The graphical clarity of games like Sonic Adventure 2 and Enclave make their detail seem almost tangible through the screen, but that doesn't fit the context of every game as great as it can be. Panzer Dragoon Orta is a work of surrealism and employs a kind of atmospheric filter over the image to a varying degree depending on the level. It hangs so heavy in the air in the levels with really ominous feels, like the night-time escape of the first stage and when Abadd is trying to resuscitate his ancient masters, that any movement seems to swirl and smear against the background, leaving behind a ghosting pixel retention. In some other levels, though, where Orta isn't in her "natural" surreal settings, the image quality can be rather sharp and every detail on the ground is very distinct -- like in the "Rez" stage.
Every creature is modeled to almost CG-level detail (and can be inspected in the encyclopedia mode), and areas like the forest canopy where Orta fights the two worm sub-bosses or the assault on the Cradle where she guts the Imperial and dragonmare production facility are fully fleshed out in environmental detail. The game has no problem staging battles with detailed enemies in its detailed levels, so it's quite adept at throwing around geometry.
dark10x:
This shot demonstrates the problem. The canyon walls just look awful to me.
The textures in this game, like those of the canyon walls, are created a little different than the average action or platformer game. They have to blend and create the right effect from a camera perspective which flies high above and through it at a decent speed. It looks quite appropriate in-game, and still screenshots don't represent it too well (especially the shot being criticized). Here's a shot that frames the flying view a little more closely:
Considering Xbox image quality allows detail drawn out into the distance to actually look convincing and not like a degenerate shimmering mess, levels like this one and the one inside Sestren where Orta is inside what looks like a giant, pulsating membrane can manage to look solid.
Any level that involved loads of terrain fell flat from a visual standpoint. The snowy wasteland really suffered from it...
On the contrary, Eternal Glacies was quite picturesque. At each time of day, it achieved its goal of becoming a setting fit for a landscape painiting:
All of the various terrain created moody settings:
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