Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons…
Orta is a young girl who has been locked up in her cell since she was very small. She has absolutely no idea of who she is, or what she has done to deserve her fate. One storm night, a squadron of five dragonmares fly toward the tower which has held Orta for almost all her life; their goal is to exterminate the girl. Orta has no clue of what is going on, but is suddenly rescued in the course of the attack by a dragon, who aids in her escape. The guards and other dragons give chase, and that’s where the action begins.
Like the first two entries in the Panzer Dragoon series, Orta is a rail based shooter. Anyone who has played Rez or Space Harrier should settle into the game easily. You control your dragon as well as a small targeting reticule. Hold down the shoot button and the reticule will change colour, and you can lock onto enemies. Let go of the button, and your projectiles will fly into them, hopefully ending their existence.
Fortunately, things are a little more complicated than that. The action in Panzer Dragoon Orta takes place in a 360 degree viewpoint, with 90 degrees viewable at any one time. The triggers on the controller will change the viewpoint from the front to the sides to the rear, and coming adept in this area will greatly help you in the quest. On top of the multiple views, there are three different forms your dragon can morph into – Base wing, Heavy wing and Glide wing. Base wing has average power and mobility, but can lock onto a heap of targets at once. Heavy wing is slow, but powerful and can only attack 4 targets at once. Glide wing is fast, but weak, and cannot lock onto targets – however it has a rapid fire weapon. Each form will level up gradually throughout the game, so you must manage which wings you use in each different part of the game, and strengthen the one which suits you most.
While the levels in Orta are completely linear and on-rails, there are multiple branching paths in each of the levels, adding somewhat to the very short length of the game. There is the likelihood that you will go a different way each time you play. Panzer Dragoon Orta features 10 main story levels, as well as a stack of extra missions in the Pandora’s Box. You’ll find a whole horde of goodies in there, such as the original Saturn version of Panzer Dragoon, intro and end movies for Zwei and Saga, a set of extra episodes telling another story, bonus missions, artwork and much, much more.
The glaring problem with Orta is the lack of length of the game. The main quest took all of an hour and a half to finish. You will have to finish it more than once if you’re set on unlocking all of the goodies in the Pandora’s Box, and seeing all the different paths, but I find this forced replaying to cheapen the experience a little. It’s almost fair to say that you’re not really going to get $100 of enjoyment out of this one unless you really begin to fall in love with the game.
I summon thee, almighty dragon!
To be frank, Panzer Dragoon Orta is easily the best looking game on the Xbox thus far. Graphics whores will be frothing at the mouths over ever little detail which the game displays, while those less discerning eyes will still be impressed. All the nice effects of the Xbox are in full swing; bump mapping, particle effects, high quality textures and brilliant lighting, all running at a silky smooth frame rate. The animation and modeling in the game is superb – the morphing of the dragons must be seen. Even the details on the smaller creatures are excellent.
The environments featured in Orta are jaw dropping, with some amazing details – such as weather effects in the first level, or the waterfall effects in the second level, or the memory warp effects later on in the game; these all reflect the level of excellence Smilebit have achieved with the graphical output in this game.
The soundtrack mainly consists of reorchestrated versions of the original Panzer Dragoon soundtrack, but the atmosphere provided by the music is more than satisfactory. The screaming dragons and the whizzing of lasers sound great on stereo and phenomenal on a Dolby Digital 5.1 receiver, which leads me to envy those who always have access to that technology. Voice acting is relatively tough to call in this case, as it seems to be replicated some sort of tongue which is unique to the game.
Panzer Dragoon Orta is easily the greatest graphical feat accomplished thus far on the Xbox, and is a total blast to play. The main problems lie in its linearity and complete absence of length and longevity. If you can justify paying $100 for a game which is short on length, but high on replayability, go ahead. There’s a ton of extras available for those who want to get them, but it still won’t extend things over the 10 hour mark – it’s the way of the rail shooter.
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