Most people here may think that the Panzer series is pretty great, but Megatherium’s post in the Liberal District got me wondering - just how good are we at actually playing the games themselves?
For the Panzer shoot-em-ups you own, which ones did you play until you achieved a 100% shot down ratio (and the highest Winged Death rank)? Did you actually find it difficult?
What about your final stats on Panzer Dragoon Saga, and did anyone get a 100% completion ranking without any outside help? Did anyone bother to work their dragon up into a Level 99 death-machine?
How about any other ratings and rankings that the games offered? Or was the experience of the games enough for you, and did you never feel motivated to do all this stuff?
i think with some games (especially certain sega ones) i play them to master them. it’s not so much like i’m trying to have something to brag about, but dedicating yourself to getting really great at the game yields many subtle rewards.
i don’t know how many of you have played NiGHTS or burning rangers (since most of you own saturns, i’d say you owe it to yourself if you haven’t) but those were two games that with the mantra of “easy to learn, difficult to master”. usually i get bored of games by the end of them, but with these i could tell i was barely scratching the surface of the depth of gameplay by the time i saw the credits roll. playing back through with all the knowledge and skill from the first play you realize new things about the game and figure out much more effective ways of doing things. jet set radio and gunvalkyrie and another two excellent examples.
now you’d think being so good at a game would make it boring, but there’s just something about old sonic team/smilebit games that make it feel like you weren’t even playing it when you went through the first time. your concern is not “how do i survive this level?” it becomes “can i beat it without getting hit?”. you stop thinking “i have to hurry and get out of here before i die!” and start thinking “lets see how many points i can rack up before things get really crazy”. so to me, going after winged death in a PD game just seems natural.
PD1 was mostly relaxed with the most difficulty coming on episode 5, but since you gained 3 lives on each of the previous levels, there’s a bit of room for error. just gotta let yourself die sometimes
PDZ had more frantic portions though you could avoid most of them by going on the easy routes (at the time when i did it i was trying to get solowing, so that didn’t help me). the berserk was a very useful ‘panic button’ of sorts; you never really needed it, but it made some parts sooooo much easier. shelcoof was pretty intense but the save feature made this whole thing pretty easy.
PDO was just insanely hard even with the save feature. the things you HAVE to do to kill the enemies in time… it was so unforgiving… exactly what i wanted it really taught me the value of the glide attack and halt maneuvers (in everyday use, not just the bosses). the other thing that you have to keep in mind is never to use a berserk on a boss (unless you think you can charge another up before you kill it). there were several points where i would just have to waste a full heavwing berserk attack so that i could kill 2 enemies- and not even big enemies! once you really get a feel for how winged death plays, you get the sense that you are doing everything at the same time. as in, before you were taking everything one at a time, but now you have to scrunch it all together.
my % on PDS is pretty sucky though (trying to correct that in my current play through!). i think that in general i strive for completion, but leveling up in excess never appealed to me was dragon phoenix the ultimate berserk attack? it seemed like that and berserker rage (atom’s attack) were my strongest ones, never knew if i had gotten them all. i recently beat (xbox) ninja gaiden on vhard and i realized that i did it more for completion’s sake rather than the costume you unlock.
The only Panzer I’ve ever got 100% in is Zwei, although i have got around 97%-99% for all the other ones. I have no idea how you managed to get 100% in saga, doesn’t that require destorying EVERY destructable object in the game and going through every inch of the maps so it all lights up? I got all the other stuff, but just flying around to get the whole map, and trying to destroy every search light in the Imperial outpost bored me so much that I decided i’d settle for almost-but-not-quite 100% completion.
Well, you don’t have to destroy all the searchlights. All you have to do is destroy all the “pyramid” targets. You know, the ones with items in them? Those are referred to as “break targets”.
As for 100% of the map, the computer lets you miss out a tiny bit because of some frustrating bits you can never reach. Examples being the tiny bit of unlit space near a lift.
I absolutely suck at the original Panzer Dragoon. This may surprise some of you, but I haven’t even finished the game all in one go on Normal (I’ve completed all the stages though, just not without using the level select). It’s hard game to be sure.
Panzer Dragoon Zwei - 100%. This was the easiest game for me.
Panzer Dragoon Saga - 100% (without using any items). I think I did all of the side quests as well (I’ve covered all the ones in Stephan Dolby’s guide).
Panzer Dragoon Orta - I’ve finished it on Normal, not Hard yet though. I’ve completed all of the sub scenarios, save one of those “Episode 0” ones (I think it was Mission 4). Everything is unlocked, but I haven’t gotten around to completing everything on 100% yet.
it really taught me the value of the glide attack and halt maneuvers (in everyday use, not just the bosses). the other thing that you have to keep in mind is never to use a berserk on a boss (unless you think you can charge another up before you kill it). there were several points where i would just have to waste a full heavwing berserk attack so that i could kill 2 enemies- and not even big enemies! once you really get a feel for how winged death plays, you get the sense that you are doing everything at the same time. as in, before you were taking everything one at a time, but now you have to scrunch it all together.
was dragon phoenix the ultimate berserk attack? it seemed like that and berserker rage (atom’s attack) were my strongest ones, never knew if i had gotten them all. i recently beat (xbox) ninja gaiden on vhard and i realized that i did it more for completion’s sake rather than the costume you unlock.