Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Pandora's Tower's Budding Relationship Is The Soul Of The Game | Siliconera

This is the third game Operation Rainfall is trying to get Stateside and if it made it to Europe -as with Xenoblade and The Last Story - there's some hope it might get out there. At its core its a action RPG in the sense of being a being Metroidvania meets God of War, but the other hook is you're not so much saving the woman you love from peril as much as preventing a girl you care about from turning into a monster. Yes, its a dating sim with a monster girl.

Elena has been cursed and is turning into a monster and its on the bland-looking Aeron to find a way to break this curse. To break this curse he must cut out the vital organs or parts of monsters that Elena needs to eat to break the curse.

Did I mention Elena is a vegetarian?

Along the way you also improve your relationship with Elena, bringing her back gifts and fruit to help her keep up her spirts in this hard time she's going through trying to not turn into a purple tentacle monster of some sort. If you come back late, she might be a little more slimey than you remember her.

Its an interesting twist on the damsel-in-distress thing, to say the least. Here's hoping it makes it over to the US as well.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th

Pandora's Tower Review - Wii Review at IGN

EU review from IGN. Seems to be on about the level of Nier, which is to say good ideas and gameplay concepts mixed with a few bad ones.. I'm curious to read more on it though as it does seem a game within my interests, though it could easily be overshadowed by a lot of other things were it to get a fall release in the US, especially other potential offerings from Nintendo. Xenoblade and The Last Story are getting out just in time to avoid that.

[Firewind]

Re: Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th

I have it and the comparisons to NIER are pretty well founded. I've not really played enough to give much of an opinion but first impressions are while it's not the best game out there, it's a pretty solid Action-RPG that is at the end of the day very fun. From my first impressions only I would recommend Xenoblade and Last Story first purely because I'm biased due to having played more of those games.

Basically if you like NIER or Zelda I would look into it.

---------- Post added at 12:41 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:38 AM ----------

Another note after reading the IGN review: From my first impressions I agree with the IGN review. It's no Xenoblades Chronicles but it is a solid title nonetheless for those action-RPG fans out there. I think people who aren't into Zelda or NIER could afford to give it a miss or rent it but it's worth at least checking to see if you like it nonetheless.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th

How was The Last Story for you, by the way? It looks a lot more engaging than Lost Odyssey did. Not saying LO is bad, I like the setting and characters its just the gamplay is really slow.

I need to check if we're getting the Limited Editions of The Last Story in the US when I swing by Gamestop tomorrow. If we are, I'm going to upgrade to that.

[Firewind]

Re: Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th

Honestly I'm not a fan of Wii controls and level grinding is ridiculously easy due to how broken summoning circles are. That said I enjoyed the game. While the plot does nothing new, the storytelling is very well done nonetheless and the plot is very character driven. At risk of sounding like J9 here, there are some very moving and emotional moments in the game and the writing team did a very good job of making me emotionally involved. The roleplaying purists will of course hate it because it's a JRPG but I would ignore them as it's a fantastic game that really does live up to the praise. I don't really want to get into the plot here because I don't think it's fair or sensible to post spoilers on a board full of Americans who are still waiting for the game and likely trying to avoid them but I'll say this: Sakaguchi Hironobu's writing team definitely have showed up the likes of Bioware in this game in the emotional impact on the players. There were times in Mass Effect where I honestly did not care about the random NPCs passing me (mostly because they annoyed me with random quests I wouldn't notice until I checked my journal) and in SWTOR the only NPCs I even noticed were around for something more than a world filler were my companions. The writing team for this game instead goes a good job of getting you to give a damn about the NPCs which is one thing I really like about it.

There are Mass Effect style shooter elements in the game complete with a cover system. Now you mileage may vary with it really. I personally don't mind cover systems if they are implemented well, like in Rainbow Six Vegas for instance, or Mass Effect 3. Personally I didn't like it here because to me personally, it felt like a gimmick. I'm sure someone more used to the Wiimote would love it and I wouldn't call the shooter elements badly implemented at all; the shooter elements just did not suit my personal taste. Thankfully for me, the shooter elements are only there for if you are controlling a party member equipped with a repeating crossbow.

However, from a purely gameplay point of view it does push JRPGs forwards. I said the plot is nothing really new (but it's still very well written) but as I touched on above, the shooter mechanics are very well implemented and while I did not personally like those due to how bad I am with the Wii controls; I will admit I was impressed. Western RPGs have been marrying shooter elements with RPGs for years now and it could easily be argued that it goes back as far as the classic first person dungeon crawlers. But Last Story and Valkyria Chronicles (technically a Strategy RPG but that is me being pedantic) have shown that they do go together very well if properly implemented.

It's also hard to give it a sub genre label really, it more obviously looks like a straight up Action RPG but it also has elements of strategy RPG in there in how you can assign commands to party members in real like like with an RTS. I would say it's definitely worth a buy. While I wouldn't call this this generation's best JRPG as I'm too biased towards Tales of Vesperia, Devil Survivor 1&2 and Pokemon Black/White, it comes pretty damn close to the top of my personal list. Top 6? I could see it in there easily.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th

I really don't have a hard preferece for RPG style so long as its done well, I tend to see the WRPG choice and JRPG choice differently. JRPG tending to be more within the metagame and stat min/maxing and minigames.

Sakaguchi also has a way of overseeing the work of his writers to make sure characters are varied and interesting. Its in playing FFVI, FFIV, FFX, FFXI or Lost Odyssey that you can really see the difference of his presence and then its games like FFXIII where you see what happens when Kitase is left to his own devices without someone to guide him.

Hell, Kitase gets lost without Nomura and Nomura had no input into FFXIII beyond character design as he's too busy with KH, TWEWY, FFvsXIII to give a damn what other people do right now. Back on Advent Children he kept Kitase from totally going off the rails, plus I'm sure they consulted Sakaguchi on it even after his departure.

Its sort of a shame that Matsuno doesn't get all that much work with SE these days, because his update to Tactics Ogre made it one of SE's best releases last year. Then again, he gets almost as convoluted as Nomura and his teams to.

[Armando]

Re: Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th

Hmm...have dreadfully boring human sex or experience the finer points of interspecies erotica. Tough call.

[Firewind]

Re: Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th

Hmm...have dreadfully boring human sex or experience the finer points of interspecies erotica. Tough call.

Was this in the wrong thread or...?

[Raydeus]

Re: Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th

Do you really want to know? <_<;

[Armando]

Re: Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th

Was this in the wrong thread or...?

From the first post: "Yes, its a dating sim with a monster girl."

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th



Yeah, monster girl.

I like her tattoo, though

[Firewind]

Re: Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th

From the first post: "Yes, its a dating sim with a monster girl."

Sorry that was me derping out XD

Also if you come back late but no so late she starts growing extra appendages, you see her mopping up slime from the floor. It's a bit nightmare fuelish when you're not expecting it.

[Murphie]

Re: Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th

Yet when you expect it it's cool? :p "Oh, that's just my crazy monster girlfriend being crazy."

[Raydeus]

Re: Pandora's Tower arriving in Europe April 13th

Well, considering the way divorce settlements work this ranks pretty low on the scale of "horrific surprises about my girl".