Review: Panzer Dragoon Orta
Sega?s surreal dragon-riding series makes its first post-Saturn appearance?and the Xbox is exactly the platform it?s been waiting for.
What was once strange and abstract due to Saturn polygon count restrictions is now beautiful and surreal through sheer force of insane creative genius. Panzer Dragoon Orta is a masterpiece of electronic art.
Yeah, but Is It a Game?
Panzer Dragoon Orta exists on two levels: The first is as a 10-stage rail shooter, an archaic and straightforward game style that?s been all but shunned and forgotten in this modern era of fully immersive 3D worlds. But Orta has evolved beyond its roots: While your dragon is more or less guided toward its destiny down a designated path (with multiple ?branch points?), you can, as in previous Dragoon titles, rotate the camera to look in front of, behind, or to either side of your dragon depending on where your foes are currently clustered. You now also have the ability to slow down to dodge certain obstacles and tear apart groups of enemies with a wicked dash move. Boss battles take a note from Panzer Dragoon Saga (the brilliant-but-barely-played Saturn RPG), as you can use your new dash and decelerate moves to reposition yourself on different sides of bosses as their bodies and weak points (and crazy super-weapons) shift around.
Most importantly, your dragon has three distinct forms (rotated through using the Y button) tailor-made for different situations; each form can be upgraded by collecting ?genomes? (power-ups whose criteria for appearance is never quite clear) from felled enemies. All of this makes for a level of strategy you wouldn?t normally encounter in a shooting game. The action is intense and not at all mindless?success on Normal difficultly requires an intimate, instinct-driven knowledge of all three forms? strengths and weaknesses, as well as the reflexes to swap between them within fractions of a second. The game is bound to frustrate many (Sega seems good at that these days) since you have to start each level from square one if you should die?you do continue from the end boss, however, once you make it that far.
Iteration Four
Orta?s second level of existence is as a massive sensory overload machine. Fleets of M.C. Escher airships float over Salvador Dali landscapes; herds of H.R. Giger nightmares rampage through ruins of places dreamed by Heironomous Bosch; and that?s just in the game?s ?real? world, before you start fighting the thingamabobs that live inside concepts like ?memory.? The Panzer series has always been known for its technorganic acid art style, but gaming hardware has never really been able to give the vision a proper canvas until now. Orta never even thinks of slowing down, no matter what insanity is going on, the strongest testimony yet to the power of the Xbox hardware. You have never seen a game that looks this fantastic. If you were one of the dozen people who played Panzer Dragoon Saga, you?ll wish you could put yourself in cryostasis ?til the day that Sega (hopefully) takes this world into the RPG zone once more.
Field Trip
Panzer Dragoon Orta is like taking a trip through a modern art museum?except all of the paintings are moving, all the sculptures are breathing, and every display is shooting swarms of genetically enhanced laser missiles at the thoughts inside your head.
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