Pandora’s Tower - Wii (review)
Pandora’s Tower Review.
The Sun is setting on the Nintendo Wii and it is nearly time to call it a day, but before the final nail is slammed into it’s long coming coffin, as a final hurrah Nintendo have released a whole load of new JRPGs in Europe and out of all them I was lucky enough to land myself with a copy of Pandora’s Tower, a twisted fairy tail of love, monsters and stuffing a vegetarian’s face full of meat.
To break down the story, The main character name is Aeron, a mumbling blonde who was once rescued by the beautiful Elena, during the local festival Elena is cursed, turning her into a monster. Aeron vows to help Elena then the two of them come across an old witch who brings them to the Pandora Towers, 13 Towers each graded by huge demon, The objective is simple, break the chains of the towers and bring back the demon flesh for Elena to feast on to lift the curse and stop her from transforming again.
The first thing that stuck me was the voice acting, The characters are voiced by English voice actors, this makes a huge change from the usual American dubs we are use to hearing. This is a great innovation as the Japanese written characters are much more in tune to the sensibilities of olden days England.
The second innovation is Aeron’s weapon the Oraclos Chain, a cross between Link’s hookshot and Ivy from Soul Calibur’s Snake Sword. Not only does the Oraclos chain pull you from ledge to ledge, open doors, entangle enemies but it also let you swing them around like a crazy mother f*cker.
The Towers themselves are a diverse mix of levels based on elements and machinery, as you progress through them you will find texts that Elena can translate for you they will bring light to the dark goings on of the country’s wars and reveal the truth behind the monsters you are fighting. The puzzles are well thought out and each tower has it’s own feel, and can be quite beautiful, but you can’t spend too long admiring the view as if you don’t watch the clock and return home in time to feed your the ever more needy Elena with some beast flesh she will transform hideously.
At first Elena will hate the beast flesh, as a follower of Eios she is a strict vegetarian, watching her eat the meat gives you an uncomfortable feeling like watching a strange fetish movie, she splutters and drools as she forces it down her throat, a disturbing image that even Lady Gaga would find it hard to shake, even more so when she becomes an addict to the flesh, choking down still beating pieces of flesh.
And about Elena, she is the girl you love to hate, though she is mild mannered and apologetic, to stop her from blowing her own brains out you have to labour her with gifts “making your bond grow.” As if Climbing towers and fighting huge monsters for her wasn’t enough you have to dip into your “urgently need armour fund” to buy little-miss-dull some flower seeds. but don’t worry at least if you are killed the garden will still look nice. Elena stays in the observatory, cleaning and cooking and being such a stereo-type that I nearly cry, but despite all her flaws Elana’s hundreds of lines of well voice acted script will keep you motivated to save her.
I am just going to say it, Pandora’s tower is one of the best Wii titles. Though the graphics can look a little PS2 at times the story is strong, original and kept me playing for hours at a time. The voice acting is some of the best I have come across in years, The controls and fighting (despite the minor flaw on swinging on the chain) are easy to pick up and the levelling up feels balanced well with the enemy’s difficulty.
90%
Like this Review? reblog it.
Thanks - Robin Beirne
How Kairi holds the Key to Kingdom Heart’s future
How Kairi holds the Key to Kingdom Heart’s future
I’m not going to lie but when I first bought Kingdom Hearts I had a major crush on Kairi. I mean who wouldn’t, she’s every 11 year old boy’s dream. I spent hours playing through hours of the levels like Deep Jungle just to save her and the game made me think she was worth it.
And she sort of was.. back then but when Kingdom Hearts 2 arrived I was disapointed to find cute little sassy Kairi had bloomed into a pathetic princess type with a memory problem.
(Duuuhhhh Sora who?)
If that wasn’t bad enough as soon as she remembers you, BITCH GETS KIDNAPPED! After being saved once again pathetic Kairi is given a keyblade by Riku and patheticly flails it around at tiny heartless.. THIS DOES NOT MAKE UP FOR BEING KIDNAPPED FOR THE 10000TH TIME KAIRI!
So this is why I prepose that Kairi her sh*t together. If Xion and Aqua can manage to be badass, why not Kairi? I feel that if she carries on with her pathetic pasona, people won’t want to rescue her anymore, people may even lose intrest in the series.
Like this? reblog it or follow me on twitter @KingofWing
How to make Zelda WiiU (hy)RULE!
Ever since the release of Skyward sword, I’ve been wondering what it is that makes me keep coming back to the series, what is it that makes Zelda such a kick ass game? So I’m going to look back on what made my first Zelda experience so memorable.
It was the 90s, the days of light up shoes and tamagotchis.. and I was lucky enough to have one of these
(and I got through more AA batteries than a twilight fan-girl)
And one lucky Christmas I recieved the greatest present of all. The legend of Zelda: Links Awakening. This game had everything, Swords, dungeons, one hell of a giant egg… and uhh… this bit..
The game wasn’t just a genius series of puzzles but it had you questioning the morality of the destruction of your enemies. Each boss battle would come with a stern warning that Link’s actions would have consequence for all that live on the island. Link’s morality is tested, this was also seen in this creepy as f*ck scene from twilight princess.
This is something I want to see in Nintendo’s next Zelda game, Nothing makes a story stronger than a character over coming their demons.
After beating Skyward sword I couldn’t help but feel that something was missing and it wasn’t until replaying Majora’s mask that I realised what it was. Skyward sword isn’t scary, not even a little.. unless you count seeing headmaster Gaebora having a bath. So What better way to bring back the dark side of Zelda than in beautiful HD?
(HEY, LISTEN!)
YES NAVI I WAS GETTING THERE! Zelda HD needs a good sidekick that we actually care about. This is something else Skyward sword seemed to miss out on. I bloody hate Fi, I calculate that she has an 100% chance of pissing me off. Navi was annoying but at least she wasn’t a robot. What I want from Zelda HD is a character with human emotions like Midna, Linebek or the Ghost of Zelda.
Yeah bitch.
The last thing I’m going to touch on is something I’ve noticed in the past few Zelda games. The japaneseness. I think Zelda should return to it’s roots and base it’s games on European and middle eastern mythology. In other words get rid of the snake-like dragons and bring back religious symbolism.
Nobody finds games like assassin’s creed offensive, and that is bathed in the blood of religious leaders, so the odd cross or Islamic moon won’t offend but give the game a sense of an omnipotence, A higher power beyond the reach of the gamer.
Zelda is a great game series but what Nintendo need to do to step up the game is pull the strengths of it’s previous games together.
If you liked this article please reblog it and follow me on twitter. @KingofWing
