Panzer Dragoon Orta (Some Images from the official website)
By Air Bike Cop
System: X-Box
Developer: Smilebit

Introduction

I remember back around late 2001 when the Microsoft Xbox was first released. I wasn’t too impressed with the system or the launch games, but starting around early-2002 I started to become more interested in the system, due to the fact that I am a big Sega fan, and Sega where supporting it like crazy and almost all of it’s high key releases where planned to be released – or released on the system. Anyway,

Panzer Dragoon Orta was released in late-December 2002 in Japan for the Microsoft Xbox. The game was developed by Smilebit and published by Sega. Since I live in the states, I had to wait till the middle of January for the game to be released here. The game was met with a lot of hype and good reviews shortly after its release. Most of the press can be attributed to the fact that a new Panzer Dragoon game was being released! Also, Sega and Microsoft released a special edition Xbox that was painted white and had a smattering of Panzer Dragoon artwork all over the system. That added a lot of hype also. Unfortunately, the special edition Xbox was very rare with less than a thousand made, and it was only available from Sega’s D-Direct online store. With that hype, people bought the game and where impressed. I am one of those people.

Review

The game is a very rich looking game, and it’s one of the best-looking games that I have ever seen. The game has very little slowdown, with lots of enemies on the screen, which is crucial to this type of game, and every thing is all painstakingly detailed. I remember when I saw one of the cut-scene using graphics from the game (none of that CGI stuff) and I was floored, and this cut-scene had some nice water effects. What was really amazing about them is that they where really realistic.

The sound also doesn’t disappoint either. The soundtrack isn’t nearly as good as any of the other Panzer Dragoon games but Panzer Dragoon Orta’s soundtrack is awesome in it’s own right. I really, really love the ending theme, I love it so much that before I bought the OST, and I’d beat the game just to listen to the ending theme. The sound effects aren’t half bad either. They sound very convincing also. Thankfully, Smilebit decided to keep the original Japanese voices, rather than dub them over with English ones, which would probally, sound really bad.

The gameplay is the main attraction here, and it doesn’t disappoint. The gameplay is a behind the view shooter that gives you control of a Dragon with a decent amount of room to work with. Besides moving up and down, along with moving left and right you are able to rotate the camera, and that gives you slightly more freedom. If you’ve ever played After Burner or Star Fox then you’ll feel at home, as this game is similar to them. The only main difference is that you get more freedom with the camera. As with those games, this game is pretty hard, almost impossible to beat, but still, you can adjust the difficultly, and that should make it easier to some. The games bosses are really tough, yet the final boss was rather easy, compared to the bosses of Level’s 4,7, and 8.

The main game is rather short, but you get a ton of added extras. Cut scenes, illustrations, and even the original Panzer Dragoon with everything intact. The port of Panzer Dragoon is based on the PC port of the Sega Saturn original. Despite being a port of a port there’s no slowdown or anything like that. It’s a nice inclusion because it not only adds tons more replay value to an already great game, it shows us how far we have come from the games of yore.

Conclusion

Panzer Dragoon Orta is not only a stunning game that looks good, sounds good, and plays good; it’s a stunning game that was worthy of all of the hype and attention that it deserved – and rightfully got. Still, there is room for improvement. The story was a rather epic one, a girl is the last person alive in her village and she teams up with a dragon from an evil empire. But the story was delivered from some very weak cut-scenes, that and the gameplay never really pushed the story, so a lot of potential was lost. Despite the lack of decent story telling, the gameplay, sound and graphics help push the game to be a very good one.

Air Bike Cop