Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Welcome to Torrent Peak

I think by now hating water-based dungeons is a forgone conclusion. It's been over a decade since Ocarina of Time's first stalled playthroughs around the globe, after all. The water dungeons in Pandora's Tower are, unfortunately, just as frustrating.

However. In Ocarina of Time, the Water Temple is a pain to work through because of all the keys and locked doors. You need to keep track of where things are, too (much more so than in any other dungeon in that game). In Pandora's Tower keys aren't the problem.

No. In Pandora's Tower the problem is the game's camera system.

Instead of following Aeron in a third person perspective, the game uses a fixed point of view. Sometimes this point of view shifts for different rooms and areas. But, it is always fixed. And there's no way to switch into a first person view to see what's around you.

Combine this restrictive camera scheme with narrow pathways surrounded by water in which you instantly lose a block of health and are sent back to the last doorway you passed through.

Then, for good measure, add in monsters that don't just leap out of the water and onto the walkways before attacking but literally launch themselves at you. Oh, and make sure you're generous with those monsters - let's say toss in two for every stretch of walkway in the main room.

That's Torrent Peak, the next tower, in a nutshell.

Granted, the Lifeforce Band and the Military Scythe do make a deadly combination in this tower. Plus, thanks to the levels gained from all of those fights, I have the room to equip armour along with those two items. So Aeron is a formidable force right now.

Still, falling in the water and re-spawning a the last doorway you passed through is frustrating as all get out. All the more so when you're in the middle of fighting those crowding creatures and have to work your way back to where you were knowing that the beasts are waiting for you.

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