#oneaday Day 815: Pandora’s Tower — Some First Impressions

So, the third of the three “Operation Rainfall” titles is finally upon us here in the UK (well, technically tomorrow, but Amazon were good enough to ship it to me a day early), completing the Holy Trinity of Wii-based Japanese role-playing games that many are lauding as the real last hurrah of Nintendo’s system. (I’ve actually lost count of how many times people have referred to Wii games as the system’s “last hurrah” or similar, but with Wii U on the relatively near horizon, it might actually be true this time.)

Like its predecessors Xenoblade Chronicles by MonolithSoft and The Last Story by Mistwalker, Ganbarion‘s Pandora’s Tower is far from what you’d call a conventional JRPG. In fact, of the three titles, Pandora’s Tower is the least traditionally RPG-ish and will likely prove to be the most divisive due to its curious mix of game styles. That’s not to say it’s bad — far from it, in fact — but those coming in and expecting a traditional globetrotting adventure with a cast of loveable misfits will find themselves surprised by what they discover.

Pandora’s Tower tells the story of a pair of young star-crossed lovers named Aeron and Elena. Aeron, the player character, doesn’t say much besides the odd grunt and “yes” but is clearly devoted to Elena. Elena, meanwhile, has a bit of a problem; she’s cursed. And, as curses go, this one’s a doozy — she’s slowly turning into a slobbering monster with icky skin and tentacles wriggling out of her shoulder. Discovering the nature of the curse at a harvest festival, Aeron and Elena flee into the wilderness accompanied by a strange old crone named Mavda who inexplicably carries a jar on her back containing an enormous skeletal man who occasionally babbles indecipherable gibberish. Madva reveals that there is one way to break the curse — for Elena to eat the flesh of twelve “masters” who reside in twelve towers that make up an imposing-looking fortress hovering over a terrifying-looking abyss known as The Scar.

As you have probably surmised, this is where the player comes in. Elena, being rather delicate and demure when she’s not slobbering and betentacled, isn’t exactly equipped to go monster hunting, so it’s up to Aeron to take his improbably large sword, magic chain (provided by Mavda) and floppy hair (model’s own) into the aforementioned towers to defeat the masters, rip out their “master flesh” and feed it to Elena (who was, at least until this whole mess started, a vegetarian for religious reasons) in order to save her from a hideous fate. Simple, right? All in a day’s work for an almost-mute hero.

Gameplay evolves in several discrete sections, and it’s the combination of these factors that makes Pandora’s Tower such an original, distinctive experience. If you were to boil it down to video game math, then the following equation would probably cover most of what I’ve experienced so far:

(Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Patrick Stewart) + Ico + Shadow of the Colossus * Zelda + dating sim = Pandora’s Tower

There are two main components to gameplay: dungeoneering and downtime. During downtime, the player may, as Aeron, hang out with Elena in their makeshift hideout, ask her about the lore of the world, shower her with gifts, feed her various meaty treats and throw her untranslated texts so she can make herself useful. Aeron may also call up Mavda, who appears to perpetually live outside the back door of the hideout, and buy things from her, get her to craft and repair items, get her to upgrade equipment and offload excess meat. She’ll also pay Aeron for any texts he’s found — including newly-translated ones from Elena — which provides the player with a decent income stream if they take the time to explore and discover things. That completionist’s nightmare — the “percentage completed” gauge — makes an appearance in the game’s menu so those who want to make sure they get the full experience can see at a glance how close they are.

All this downtime activity isn’t just for show — most of the Elena-related activity affects the couple’s relationship, and providing certain gifts also causes her to spruce up the hideout with her own personal touches. The game’s ending is supposedly determined by the relationship value between the two by the time the story comes to an end, so it’s in players’ interests to ensure that they keep their lady sweet.

Upon leaving the hideout and heading for one of the dungeons, however, gameplay takes a decidedly different turn. It becomes a combination of third-person combat and environmental puzzle solving. Aeron may attack beasties with his sword and unleash combos, but it’s the chain that provides the most interesting gameplay possibilities. By aiming the chain with the Wii Remote’s pointer (or the right analogue stick on the Classic Controller) and attaching it to enemies, environmental structures and all manner of other things, Aeron is able to cause all kinds of mischief. And there’s plenty of scope for creative silliness, too — try attaching one end of the chain to one enemy’s legs and the other to another enemy’s face, for example.

Aeron’s goal in each dungeon is, like a Zelda game, to unlock the boss chamber and then defeat said boss. Rather than relying on a huge inventory of items, however, the majority of the game’s puzzle solving comes from creative use of the chain. Sometimes you’ll be pulling levers with it, sometimes you’ll be throwing chunks of ore into soft walls to use as hooks to grapple on to, sometimes you’ll be tying sentient plants to pillars and chopping them to bits before they burrow into the ground. And you’ll often be using the chain to rip out gobs of flesh and other crafting ingredients from fallen enemies, because Elena’s curse isn’t waiting for you.

No, indeed — a timer in the corner of the screen shows the progress of Elena’s transformation. It can be reset by grabbing some tasty meat and taking it back to her, but this requires you to make your way back through the dungeon you’ve just battled your way through, then delve back into it once you’ve given her her treats. Fortunately, the dungeons are designed in such a way that progressing further in them allows you to set up various shortcuts, and knowing the layout of them a bit better also allows you to romp through them fairly quickly. Progress doesn’t reset upon leaving the dungeon, so it’s perfectly feasible to unlock the boss room, go back, feed Elena and then go kick some boss ass.

It becomes an exercise in time management — can you make it through the boss fight before Elena goes all tentacly? (Should she find herself going all tentacly, this does, as you may expect, have an adverse effect on the couple’s relationship.) Or should you play it safe and head back with a bag full of meaty treats? This constant weighing up of pros and cons is further exacerbated by the fact that Aeron can only carry so much crap in his bag at once, necessitating a return to the hideout every so often to offload junk or craft it into useful items. This does, however, provide an opportunity for Aeron and Elena to spend some time together and improve their relationship, so it’s not a wasted trip — though the traipsing back and forth may annoy some.

There’s a lot to do, but the dungeons (at least the two I’ve completed so far) are well-designed and satisfying to figure out. A real sense of urgency is provided by the curse timer ticking away in the corner of the screen, and I can only imagine how the intensity of this will increase as the dungeons grow in complexity. The story is told in a less “in your face” manner than a lot of other games, with a strong focus on the relationship between Aeron and Elena, and a lot of environmental storytelling through discarded notes and architectural design. It’s an intimate sort of game, by turns lonely and daunting in the dungeoneering segments and heartwarming when the couple is together. At its heart is the tale of a relationship between two people and the lengths people will go to for love — an experience that, so far at least, is altogether unlike any other Japanese role-playing game or action adventure that I’ve played in recent memory.

In short, it’s a fitting dénouement to the “Operation Rainfall” trio of titles — and to the Wii’s catalogue in general. It’s actually pretty remarkable that three of the best “core” games of the generation are on a system that many people denounce as being “kiddy”, “casual” or a waste of time — or dismiss outright for not being HD. Deprive yourself of these three games simply on the grounds that they don’t look as good as, say, Mass Effect 3 and you’re depriving yourself of three distinctive, bold and original titles that are the perfect antithesis to the “cookie-cutter” approach of triple-A development and publishing. I hope beyond hope that their small but loyal fanbases will be enough for these studios to be able to keep doing what they do.

Further thoughts on Pandora’s Tower will follow when I’ve beaten it. In the meantime, if you’re American, go pick up a copy of Xenoblade Chronicles before it becomes impossible to find, and be sure to support Xseed’s release of The Last Story — and whoever picks up Pandora’s Tower — when they show up later this year.

[Edit: Apologies — I misread some recent news that made it look as if Xseed was bringing Pandora’s Tower to the US later in the year. It seems the status of that title’s US release is still somewhat up in the air — but we can hope!]