Panzer

Hello!
And welcome to a... visual novel rpg game review? Oh that is weird!
Anyway this is an old game by Orochii developed in 2013... in two days. Well yes, it was a contest or something like that, anyway remember this, since in two days I can probably make just a title screen, a map and an intro. That's all! Sigh.

Anyway when I originally played this game I did not know it was made by Orochii, author of the awesome adventure game with that difficult name, Drekirökr - Dusk of the Dragon. That is a fantasy game, but I also played Armored, a post-apocalyptic dramatic and dark adventure, Mystical Princess Ultra, a classic humorous jrpg adventure and The Last days according to Ezra, a surreal short game (if you have some time try this one too!). Uh, do you see a common theme?
No? In fact, because there isn't!!! These games are all so different that at first I believed they were made by different developers. Take this Panzer... it's a military visual novel combat game with a mech! Yeah, nothing similar to the other games I mentioned before either.


Not a lot of money, but I can still improve something, or buy weapons! Uhm tough choice, anyway I need moar $$$!

Anyway after an intro ripped directly from Metal Slug, we are welcomed to a prologue that uses graphics from Front Mission. In this part we learn that the year is 2651 and there is a war between two factions, the kingdom of Reigarn, and the tribes of the Urok. We play as the mecha pilot Orstred (that uses the portrait of Milligan Ashton), and together with our allies we're ready to win the war.
Yeah, right. Unfortunately, after some easy battles the team is annihilated and only our protagonist Orstred survives. With his mech of course!
So what? It's not time to retire, of course! Fight with the mech in the arena, earn money, improve the machine of death and fight the story missions to advance the (linear) plot and see what will happen!

Ok, now a little explanation about how combat works: despite the unusual isometric perspective, combat is really Rm2k3 classic system with a twist: we control the vairous parts of the mech as they were different characters, including hone that is the healer of the team (or in this case that manage repairs). Each part has its own weapon that can be changed, and various characteristics (attack, speed, defence, etc) they can be improved with money, because they will obviously never earn experience points or improved through that.

And that's the most complex part of the game, for the rest you can visit some locations (aside for the garage where you can improve the mech, like I just mentioned) such as the arena for combat, the inn where you can save, or the shop where you can buy consumables that may help during combat (including munitions to reload weapons). Once you feel confident, well let's take out stronger enemies in the story missions that are introduced and followed by some simple cutscenes.
The game is more or less all here, and will take about two hours to complete, maybe a bit less if you know what to do, because without a real tutorial or instructions, it is a bit hard to understand how the game works, since it is not a typucal jrpg anyway... it's not bad but we'll see this later.

Graphically there isn't much to say: the rips are used well and the custom menus that from what I understand was the real "meat" of the work done by the developer are excellent. There is a graphic glitch in which the mech sometimes disappears, but it's a probably a fault of the rpgmaker engine, anyway it does not ruin the game. Rest of the images are facesets and backrounds, all from Front Mission, I think. I do not recall the origins of sounds and music but these are all fitting a well done.


Lone against many? Oh yes, and lots of other battles awaits!

The Final Verdict
This game is clearly an experiment, and it's not perfect at all: aside from the imperfect translation from the original spanish version (for example loot mention is in spanish even in the english version, but come on, this is not a tragedy), it is quite simple, linear and repetitive but not without its charm. For a 1-2 hours game it's pretty good, especially because it has many clever ideas and aspects that were probably limited by the time constraits. That's a pity, anyway it's still a playable game and a different experience from the usual fantasy adventures, and I would not mind at all a more modern and complex remake at all.

Panzer was an interesting experiment, I know that some people may not like it, and others instead had fun with it and loved the aestetics (this Front Mission redux feel), like me... so I decided to set for a middle ground rating.