Well, having finally bought Orta, I thought I might as well make some sort of relevant topic about it.
What’s your playing style, according to Pandora’s Box? (Seeker, Gunner, etc) Mine is “Berserker”.
What route to do you take through the game? For me it’s
Episode 2 - Right at intersection
Episode 3 - Left at intersection
Episode 5 - Right at insection
Episode 6 - Left (following Abadd), activate all gear thingies
Episode 7 - Defeat the analyser both times
Episode 8 - All embryos destroyed
Anyone managed to get Winged Death yet? Probably. I’m at 96% shot down after two weeks play.
Has anyone noticed that the PC version of Eins, included with Orta, is slightly different in places to Eins on the Saturn? The most different I’ve seen is the Episode 5 boss is much, much easier to beat in his first form this time round. Also, a Battlecruiser joins you during that first part, something I’ve never seen on the Saturn version.
Playing style: I can’t actually check this one at the moment because my Xbox is unplugged to make room for less enormous consoles next to my TV. I think I might be Undead, though.
Routes: this one depended on if I was trying for a high shot-down ratio or a high score, because most levels have one route with shedloads of enemies and one quieter route, and while the quieter routes make 100%s easier, the routes with tons of enemies give higher scores. Episode 6 and Episode 8 are the only levels where I usually just go on the one route, I think (I’d go the same ways you do for them).
Winged Death: I didn’t think Winged Death was too bad in PDO, but from what I remember, Episode 8 seemed like the hardest level for the 100%. What’s possibly more difficult is trying to get an “S” grade for each level, including the extra Pandora’s Box levels: some of them are an absolute nightmare to get an S score on (e.g. Iva’s first and final levels).
I don’t know if you’ve seen these, but Giga D (who’s posted here in the past) made a bunch of videos showing him going through each episode with 100% shot down ratios whilst also never being hit:
Funny you should mention that battlecruiser, because I only noticed it for the first time recently as well: it just sort of turns up halfway through the battle, right? I’m pretty sure I was playing the Japanese Saturn version at the time, though: it could possibly be something that was just removed in certain versions of the game (like the Episode 2 changes), so I’ll check up on it at some point…
EDIT: Was bored and checked. The battlecruiser does appear in the PAL version of the game, but only under certain circumstances, it seems…
In the boss’ first phase, the boss ship constantly circles you, and when you do it enough damage for it to go into its second phase, it just keeps circling until it’s in front of you again, and only then does it change to its second phase (the vicious homing missile attack). I suspect that the extra battlecruiser pops up if you empty the boss’ first energy bar when it’s still got most of a circle-cycle left to go, to give you “something to do” while you’re waiting for the boss to get in front of you again and start its second attack phase.
I think I might be Undead, though.