Hey, I never really got around to playing Panzer Dragoon Orta until recently, and upon finding out that I can only unlock the ‘box game’ feature in Pandora’s Box by beating the game on hard, I set out to do so. I am on Episode 6 at the moment.
What I was wondering, is if any of you could give me some veteran advice for keeping my health up during the levels and the boss fights, since you do not get a refill upon retrying. I am finding Episode 6 to be a bit of a pain frankly…
Thank you for any help you can offer. I really want to unlock the ‘Box Game’ so that I can select the Solo Wing.
Well as far as I know the patterns and enemy placements are the same for all difficulty levels, the only difference I think is projectiles I think.
The best thing to do is memorize the patterns per stage as you go along and look at certain bottlenecks where you’re being hit the most. Use your beserk when required and remember to use the boost and slow down. If you’re not concerned about getting a high kill ratio it becomes very easy to simply avoid a lot of enemies and preserve energy.
Also Glide wing beserk replenishes a little energy when used.
I guess you can read the FAQ’s on gamefaqs to learn the patterns there, or you can download my zero damage winged death (hard difficulty) videos when their finished. I could put up the ones that are finished if you want, i’ve done episodes 1-7, but episodes 1-3 are corrupt and I have to recompile them.
ot - for those that care I found a way to get an S rank score on episode 8 although it’s just a theory that I haven’t tried out yet because it would take too long to do and I can’t be bothered doing it…
I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, just takes time to learn the patterns, unless the devs made episode 9 so you can’t get 100% without getting hit. I say that cos I haven’t started ep 9 yet. Just finished 8, it’s probably my favourite stage in the whole game. 9 seems like a dodgy stage though fingers crossed I have episode 10 tried & tested so i’m not worried about that.
The videos are just a guide to get Winged Death, enemy placements and patterns, that it’s zero damage just happens to be there. It’s not intended to be a Score Attack/Time Attack/Aesthetic Form etc. Although I do make notes on how you can improve on those stats in the vids.
That’s pretty impressive; I’ve got through each episode on hard mode myself without taking any hits, and I’ve got a 100% shot down ratio for each of them too, but I haven’t tried doing both at the same time. I’d be interested in seeing how it’s done when the videos are finished…
I managed to get an “S” grade score on Episode 8 by making good use of the glide/boost attack. You can get about 100,000 points just for dashing through the rows of sleeping dragonmares early on in the level, and later on you can rack up more easy points by boosting through the swarms of floating bomb-ships. There’s a part where one boost earns you 40,000 points, which is pretty handy.
I expect it’s possible to get as high a score as you like for any episode though, simply by staying in the boss fight for ages and shooting down projectiles (which usually give you a few points each time). I’ve never actually tried that though, as it seemed easy enough to get “S” grade scores just playing normally; was that the theory you were thinking of?
you get 5 points for most projectiles you shoot down; there may be some big ones that give 20…
my point is, you’d have to stay in that boss fight for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time. and if you get any kind of bonus for fast boss clear times (which i am unsure of) then you’ll spend a long time just trying to break even.
As Giga D said, the real trick is learning the patterns for the enemies and bosses in each episode; some parts take a lot of practice, but the game becomes pretty easy once you’re familiar with it all. Apart from that, it’s important to get the most out of the different dragon forms, and to get used to switching between them rapidly when the situation calls for it:
It’s usually best to take large groups of weak enemies down with the Base Wing’s homing lasers, as it can fire more homing lasers at once than the other dragon forms.
None of the gun attacks seem to be very good for killing things. The Glide Wing’s gun is useful for destroying missiles and hordes of very, very weak enemies, but most of the time you’re best off sticking to lasers.
If you’re having trouble killing a really large groups of weak enemies, wipe them all out with the Base Wing’s berserk attack. (You can’t be hurt at all during a berserk attack, so you can use one to avoid damage while going through any difficult section).
It’s best to use the Heavy Wing’s homing lasers (and berserk attack) against large enemies and bosses, as it can do damage much quicker than the other dragon forms. If you learn to lock-on and release the Heavy Wing’s lasers very rapidly, you can almost fire a continuous stream of them.
Use the Glide Wing’s gun to destroy any small, solid projectiles (like missiles) that enemies fire at your dragon. It’s better to tap the button rapidly than to hold it down when you’re doing this, as if you hold it down the gun can get stuck on one target. The Glide Wing seems to be the quickest-moving dragon too, so it’s probably the most useful for dodging around projectiles that you can’t destroy (like blobs of energy) and other hazards (like the pillars at the end of Episode 6).
The Glide Wing’s berserk attack really doesn’t do much damage, but you can use it to gain some health back if you think you’re going to need it.
The boost attack (where you dash forward using X with the Base or Glide Wing) is actually quite useful for smashing through groups of weak enemies, especially ones that would be crashing into you otherwise.
Also, some of the different routes through the episodes are considerably easier than others. If you still find you’re having problems with anything specific though, I expect we can help you out with it.
That’s exactly why I haven’t tried that approach. I don’t think you get a points bonus for defeating a boss quickly though, as far as I know you just get a better grade for “Boss Clear Time”.
they definitely reduced the gun’s power in orta. heavy wing’s gun was really worthless, and i only used base’s when i was too lazy to switch to glide- and again, it was only for shooting down projectiles. in the originals the gun was more powerful than the lasers in certain situations in the originals- especially if you had three fingers manning all three fire buttons
i also agree that the glide attack is severely underused and great for getting points. i found myself just trying to find ways to use the glide attack in situations where shooting would actually be easier. the one problem is that you are not invincible during the glide and there are many enemies in hard that can survive a hit from it. so be careful that you are not smacking your head on whatever you seek to destroy.
Unfortunately they are very large. I will might make some low quality versions when they’re all finished. If you have a download managaer the server resumes downloads.
Yeah, thanks for the info, and on the boosting through the dragonmares to rack up points.
I agree, it is also critical to get through certain sections without getting hit.
Unfortunately they are very large. I will might make some low quality versions when they’re all finished. If you have a download managaer the server resumes downloads.[/quote]
Hey, those videos are really well put-together; out of curiosity, what software did you use to record and edit them? I’ve considered doing something like that myself for other games, but I’ve never really got around to it. For those with a fast enough connection, a video seems infinitely better than a text FAQ.
Oh, and I think I noticed something odd in the text at the beginning of your Episode 5 video; it says that you’ve got the Heavy Wing up to Level 6, but isn’t Level 5 the highest you can go?
Although this isn’t very useful for normal gameplay, I’ve noticed that the Glide Wing’s gun can net you some really high scores in some situations. I’m not sure how many people know this, but when you kill an enemy with that gun, you get a multiplyer bonus based on how long you were shooting that enemy for before it died. (You need to hold down the button to fire at the enemy in an unbroken, continuous stream for this to work.) There’s some places in the game where you can take out a large enemy with it over a long period of time and get a really massive bonus (like a x8 or a x10), which can make a big difference towards getting an “S” grade score.
Well spotted on the Gene Base labelling error, I was going to include a text file which explained the error and the correct labelling, but thought it be best to leave it out for now because I am not sure if I want to include one at all. Episodes 7 onwards have the labelling corrected.
I have Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 and After Effects 1.5, but the vids were made with Ulead Video Studio 7 (I think 8 is the latest version out now). I have pushed what I can do with Ulead and this will probably be the last work i’ll do using that software… Premiere Pro seems rather daunting at first, but I think i’m getting the hang of it.
As for the hardware, this is what I have set up to capture at the moment…
