Panzer Dragoon Orta (2002)

Managed to complete this already but I'll hold on a bit before giving it a grade. Need to play some more and see some extras to get a better grasp. It's somewhere between four and five stars for me. It's a very well made on-rails shooter. It's a classic game in two ways: because of its high quality and because its so classically arcade-like. You shoot enemies, you meet a big baddie, mission accomplished, onto the next one.

It's not nearly as charming or kooky as Starfox 64 but offers a lot more depth than that game ever did. This differs from Starfox by having a camera that can be rotated 360 degrees whilst flying on rails. Mostly this works nicely but at times the camera can be a bit confusing. Also, whereas Starfox had three different vehicles that you had to use in specific levels, this one has three modes for your dragon, each with their own uses and strengths. This was done well. Using different modes in different parts often made a big difference and especially later bosses leaned heavily on this. The bosses in general were a bit spongy but fair and learnable in very good way. Boss phases that felt tough at first were a breeze after a while because you could already counter and dodge everything. The only kind-of exception to the fairness is the final boss which had an attack that I would not have figured out how to dodge so I looked it online after a dozen attempts or so. It spams the like crazy in its final phase so certain death there. Once you know what to do, it's pretty easy to counter. But beating the final boss after the initial frustration was really rewarding. It also helps that the visuals of the fight are pretty striking.

Not to say the game isn't striking elsewhere. Presentation-wise this brings the goods. The art direction of this is pretty damn good and for a 20 years old game it sure looks amazing (crikey, 2003 was 20 years ago). Good soundtrack too.

Four stars, five stars, whatever. Heavily recommended for those looking for something fast, short and arcadey.

Without knowing much about it and having never played any Panzer Dragoon games, what little I heard about it made me think it was something that I could potentially like. So one day I bought this game second-hand and borrowed my friend's Xbox just to play it and despite encountering extreme difficulty in the beginning I couldn't stop playing this game. I had a hard time with the first level but managed to get by it but then the second level arrived and was like a brick wall. I must have failed the second level 20 times before I eventually "got it" and figured out how I was supposed to play in order to survive. It's one of the few very difficult games that I actually enjoyed. Figuring out when to use rapid fire shooting and the more powerful lock-on missiles became something really engaging to me for some reason. My best guess is that it has some arcade sensibilities, there's no waiting around for "things to get good" so to speak. The graphics in the second level were really beautiful so wanting to see more of it and what was after it probably also helped me to persevere through the repeated failures.

I didn't fail any of the other levels nearly as much as that second level except for the final boss whom I never beat because at one point I didn't play the game for 3 days and I felt I had lost too much of my twitch reactions to attempt to beat the final boss again and decided I should return the XBox to my friend. But I enjoyed playing this so much and the graphics and overall style were mesmerizing to me. One day I would like to play it again and try to beat it. But it seems I'm doomed to like franchises that aren't very popular and tend to go dormant for long periods of time.

If there ever were to be a proper sequel to this game or even a good spiritual one, I think it would be nice to put the aiming on the right analog stick so that moving the dragon and shooting wouldn't be tied together. Or maybe remaster Orta with this as an alternate control scheme. Actually this is a game that I think would've been great on the Wii with its remote for aiming and nunchuk controller.