Now Playing: Panzer Dragoon Orta

The Panzer Dragoon series is one of my all time favourites. From the characters, the creatures, the world, the story, the lore, the style and the music, Panzer Dragoon is bloody fantastic. They are some of the most unique and interesting games I’ve ever played.

Orta (X-Box/2003) was the last game to be released in the series and, unlike its preceding title (Saga), it returns to the rail based shooting of the original two games. Although it wasn’t actually developed by the original Panzer team (Andromeda), but by Smilebit (Jet Set Radio/Future), Orta is certainly worthy of its name and its place in the series.

Set many years after Saga, the story revolves around a young girl named Orta, searching for answers about her past and who she is, whilst being hunted by a powerful Empire. Although it ties into the story of the previous games, it’s told in such a way that you can enjoy it without having played them, but you’ll certainly appreciate it all the more if you have.

As a fan of the series, Orta plays a poignant role in revealing the fate of two of the key characters in Saga. It’s clear the developers wanted to do justice to the ongoing story, but by setting the game decades later, they were also able to introduce new facets to the world rather than just recycle what we’d already seen.

Graphically, Orta hold ups extremely well. Confined to a somewhat linear path, the developers created a title that still looks lovely today. It also adheres almost perfectly to the tone and aesthetic style of the previous Panzer games. This also extends to the game’s soundtrack, which blends together new tracks with music from the older titles. In short, in terms of visuals and sound, Orta feels very much like a Panzer Dragoon game.

So how does it actually play? As I said, Orta is a return to the rail based shooting of the original two games, but it does integrate features of the battle system from Saga – the multi-directional combat and the dragon morphing. You target enemies with a rapid fire gun or your dragon’s lock-on laser ability. You have a certain degree of free movement to dodge enemy fire, and you can also speed up or slow down (your ‘glide’ ability) – putting you ahead or behind your enemy – which becomes very important when taking on certain bosses.

So although Orta is technically ‘on rails’ it offers quite a lot of freedom of movement. And you’ll be moving a lot, as (just like in Saga) your positioning during some fights is vital. The multi-directional combat system means that enemies can attack from all sides, but you do have a radar allowing you keep track. When facing down bosses, they often have specific heavy attacks or weak points on either their front, sides or rear – meaning you have to manoeuvre about them as the fight progresses, avoiding their attacks, then sweeping in to hit their weak spot as they recharge.

Which is where the dragon morphing system comes into play. There are three forms you can switch between at will – Base, Light and Heavy. Base, as you would expect, offers a good balance between manoeuvrability and attack. The Light form has the greatest range of movement and is great for dodging attacks or repositioning during a boss fight thanks to its expanded glide bar. You can’t use your lock-on missiles whilst in this form, however, but it does upgrade your gun attack into an auto-target rapid fire which is fantastic for shooting down incoming projectiles.

The final form is Heavy, which as you can probably guess, is for dealing damage. The downside to this form is that you can no longer glide – you’re essentially fixed in place until you switch. Each of these forms also comes with its own ‘Berserk’ ability. This fills slowly as you kill enemies and allows you to unleash a devastating attack. The Base form berserk is great for multiple targets as it unleashes a flurry of lasers. On the other hand, the Heavy form berserk lets rip with a highly damaging beam – great if you want to target a specific weak point. Oh, and as you destroy enemies, you’ll also ‘level-up’ each dragon form, evolving them into more powerful variations.

These mechanics combine to create an engaging, highly mobile combat system. And although Orta’s combat feels slightly slower paced than the original rail-based games – relying less on fast shooting and reflexes – it is far more diverse and tactical.

You’ll be boosting, morphing and attacking all at once, rapidly cycling between dragon forms as efficiently as possible. And you really need to, because Orta is a challenging game, even on its Normal difficulty. But once you know the levels, the enemies, their attacks and weaknesses, you’ll be okay. Orta is challenging, but fair, although I do think it could use a better checkpoint system.

There are 10 levels in all, each with its own boss. If you die before the boss, you’ll restart from the beginning, but if you do reach the boss and get killed you can choose to restart from the beginning of the fight. Given that the levels aren’t very long – you can easily clear the game in maybe 2-3 hours – this isn’t a major issue, but it can be a little frustrating getting kicked back to the beginning of a multiple stage boss fight. And when you do respawn, you don’t get the health you originally started with, but only a tiny fraction of it. On harder settings, this just means you’re better off restarting the entire level.

So yeah, Orta is a very short game, but it does offer a nice degree of replayability. You’re graded on each level and difficulty stetting, and the levels are all diverse, tightly designed and interesting to play, each with their own unique challenges, branching paths and boss fights. In addition to this, Orta comes with several side missions, including a small, narrative driven campaign. And, as a fan of the world, I certainly appreciated the inclusion of an encyclopedia featuring information on locations and creatures. There are also various things you can unlock as you play, such as illustrations. Oh, and Orta also includes the PC version of the original Panzer Dragoon.

Overall, Orta is a fantastic game, worthy of its name and its place in the Panzer series and, in terms of its combat system, I’d say it even surpasses the original rail-based games. If there was one series I’d love to see a HD remake of, it would be Panzer Dragoon. And now, after playing Orta again, I really want to play through the others again too. Recommended.

8/10