Panzer Dragoon Orta on Series X

[Zoyous]

I finally popped my Panzer Dragoon Orta disc into the Series X to check out the higher resolution graphics, and was not disappointed! Wow, this game has always been something special, and it has really aged well. Menu screens and pre-rendered cutscenes of course are still at a lower resolution (although it kind of looks like there might be some kind of higher resolution dithering applied to them), but the gameplay is now HD and it looks fantastic. For anyone who doesn't know, the French cartoonist Jean "Moebius" Giraud was very involved with the original world design and creature design for Panzer Dragoon. It takes place in a very unique far-future world, a bit reminiscent of Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa, in which humans are still dealing with the devastating effects of past war technology. There are wildly mutated animals and plants, gigantic floating creatures with human settlements riding on their backs, flying airships, and of course the biological weapon dragons such as the one your character rides. You can cycle between three different forms and evolve each form independently. The gameplay is usually classified as an on-rails-shooter, although you can rotate your view 360 degrees and there are branching pathways in each level. Will I be able to beat it this time around? We'll see... I never was able to back in the day.

[+jgkspsx]

Oh man, that is a killer app right there. One of these days…

[Steven Pendleton]

This game is literally the reason that I am considering buying a Series X. OutRun2 also helps, but mostly this game.

[Austin]

Such a great game. I plan on doing a run of it sometime soon as well. It's epic from start to finish!

 

And yeah, for anyone that hasn't tried it on the Xbox One and up, it looks excellent (especially at 4K).

[Zoyous]

14 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

This game is literally the reason that I am considering buying a Series X. OutRun2 also helps, but mostly this game.

Unfortunately, OutRun 2 is not on the backwards compatible list. (A licensing issue, nothing to do with the difficulty of emulating it.) For OutRun 2, the option for HD is the PC version, which contains 2, 2SP, and all the Coast 2 Coast content.

[Jagosaurus]

Curious, how does the unlockable OG PD look?

 

... IIRC it's actually the PC port vs Saturn.

[Razzie.P]

Looks like this is on sale for $5 right now as part of their "backwards compatibility sale"

 

 

[Jagosaurus]

9 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

Looks like this is on sale for $5 right now as part of their "backwards compatibility sale"

 

 

Nice. CIB XB copy selling for $40+ now. 

[Rick Dangerous]

Both of the Outrun games should be on the BC list; sadly they are not.   I wish they just kept working on these until they all were; at least the good/best games for Xbox/360.  Something is better than nothing i guess, the 360 list of BC games is solid, original Xbox sorely lacking many of the best titles. 

 

[Razzie.P]

I just bought it for 5 bucks  ?   There's some pretty good stuff on that sale really cheap. 

[Jagosaurus]

On 1/20/2022 at 2:39 PM, Rick Dangerous said:

Both of the Outrun games should be on the BC list; sadly they are not.   I wish they just kept working on these until they all were; at least the good/best games for Xbox/360.  Something is better than nothing i guess, the 360 list of BC games is solid, original Xbox sorely lacking many of the best titles. 

 

Highly likely it's licensing or music vs compatibility. 

 

A modded 360 will run MANY more OGX games than officially supported/allowed. Because these games are DLed from the MS store on XB1/S/X (or a game specific emu patch on 360) vs truly running a disc, it varies legally from running a PS1 game on a PS2.

 

They're also usually sold digitally only as well (a few disc only expections like FEAR). Those expections point to some legal agreement being made on physical BC but not digital.

 

Sure, there are some quality control standards in there (some games were removed) but from what I've heard/read over the years, games you expect to be there, that aren't... due to licensing issues.

 

What I'd like to see are more wide-screen patches for 4:3 titles. Pretty awesome to see Max Payne 1 received WS treatment in addition to resolution, texture, HDR bumps. 

Edited January 27, 2022 by Jagosaurus

[Zoyous]

In the long run (within a few years?), it might end up being possible to run OG Xbox games on the Series S/X via emulation using RetroArch. You can legally install RetroArch after paying the $19 fee to unlock developer mode. I was checking in on the state of OG Xbox emulation and developers have been making some promising progress over the last couple of years.

[Lord Innit]

I'd be interested to know how it compares to the game running on the Xbox One X.

[Jagosaurus]

@Zoyous, unfortunately, MS recently started to axe Dev Mode accounts not putting out games... then reactived some. Looked like a mess. Hope they fix long term.

 

RA runs under this mode for those not familiar.

[Austin]

  

11 hours ago, Jagosaurus said:

@Zoyous, unfortunately, MS recently started to axe Dev Mode accounts not putting out games... then reactived some. Looked like a mess. Hope they fix long term.

 

RA runs under this mode for those not familiar.

They did fix and have already stated it was a mistake.

 

Also, RetroArch apparently doesn't require dev mode. There's another way to get it loaded.

 

[Jagosaurus]

Good news @Austin?

[Agillig]

On 1/28/2022 at 12:01 PM, Austin said:

  

They did fix and have already stated it was a mistake.

 

Also, RetroArch apparently doesn't require dev mode. There's another way to get it loaded.

 

Yes, there's a Discord server where you can get white listed, and download Retroarch.   For what it's worth, anything newer than Saturn/PS1 is a real crap shoot.