to a war they dont understand against forces they do not comprehend, and I think it's fitting that the franchise's ending note is one where the character Orta, the legacy of the two main opposing forces of Panzer Dragoon, bears the torch into an uncertain but possibly brighter future.
Ultimately, what you should get out of this is that it is now possible to play the whole Panzer Dragoon series from start to finish from the comfort of your PC without much hassle or hiccups. The world is finally healing.
Now a child of the tech powerhouse that was the Xbox, Orta had the opportunity to fully realize the potential of Panzer Dragoon's world without having to take shortcuts in its visual fidelity. For an early Xbox game, Orta is still an impressive display of vast mountain, forest and open sky landscapes, filled with swirling ships, monsters and gigantic bosses that the console just shrugs off as you shoot homing missiles at eveything on sight. Complemented by a serene and subdued soundtrack, Orta is able to turn a genre known for its bombastic action into a somber and introspective adventure.
It is also the most accomplished and fully realized rail shooting experience in the franchise. Not settling with being a simple callback to the series, it builds upon the ideas of the previous entries, like the evolution mechanic of Zweii and the dragon morphing ability of Saga, to give a highly replayable challenging campaign with a plethora of maneuvourability and combat options to the player that make aerial skirmishes engaging and never frustrating to master. Orta was one of the last hurrahs of a company who rarely sacrificed fun for its artistic endeavours, a feat which the Panzer Dragoon series most exemplified and which Orta continued on.
While not being able to significantly expand on the story and concepts of Panzer Dragoon beyond what Saga had already achieved, Orta still manages to effectively embrace the themes of land ravaging warfare, the folly of playing God with nature and the price that comes with forgetting the past. The unwillingness to learn from the mistakes that were practiced by the Ancestors and that fuel much of the conflict that happens in these games has been a major throughline of the series, shackling is inhabitants to a war they dont understand against forces they do not comprehend, and I think it's fitting that the franchise's ending note is one where the character Orta, the legacy of the two main opposing forces of Panzer Dragoon, bears the torch into an uncertain but possibly brighter future.
Ultimately, what you should get out of this is that it is now possible to play the whole Panzer Dragoon series from start to finish from the comfort of your PC without much hassle or hiccups. The world is finally healing.