Odds are everyone here owns a Xbox because of PDO but I was wondering what everyone thinks of it? Do you wish SEGA had chosen a different company for Orta?
As sad as it is to say, Xbox was perfect for Panzer Dragoon Orta. No other system could’ve thrown up that much polygons and sense of mass and space. The PS2 might’ve pulled it off but would’ve suffered terrible slowdown. The Gamecube is obviously more powerful, but its core audience is the kids and family, and most of the games by Nintendo or on Nintendo feature brightly colored graphics. Plus the Gamecube’s controller doesn’t utilize enough buttons for PDO.
Polycounts don’t matter almost at all to how good the game could be, after all the Saturn games rocked/rock and look how many polygons they have on screen at the same time 
And I’m almost certain the GC controller has enough buttons… one button needed to fire, one to do the berserk attack, the L/R buttons used for the view shift and then another couple buttons for the “cycling”…
panzerdragoon.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=494
This pretty much covers the thoughts of most people here about Orta compared to the other games…well most regulars…and old timers
Not sure what you mean by “another company” but while I didn’t like a lot of things in Orta, I don’t think another development team would have done a better job at it at all seeing as most original PD team members were in the PDO team as well… Maybe they chose to not stay true to the roots of the series but I don’t think anyone else could be truer to that than these guys…
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]
Not sure what you mean by “another company”[/quote]
I think he was referring to the other consoles, in which case I believe that the XBOX was probably best due to the crowd it attracted along with its hardware capabilities
Don’t forget the speed up/slow down side of Panzer Dragoon Orta. Unless you make clicking both shoulder buttons to unleash berserk to free up another button for the boosts.
That’s what I meant by “cycling” since when you use it on boss enemies you can move to their side/front/back or whatever…
I forgot the morphing key but I’m sure there’s enough for that too…
The controller has that big red button and four yellow buttons around it no? And I think also a green and blue button? And the L/R/Z triggers? Or am I way off, I don’t remember well…
Anyway, L+R together should shift the view 180 degrees like in PDZ rather than do another function alltogether…
The GameCube’s controller has exactly the right number of buttons, surely?
Xbox / GameCube PDO buttons:
A = A = Shoot
X = B = Speed up
B = X = Slow down
Y = Y = Morph
L = L = Turn left
R = R = Turn right
Black = Z = Berserk
Oh yes. ^.^ I forget the old Z trigger was there. Oddly placed little fellow. I’m much more used to the placement on the 64.
Panzer Dragoon actually could’ve gotten more exposure on the Cube. Or then again not. thinks of Beyond Good and Evil’s fate
I don;t think PDO would have been well recieved on the Cube at all. From what I see SEGA is slowly climbing out of that realm and only releasing obvious kid and family titles for the system. As for the PS2, PDO would have definitely gotten more recognition if it was released, but I doubt it would have been as beautiful.
I’m not sure about how PDO would have done on the Cube. In general it seems that the average GameCube owner is more of a harcore gamer than, say, the average PS2 owner - as in, they’re more concerned with the quality of the gaming product rather than whether or not it’s mainstream, easily accessible and the “in” thing. For that reason I’d have thought that PDO would do quite well on the Cube, because as with the Xbox, the audience is more likely to judge (and buy) the game on the merits that it has. I still think it would have been a nice idea to release the game on the PS2 as well though, just to give it as much exposure as possible.
I think it goes perfectly witht the Xbox for two reasons :
-better graphics
-better controls (at least these are my favs)
The only fact I’m not too happy about is that this game could have sold 3 times more in Japan (where it has a big fan base) if it wasn’t released in an American and unknown console…
Beyond Good and Evil flopped on every platform it was released on, shit happens, sometimes good games just get ignored for whatever reason… It wasn’t something to do with the Cube specifically…
The bottom line here is Sega should always develop games for the most popular console for no other reason than it’s popularity, right?
As an Xbox title PD Orta stood out from the crowd in both terms of gameplay and graphics. I doubt it would’ve gained the attention it did on the Playstation 2.
Gehn, what do you mean “better control”, all the current consoles’ controllers are suitable for a PD game like Orta or whatever else, and, in fact the average person finds the X-Box’s original controller the most uncomfortable due to it’s size… (I don’t but that’s a fact)
Geoffrey, a PD game on the PS2 would get just as much attention because:
a) The gameplay would be just as good as anywhere
b) The graphics would be very impressive technically for a PS2 game and ofcourse very impressive stylistically regardless of platform as the PD games have always been.
c) The reviewers would love it just as much as on X-box, they wouldn’t give it worse scores just cos of the console it was on
It would also get more attention because as we all know the PS2 has a much larger fanbase and there’s many more media dedicated to PS2 games as well…
And ofcourse ultimatelly it would have better sales since even generally unnoticed PS2 games sell well compared to other platforms’ average games… And a PD game would be anything but unnoticed…
I think I clearly stated it was my personal preference.Yes I prefer the XBox’s controls and I specially like the fact it’s a big control too.
Alex, PD Orta was one of those titles that easily distinguished itself from other Xbox titles at the time of its release. Playstation 2 owners would’ve payed as much attention to PD Orta as they did to Rez.
The decision to develop PD Orta for the Xbox was the correct one IMO. If anything, Sega shouldn’t have ported Shenmue 2 to the Xbox, but localised it for the American Dreamcast.
Well Geoff as far as I know Orta didn’t sell that great so the X-Box owners didn’t give it that much attention either. It’s the press that gave it attention and my above post shows that the press would possibly have done the same if the game was on PS2. With the addition that more ppl would buy into it since the PS2 fanbase itself is larger…
Don’t forget that much of the press’ attention was due to the graphical prowess (sp?) of PDO…
Something only possible in the XBox…
[quote=“GehnTheBerserker”]Don’t forget that much of the press’ attention was due to the graphical prowess (sp?) of PDO…
Something only possible in the XBox…[/quote]
Also, didn’t Microsoft help advertise the game? I know Microsoft paid Sega for a number of exclusive titles, so even the 150 000 copies of PD Orta Sega sold in America and Japan was still profitable to some degree. Panzer Dragoon Orta wasn’t a sales disaster as far as I know (correct me if I’m wrong).