So...the NiGHTS rumours

SEGA
41

[quote=“dragoon lover”]I still thought it was a solid and gorgeous game, nonetheless. The only elements I hated were how the dragon ran like a gargoyle instead of a dinosaur and the utterly atrocious middle boss of the battleship.

On the other hand. Wow. Imagine if Sonic Team stopped sucking for just a nanosecond to make a really great Nights sequel.[/quote]

Orta was bad because of all the inconsistencies. The artwork was not the same, the story was a mess, the music did not match up with the environments, and, as you already pointed out, the game did not feel authentic.

Granted, it was a beautiful game in its own right, but it did NOT deserve the name Panzer Dragoon.

42

[quote=“Kadamose”]

[quote=“dragoon lover”]I still thought it was a solid and gorgeous game, nonetheless. The only elements I hated were how the dragon ran like a gargoyle instead of a dinosaur and the utterly atrocious middle boss of the battleship.

On the other hand. Wow. Imagine if Sonic Team stopped sucking for just a nanosecond to make a really great Nights sequel.[/quote]

Orta was bad because of all the inconsistencies. The artwork was not the same, the story was a mess, the music did not match up with the environments, and, as you already pointed out, the game did not feel authentic.

Granted, it was a beautiful game in its own right, but it did NOT deserve the name Panzer Dragoon.[/quote]

Well the art work was never going to be the same was it, given the X-Box was 2 gens ahead of the Saturn , and to me the music went with most of the levels, not up to the standards of the 1st game or Saga , but better than Zwei , and to me A Weaponm is one of the best tunes I’ve ever heard.

Also I can only speak for myself , but the story wasn’t really that important to me in the Panzer games untill Saga , as until then I was playing Panzer 1 and Zwei in Japanese and so just got the basic of the story (i/e stop the dragon reaching the tower) . Only until Saga came out , did I play the 1st 2 Panzer Dragoon games in English , so the gameplay was always key to me and on that front I think Orta more than delivers for what it is, a 3D shooter .

To me its gets the best parts out of the 1st 2 games, the big huge wacky bosses of the 1st game , the branching level of Zwei along with the trademark intro?s and water effects than been the mark of the whole series to me. As a 3D shooter it’s hard to fault , only Rez is up there for last gen 3D shooters

43

Back on the subject of the NiGHTS sequel, Takashi Iizuka is directing. He was the lead game designer for the original NiGHTS. Before you breathe a sigh of relief, he is currently head of Sonic Team USA and directed Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog.

I fear the worst, but hope for the best. Only time will tell!

44

[quote=“Team Andromeda”]
Well the art work was never going to be the same was it, given the X-Box was 2 gens ahead of the Saturn[/quote]

Perhaps I should rephrase that - ART STYLE. Art style isn’t directly involved with hardware, and it’s such a shame that the ART STYLE was not directly proportional to the trilogy.

45

Saturn, PS1, N64

Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox

i see 1 gen ahead only?

[quote=“Parn”]Back on the subject of the NiGHTS sequel, Takashi Iizuka is directing. He was the lead game designer for the original NiGHTS. Before you breathe a sigh of relief, he is currently head of Sonic Team USA and directed Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog.

I fear the worst, but hope for the best. Only time will tell![/quote]

i agree with that - fear for the worst hope for the best! It was always suggested that Prope would have done NiGHTS 2…
but well… if it is all true - i would like to know what Yuji Naka’s thoughts are on all of this?? and if the game got his blessing…

46

[quote=“Scott”]

Saturn, PS1, N64

Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox

i see 1 gen ahead only?[/quote]

Huh I’m counting the Saturn , then DC then X-Box . To me thats 2 gen of Hardware and Saturn had 32 Bit Graphics VDP, X-Box GFX was 256 Bit , The gulf between the DC and X-Box was massive, never mind the Saturn and X-Box . So a New Panzer game was going to look diff even if the same Art Desgin/style was to be used , even if the team wanted to use the same sort of style (you can see that with Out Run II)

Back on Topic . NiGHTS could be the game thats gets the Sonic Team USA back on top form. The good things its only 1 platfrom and Sonic Team USA aren’t too bad on a single platform and Iizuka will put his heart in to NiGHTS II.

47

Wait.

Wait wait wait wait wait wait.

This is ACTUALLY HAPPENING!?!?!?!

There is actually OFFICIALLY a NiGHTS sequel?

HOLY ****! Next you know, Duke Nukem Forever will have a release date!

48

I am so buying a Wii for this game. F%ck the DVD-playing edition!

49

Actually there’s been some activity on that front recently. It’s still in development. I know I know, hell is freezing over beneath our feet.

I’ll still be skeptical until I see official confirmation from Sega.

50

The ART STYLE of every Panzer Dragoon game is distinct from the others. As evidenced by the very fact almost everyone has a favorite ART STYLE game from the series. That’s unusual actually, there’s not many other series where fans make a big deal about the relative visual style of every game. Which is why it pisses me off seeing anyone bitch about that as the worst offense. If you dislike it that’s completely understandable, but any argument that Orta outright betrays the style of Panzer Dragoon cannot hold water.

Something that pisses me off even more… is this bullshit about the “Lolita/bondage” motif for Orta herself. Considering it seems to only be people who have a problem with the character that see it like that… I cannot help but wonder if it’s purely from their own perversion/misogyny. Orta is very faithful to the sensibility of the series, avoiding the typical Japanese style female exaggerations. She has the build of a child, she’s not showing an inordinate amount of skin, she never displays any kind of emotion or posturing that could be called mating behavior… the character is not sexualized in any way.

I fully understand there are many people who simply cannot invest themselves in an alter ego of the opposite sex, in that respect it could be called an outright mistake for the Panzer Dragoon series. But any and every change is a risk, you can’t ever win them all.

51

Nights looks a tad weird, other than that it seems to be a remake? At least I recognise the levels and bosses but I suppose it could have revisits as well as new ones. Overall, looks good, it better play better.

52

Sorry, but even most of the TA members I met see it in a simmilar way as I. And a lolita as such doesn’t have to be sexualized (you mean like the DoA girls?) to be a lolita. I liked Orta’s design as a child though in the opening sequence where she’s hooded. it would’ve been interesting to have a really innocent child ride the dragon and encounter her dark side, not a “Moe” character.
Part of the lolita thing (as far as i can see) is not only innocent, but (sexually) inexperienced behaviour.

But anway, back to the topic, I thought about getting Wii for some time, since it’s possible to attach the controller to a PC (not all features are supported yet, but will be soon) and a NiGHTS game with that controller would rock =)

53

Heretic Agnostic : the biggest difference in art style (Orta) IMO is the color pallete (sp?).Then there’s the shapes.Could you ever imagine a boobed statue on one of the Saturn games?

What about Glide wing?

Granted they got alot of stuff right and at the end of the day that’s what depresses me…Because Orta is essentially a mixedbag.

54

Yes, Orta was a very useless and uninspired character - the PD game after PDS should have been about Azel and her quest, not some braindead zombie with no empathy or intelligence, whatsoever. Smilebit fucked up - BIG TIME. But that’s generally what happens when you lose key personell from the team - those of which who knew all the answers; in this case, the original artist, the director, and the story writer were no longer with the team - metaphorically speaking, this is like building a car from the ground up without key components and with this analogy, the starter, the alternator, and the fuel tank were missing.

55

I don’t like Orta much myself but I disagree that Azel or anybody else “should” have been the main character of a sequel.

Anyway, myself, I’m all for new characters that may or may not get to see the story of previously seen “heroes” from another point of view or even from a different time altogether, similar to the way Edge learnt of Lundi for example.

Orta could have been that character, and hell, it’s not really Orta’s problem, she could have been a great character as an idea she’s not that bad, and aside from her origin which defines her, anything that followed is not her fault (duh, she doesn’t exist), it’s only as good as the writing of the script.

Again, that’s my opinion, or what I’d do if you will, I’m not saying it’s how anything “should” be to make a worthy sequel or whatever. Doing something totally different with the series could also pleasantly surprise me, it’s the quality of the writing that matters rather than if they would chose the character I or someone else thinks should be chosen.

Edit: Azel could have been a great villain too. After searching for Edge for many years or decades and coming up with nothing, receiving humans’ hatred whenever they realised she’s not one of them, getting slammed left and right by monsters, malfunctioning, mixing up her memories, her mission, Craymen & the Ancients, then just going berserk, reactivating a tower - or all of them - and causing all sorts of carnage.

How tragic would it be for Lagi, having to chose a rider and with his help destroy her to release her - and mankind - from her suffering?

Of course, before the end she’d probably claim she recognises some of Edge’s strength, character and kindness within the new rider - the player - and therefor realise all of her mistakes, how Edge wasn’t the last good person, and finally die sane, relieved, released and more human than ever.

Anybody wanna write fan fiction with this basic idea? I’d like to read it if I can’t play it :stuck_out_tongue:

56

Lord Craymen, actually a “Lolita” is very particularly a sexually precocious adolescent, just because Orta looks adolescent and cute doesn’t mean she deserves that label. And if the “bondage” thing turns someone on, that’s their problem. If it was a buff male character, the shackles and broken chains would just look cool in a tough way, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely divorced from a sexual kind of appeal there either.

The boobed statue is supposed to represent the emperor, this new empire has an eastern influence remember. There are many cultural examples of a ruler being deified as representing male and female perfection together. It’s not some random nonsense, and while I can’t say I wasn’t a little surprised when I first saw that boss, I immediately understood the association.

And the story again… no it’s not up to Saga’s standard, and it’s not as austere and tantalizing as the first two games. But Orta should not, really can not, be measured against any of the other games anyway. The format could never have supported a storyline anywhere close to Saga, yet the purpose of the story is completely different than in the original shooters. They really had two choices, to completely emulate the originals and present only enough narrative to set the scene, which would have made just as many Saga fans mad… or, as they did, go the route of fanservice and actually give some answers to the questions left at the end of the Saturn series.

I may have a few nitpicks about the presentation of the story, but the fundamentals are absolutely consistent with the series. They didn’t graft some happy ending for Edge and Azel into the story, the world wasn’t even a dramatically better place for their efforts. What they did, was let the world evolve in a completely believable way. Everything is the same, and nothing is the same.

And Gehn… I think Glide Wing is actually the most consistent with existing style. It looks exactly like a lot of other pure-type monsters. And it’s ‘face’ always reminded me of Atolm.

And OK, on topic yeah… those NiGHTS screenshots look really sweet! They seem to have updated the vaguely disturbing iridescent quality of the color scheme nicely. And the angles may bode well for the freedom of movement, I don’t necessarily want free roaming, I just really hope the actual control of flight is opened up from the original. If that game is mostly on rails great, as long as there’s actual 3D movement within those rails.

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Heretic: Atolm’s was more like a “beard” rather than a “nose”.Anyways you are crazy if you think Glide Wing is the most consistent with existing style.

The boobed statue is supposed to represent the emperor, this new empire has an eastern influence remember. There are many cultural examples of a ruler being deified as representing male and female perfection together. It’s not some random nonsense, and while I can’t say I wasn’t a little surprised when I first saw that boss, I immediately understood the association.

There are other ways to represent change or influence don’t you think?It isn’t a question of understanding the design.I mean I think I understand quite well that Smilebit meant to make Orta a little more organic in feel but that doesn’t mean I like it.I’m not in a “Why did they do that!” phase, im in a “How could they like this!” one.

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Well, so what other ways? Change is… well change. As you say, you don’t like it, and I can understand that and sympathize. But I will always take up the challenge when people try to argue in less than subjective terms for why Orta is a failure, because the arguments are inevitably flimsy. And BTW Gehn, you never responded after you dared me to show why the color sensibility isn’t that different…

Glide Wing doesn’t look like any other dragons that’s for sure, but it’s general proportions and the way it floats is just like the Light Wing, it’s face reminds me of Atolm in the later stages, nothing to do with the horn but the actual personality, and again it’s features have precedents in other pure-type (or even mutated type) monsters throughout the series.

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I think liking Orta’s art style is subjective but considering it PDish or not isn’t so much.You have 3 whole games to consider.I don’t know what you mean about the color sensibility, where have you said anything about it?

60

You need to SERIOUSLY improve your character observation skills, as well as your ability to accept new ideas.

As a character, Orta was kept in captivity from an early age by the Seekers, who believed that the existance of Drones only brought about destruction (although how this managed to happen after Gash’s involvement with Azel is beyond me). As such, Orta did not have a balanced life-style in the way of other such characters; until the dragonmares hit the village, Orta had only ever known the walls of her cell, and neither of her parents. In any character, fictional or otherwise, this will not help their development in social skills and so forth. Doing anything differently would effectively ignore her troubled early life.

No empathy? Braindead? In that case, why does Orta feel remorse after defeating the Chapter 5 boss? “You had children…I’m sorry.” When Abadd then nukes said creature, she demands to know why he did it. Abadd’s reply that she is weak is one of the many moments in the game whereby the player is reminded that, whilst both Orta and Abadd are drones, there is a world of difference between their two personalities. Also of note is the cutscene between Episodes 3 and 4, where Orta and Ponta discuss Orta’s origins and past.

The only discernible difference other than the gender of the Dragon Riders I can tell between Orta and co. is that Orta’s journey is not of vengeance and has no ultimate destination. In PD, Kyle sees the Sky Rider shot by the Dark Dragon, and is told to stop DD reaching the Tower at all costs. Zwei sees Lundi seek revenge for his people who were destroyed by Shelcoof. Saga sees Edge initially seek to take down Craymen and the Empire, before being enrolled into the Seekers’ anti-Sestren crusade.

Orta’s ride has no initial cause for revenge and no pre-planned destination: she leaves the village to follow Abadd, gets waylayed by Mobo, meets Abadd again after Chapter 5, meets her mom at the end of Chapter 7 and is then, FINALLY, on the warpath against Abadd’s world-conquering schemes. It can be argued that a character without aim is a weak character, but this is not always the case as postmodernist literature makes clear.