Pandora's Tower is finished, time for final thoughts (spoilers below)

Pandora's Tower came to North America thanks largely to Operation Rainfall. This fan initiative also helped to encourage Nintendo to bring The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles to North America. These last two games are dyed in the wool J-RPGs (with some variations).

But Pandora's Tower is the odd one out.

It's more of an RPG in the same way that Zelda games are sometimes considered RPGs.

You're given a big world (or a lot of dungeons) and get to explore, upgrade equipment, find new items, and mostly have bits of the story revealed as you do those first three things.

A stronger case can be made for Pandora's Tower being an RPG since it also involves an experience and levelling system, as well as character stats that determine the player's defence, attack, and stamina/health.

But Pandora's Tower also brings something else from the genre of the J-RPG into an action game framework.

The amount of HP of the game's final boss.

Seriously, with the boss' six weak spots each having their own screen-wide health bar, this battle can take a very long time. Since I didn't have any power-ups with me, it took me approximately 35 minutes to finish off the final Master, Zeron.

As such, it's definitely fair to say that the final battle is more a test of endurance than of skill. And that's fine, except that the quality of your ending isn't really based on your skill. 

It doesn't matter if you've finished the game without dying, or if you've somehow 100%-ed the game on your first play through. Instead, which of the game's endings you get depends on your affinity with Elena. Unless your relationship is ranked between eight and ten on a ten point scale, the ending is a let down in one way or another.

If your relationship is fairly strong (between six and eight on said scale) both Elena and Aeron hop off the top of the towers to rid the world of the bit of Zeron that lives inside of her. Also, the the Scar (a massive chasm over which the Towers are perched) is sealed.

If your relationship is middling on the game's scale, then only Elena jumps. Once again, in this ending, the Scar is sealed.

If your relationship is just okay, then Elena winds up trapped in the monster Zeron and Aeron uses her to bring a swift end to the world's ongoing war.

And, if your relationship is poor, then you wind up having to kill Elena.

Alternately, the game's best ending sees the curse lifted from Elena, the Scar healed, and the two living happily ever after in her village while the war comes to a close. But you only see that if you nurse your affinity with Elena to the full.

I suppose this affinity mechanic also links Pandora's Tower more strongly to J-RPGs, since there are a few that lock their best endings behind seemingly superficial sidequests.

All of this business of bosses and endings aside, I put 36.5 hours into this game. But it feels like I put in far more.

I think I'm left with this feeling because each play session engrossed me. Partially because Pandora's Tower is overtly darker than most of the games I play and because there's nothing to the game except the game.

There are no characters to interact with aside from Mavda and Elena. There are no oversized fields to roam in which things are cleverly hidden. There aren't even mini-games, unless you count inventory/equipment management and relationship tending.

So, what's my conclusion about Pandora's Tower, having finished it?

That it's an intense game. I always had a sense that every fight was for high stakes (because of the ever shortening curse gauge, and because monsters could often send you sprawling and sometimes surround you). The Masters offer some epic battles. The game's generally drab colour palette sets a remorseful, Gothic atmosphere. And the game's operatic score makes everything in it seem larger than life.

A final boss with six, full-length HP bars, as cumbersome a fight as it can be, is right at home here and to be expected.

Though making the entire game this intense would be too much, the Zelda development team working away on Zelda Wii U could definitely learn a thing or two from Pandora's Tower. (Just so long as it's not that the best ending should reflect the players' skill in only one of the game's mechanics/aspects.)

Truegold Tower almost too easy

The final two chains of Truegold Tower are a breeze to break. As I opened the door to the fourth and final, I couldn't help but think: "This was too easy."

But maybe that's the point.

As a final dungeon, Truegold Tower's not meant to be long, but instead it's meant to be dense. That is, it should do a lot with a relatively small number of rooms. And that is just what it does. Puzzles, monsters, roundabout routes - all of it.

The thing with Pandora's Tower though is that much more often than in any Zelda game (for example) what it considers a "floor" is actually a physically recognizable piece of a structure.

As an example, Truegold Tower has five floors.

This is obvious in its floor plan and in what you encounter within it, spatially. There's a central column that's open on the bottom two floors for the statue of the Aiosian goddess the tower represents, and that central column continues through floors three to four with Truegold's generator. Atop that central column, on floor five, is the Master's room. And so Truegold Tower feels like a real structure, like the thing that it purports to be: A tower.

Going back to Zelda, most of the dungeons in those games feel more like a collection of similarly-themed rooms. Of course, dungeons that are called "Towers" do look like towers. But what exactly is a Water Temple supposed to look like (and why does it have so many rooms)? Or is the inside of a whale really that compartmentalized?

For all of its fantastical setting and plot points, I think that making dungeons more accurately reflect what they are (and making that a recognizably real thing) helps to give Pandora's Tower its edge. It also makes the differences between the towers stand out all the more - beyond simple thematic differences. Every dungeon being a tower makes it easy to feel the different ways that you're (sometimes) forced to progress through them.

After running through fire and swinging over water, simply climbing upwards and knocking a few giant hammer heads loose is just plain easy. Though I didn't have quite enough time left to take a peek at Truegold's master. Ah well, I'll just have to wait until Thursday.

The climb ahead looks more perilous yet

I'm all for platforming. And time limits are okay, too. But if it wasn't for the shortcut that you can open up in the Ironclad Turret, I do not think that I'd be able to get up to the boss in time to beat it and get back to the Observatory - even if the game automatically teleports you back there once you exit the boss chamber.

Having to time jumps and watch for chances to hookshot onto moving targets is too much like the last area or two of a 3D Legend of Zelda game. But the Ironclad Turret is just tower number seven of thirteen. And I haven't spoiled anything major for myself, but I know that the game has something of second half beyond the towers, too.

Though, more than likely this platforming is just a matter of the tower's theme. Based on what's inside, the Ironclad Turret is very likely a weapons factory of one sort or another. I'm not sure what all of the press mechanisms jabbing into the walls have to do with weapons manufacture, but still.

At any rate, Pandora's Tower's challenge continues to escalate. Which is kind of fitting, what with all the towers involved.

The defeat of Ganon, the return of Ganon

This entry is unprecedented, but why not make an exception for an exceptional game?

After yesterday's A Link to the Past session, and the entry that followed, I picked the game up again. Little did I know that the final three dungeons and the game's boss would tumble just so quickly.

The Ice Palace, Turtle Rock, and Ganon's Tower, each took about thirty minutes to finish. Prep for the final fight added about the same, since I wandered about a bit and made sure to get the game's best sword along with the necessary silver arrows. The final fight with Ganon (both of them) took about three minutes a piece. And in the end - not a single death.

"Wait, wait, wait - both fights with Ganon?" (You maybe ask.)

For the first time, I was knocked off of the platform on which you fight Ganon. At first I figured - ah, well, that's just a few hearts gone and I'll be right back in the King of Evil's face. But no. I actually fell to a lower area of the Pyramid in the middle of the Dark World. There wasn't anything special there, a psychic block whence Sahasrahla tells you you need silver arrows, but that's it. Yet, this new part of the game got me thinking.

So I wondered. I beat the snot out of Ganon. Then I tested my hypothesis. After beating Ganon I dove into the pyramid's depths.

"There's no way that the game will forget I beat Ganon because of this," I thought.

"You defeated the game's final boss?" the game asked as I jumped through the pyramid's roof once more. "That doesn't sound quite right."

And so I had to beat Ganon for the second time.

It's a small tick in the game's programming, but a curious one. There's no switch or variable or subroutine that tells the game you beat Ganon after you beat Ganon. The King of Evil is revived when the hero falls.

Although I'm entirely reading this into it, such a fantastic game in such a grand series could not have a better end-game exploit.

Wizzrobes must've given Misery Mire its name

I've been dogged by a foe since The Legend of Zelda on the NES. A mysterious, vanishing wizard in form obscuring garb: the wizzrobe. These guys have ended more of my adventures as Link than Ganon could ever hope to.

At the least, Misery Mire lived up to its name.

Within that dungeon's depths are some three Link corpses. One fell at the gaze of the dungeon's boss, the other two at the hands of wizzrobes. Each prone, green-tunicked body was swept aside with a quick reset, though.

I am going to finish this game with zero deaths. Even if it means playing parts of it four times over.

Besides, this ought to be the llast time I get careless and is definitely the last time I'll leave such a gap between saves. Nothing teaches you to save often like having to replay sections of a game over again.

Though this little boondoggle got me thinking. Saving in Zelda games was a roundabout process up  until the franchise went 3D.

In Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask you're asked if you want to save each time you exit your menu. In the HD remake of The Wind Waker, though, the save button is once more tucked aside.

Is this shift a reflection of Nintendo's broadening the Zelda franchise's approachability?

Most people who've picked up The Wind Waker probably have experience with the series if not that entry specifically. So the need to save frequently isn't really present, and putting the save button amidst your menus makes sense.

Whatever the case, my liason with A Link to the Past is just about over. The Ice Palace and Turtle Rock loom before Ganon's Tower, but each is about to take its own quick tumble.

The Links between pasts and worlds

Going back to A Link to the Past after playing a bit of A Link Between Worlds is odd. Most Zelda games are just the same thing over and over again. You're assigned some sort of quest (usually ending with "save the princess"), you go through dungeons, face bosses, and build an inventory that helps you to better navigate the world and the lair of the final boss. But when "the overworld is the same" gets thrown into that mix it's a completely different experience of same-ness.

Because of their shared overworld (in the first part of the game, anyway), A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds are a unique pair among the Zelda franchise. With the latter game taking place hundreds of years after the former it's neat to see what's changed and what's remained the same. For the most part, the changes are minimal, but there are a few. The missing chunk of land between Syrup's shop and the Zora's Domain, for example.

One of the weirdest things, though, is the fact that in A Link to the Past's Dark World, Link's house is a bomb shop and in A Link Between Worlds, Link's house becomes Ravio's shop. It's odd because Ravio's garb and strange animal companion look like they might have come from the Dark World. Though, the item renter looks nothing like the trunk-nosed imp that sells bombs in the 16-bit classic.

The Wind Waker Hearty Darkness

I've already done a blog series (Let's Plays in text, as I call them) about The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (it starts here), but a little more needs to be added.
I recently cracked into The Wind Waker HD with my fiancée and have to say that the game's downright lovely. Even on an old tube TV, the graphics are lush, the colours are vibrant, and the lighting is immaculate. However, I've found that the latter effect is achieved through a bit of trickery.

Like most of the 3D Zeldas before it, dark rooms in the Gamecube version of The Wind Waker weren't shown as pitch black. They were dim, but you could see silhouettes and very bland colours while moving through a cave that was designed to be navigated with a torch. In The Wind Waker remake for the Wii U, though, those parts of the game that were previously dim are now just dark. Just plain, unabashedly dark. So much so that when you return to a room with any light at all the colours you can once again see really pop out at you.

Having to actually use a torch in the darker areas of the game is a pain, but the contrast is welcome and nicely reflects the conflict between the game's cartoonish appearance and darker undertones.

(Spoiler ahead.)

Let's not forget that this is the Zelda game that ends with Link stabbing Ganondorf in the face.

Thoughts of a year-late Wii U adopter

Setting up the Wii U a year after its launch was way easier than I'd expected. I remember all of the horror stories about lengthy updates required to do anything, systems getting bricked because an update froze them, or because the system was powered off during the process for some reason or other. Even if it was a year later when I finally got the Wii U (Merry Christmas!), for whatever reason, these problems were expected.

But those expectations were foiled.

Though, the Wii U's hardly a plug and play system. You still need to set up a user account, run a few updates for most of the pre-installed channels/menus, and configure a few of the GamePad's features. These set up processes alone should be the criteria for a console to be considered "Next Gen," since I'm sure you need to go through the same things with the PS4 and XBox One. Specs and such aside, I will always consider the Nintendo console with a year-long head start part of the same video game heat as Sony and Microsoft's latest machines.

Yet, now that I have a Wii U I also have to admit that Nintendo really didn't make good use of its head start. The Nintendo Direct from 18 December left me feeling excited for 2014, but what, then, happened in 2013? It seems that Nintendo took the time to relax before (hopefully) turning their efforts up to 11. The Virtual Console is,as it was on the Wii, a prime example of Ninty's playing the hare.

The only two consoles represented on the VC as of this writing are the NES and SNES. Some of the games available for these are also available on the Wii (the VC of which is accessible via the Wii Menu). But, even then, when I turned off all of the eShop's search filters and went through all of the available titles I was dumbfounded to see there were only eight pages worth of software. Some of which wasn't even available on the Wii U, but only available for the 3DS. Since the two consoles now share the eShop, it seems that the eShop is doubling as a strange cross-platform advertising delivery system.

Yet, Nintendo has still captured my imagination with its GamePad. Off-TV play is, at its core, a simple concept. But it's so cool. Being able to take games or apps around with you is incredibly convenient. This convenience probably sounds familiar to owners of smartphones or tablets, but the GamePad's screen is bigger than most smartphones. Its being tethered to the Wii U console cuts down its mobility, but at the same time the GamePad is, essentially, a portable Wii U - which makes it super cool.

Hyrule Warriors raises my hopes for the future of the Wii U. Perhaps this spin-off in the Warriors series is a hint at some element in what will eventually be in Zelda Wii U. Or, perhaps the use of Link (and maybe Zelda?) in a spin-off game is just nodding towards a very late release date for Zelda Wii U.

Exploiting a Link-sized loophole

Like the Helmasaur King's mask after the final hammer blow, A Link to the Past's linearity is now broken.

Armed with the Magic Hammer, I figured I'd see what new areas of the Dark World could be broken into. A vague memory pulled me to the Lost Woods, where, at one of the exits to Kakariko Village, I found a portal. After jumping through, I was primed to storm Theives' Town (so called), and quickly retrieved the Titan Mitts. With those great gloves on Link's hot hands, the entire structure of the game came crashing down.

The duck that was trapped in the village weather vane is now free. Link's sword was tempered by the dwarf smiths. The final bottle was retrieved. And, the cape that turns Link invisible was pulled from the Light World's graveyard.

This freedom of movement is what makes A Link to the Past great. If you know the game well, you're not just rewarded with cool stuff, but with the freedom to play its latter two thirds in just about any order you wish. That freedom is a true reward for skill because it puts so much power into a player's hands.

Though, this reward comes at the cost of story. A Link to the Past has one, of course. It's also an important part of the Zelda timeline, but so much of the game's story is in its atmosphere and NPCs, rather than in dialogues or exposition dumps. Or even cutscenes, for that matter. I think you can count the number of cutscenes in A Link to the Past on one hand.

The question is, though, has there ever been a story-heavy game that plays non-linearly if the player knows a trick or two?

When Link got Helmasaur'd

The Helmasaur King and I have never gotten along. Every time that I've faced him I've fallen at least once before vanquishing him, the first of the Dark World's fiends. Tonight's session was no exception. I admit it, I struck the reset button on my old Gamecube as soon as the "Game Over" screen appeared. As I pulled out the first satisfying syllable of a favourite four letter word.

On that first part of tonight's session with A Link to the Past, I spent 15 minutes gathering a heart container and the Bombos Medallion, as well as probing my limits in the Dark World. Before the Hookshot, it's a very small world. And it's even smaller before you get the Magic Hammer. Then, a good twenty minutes went into the first dungeon, The Palace of Darkness, before a five minute fight with old H.K. The fight that saw Link getting brained on the business end of that boss' flail of a tail. Well, that's how you've got to imagine a dramatic end to a dramatic fight, anyway.

On my second run through I gathered everything I'd gathered before in a about five minutes, navigated the labyrinthine dungeon in about 14 minutes, and then smashed and slashed Helmasaur King into an explosive end in about three. I also saved at every step of the way, unlike my impulsive first session.

The first dungeon of the Dark World is a big shift from the Light World's three. It's about as tightly designed as the Tower of Hera, but is more puzzling. From figuring out that Link can push statues onto switches, to needing the patience to navigate through mazes infested with fire-breathing Green Kodongos, The Palace of Darkness is definitely a steep step upwards in terms of difficulty. So much so, in fact, that the rest of the Dark World's dungeons are easy in comparison. Really, the only thing that most of the others have on the Palace of Darkness is length. That includes the Swamp Palace, though it too will be made short work of and its Hookshot will come in handy.

After a trip to the woods

Another dungeon done. The Tower of Agahnim took a cool 15 minutes to get through, including the fight with the man himself. A fight in which the bug net featured prominently. This one took a little longer since so many of the rooms are dark. Not to mention, getting by mostly unscathed required more strategy than just barrelling through enemy ranks.

One of the best parts of A Link to the Past is the satisfaction you feel when you stride forth from the Lost Woods with the freshly retrieved Master Sword. Slicing through enemies and shooting an energy beam from your blade when at full hearts always makes you feel like a real bad ass. Doubling the damage you do with a single equipment upgrade never felt so good!

Unfortunately, though, the version of the game on the GBA has been doctored in a few ways. The witch Syrup's assistant is now another witch (who is supposed to be Maple from the Oracles games) instead of the generic enrobed apprentice. Link's uncle doesn't die saying "Zelda is your..." And, most devastatingly of all, the Death Mountain glitch seems to have been fixed. And here I was thinking I could break the game wide open, getting the Titan Mitt well ahead of schedule.

I suppose the first two dungeons will have to be done first after all.

Triumph in the Tower of Hera

I'm not sure why the final dungeon in the Light World is called the Tower of Hera.

Perhaps it's because in Greek mythology Hera is a scorned woman, the jealous wife of the very polyamorous Zeus. Just as there would be few true hearts in her eyes, there are very few hearts available in this tower, despite enemies taking generous bites out of Link relative to what we've seen so far.

Or, maybe it's because she was the queen of the gods and was simply the one to deal with to gain admittance into dark, occult secrets. Not that she was the goddess of the occult (that was Hecate's domain), but simply by virtue of being a powerful woman in mythology she has an air of mystery and intrigue about her.

Or, perhaps more mundanely, the Moon Pearl is essentially a piece of jewellery, and Hera is a woman. Though, the fact that the Moon Pearl helps people to keep their real shape in the Dark World does suggest that it has some sort of truth-holding power. Or at least reality maintaining power. Wouldn't it be neat if the Moon Pearl were actually a hold-over from A Link to the Past's original futuristic, sci-fi setting? An item that created some sort of field around Link that made him appear as he wanted/needed to appear to others?

And maybe the old man who gives you the Magic Mirror was originally some old servant robot. That would at least explain his line: "If you wander into a magical transporter, gaze into this mirror." It's a line that sounds just a little too much like a wrecking ball against the fourth wall, even for a 16-bit era adventure game.

Speculation about the Tower of Hera and its treasure aside, it's a tiny dungeon. It claims to be a tower but Link must take an elevator when the screen goes dark between floors because this thing takes minutes to breeze through. The final boss notwithstanding. Though, I was only knocked off of the platform that you're forced to share with the frantic Moldorm three times, and knocked out not once.

At a guess, ten minutes of my thirty minute session went into this dungeon. The other twenty being spent grabbing the mushroom, visiting the Master Sword, and collecting a few stray heart pieces. Along with just jogging from the desert to Death Mountain.

Everything will get so much faster once I free that duck.

Organic anticipation

Tonight's time with A Link to the Past ran a couple over the usual 20 minutes. Not that a lot was done, rather just that the game doesn't offer a quick way to get from major place to major place until its final third. True, once you get the flippers you can use the "magic waterways of the sea folk," but those sea folk don't have any business on land, and that's just where Link is busiest.

So running over to get those flippers, finishing a heart container and briefly looking for a mushroom used up quite a bit of time. In fact, the run back to the Desert Palace and subsequent whooping handed out to the three sandworms that are the dungeon's boss took little time in comparison.

In no way does the game's lack of a quick way to get around so early in the game work against it, though. Because it's not easy to run from one side of the world map to the other, the game effectively railroads you.

You could go and explore between dungeons, yes, but if you get all of the Light World's goodies (and some of the Dark World's, too) first, then you'll run into fewer insurmountable obstacles. Running into fewer insurmountable obstacles means making fewer return trips to places, which means a more efficient experience. Though there's something to be said for wandering around an area, bumping into some gap or immoveable rock and realizing that there must be something that can help you out further into the game. It's actually an ingenious way to create organic anticipation.

Power Gloves get!

Well, A Link to the Past just got easier. At the end of my last 20 minute session I grabbed the Ice Rod, bought the second bottle, and got the Power Gloves. The Ice Rod is kind of incidental (like the two pieces of heart I picked up), but the bottle will be incredibly useful for my "no death" goal. Then there're the Power Gloves.

Ah, the Power Gloves. They aren't as devastating to the order of the game as the Titan Mitts are in the Dark World, but these bad boys let me get the Flippers and general potions. And, with the flippers, I can visit the fairy behind the waterfall to get some item upgrades and the fairy in Lake Hylia to boost my item capacities. Plus, I'll be able to swim out to the hobo living under the bridge at Lake Hylia, the very one who gives me bottle number three.

Actually, when I go there, I'll be addressed by name and everything. This has already come up quite a bit in Kakariko Village - but it doesn't happen anywhere else really. The thief-type characters you meet in caves don't use your name, neither does the sage-looking guy in the cave near the Desert Palace. Which leads me to believe that Link is some sort of regular around Kakariko Village.

Of course, Kakariko being the only real town on the world map, this makes sense from a realistic sort of perspective. Link and his uncle don't look like they farm around their house on the hill, so they must deal with the villagers for food and clothing. Perhaps that sort of familiarity is all it is. Link is just another face that the villagers frequently see. Yet, as cool as it would be for Link to have already distinguished himself in some way, that's probably just what it is. Such familiarity would explain why you get people saying that they still trust you in spite of rumours and that you look like a decent enough guy.

Still. It leaves me wondering just what life was like for Link and his uncle before the game begins.

Eastern Palaces and currency declines

One dungeon down, 10 to go. There's really nothing else to say.

I've played through the first dungeon of A Link to the Past (the Eastern Palace) so often that it's become rote. The image that kept popping up in my mind while playing through it: a straight line.

That's not to say that the Eastern Palace is a direct sort of dungeon. But it's definitely designed to get you to collect all three of the major dungeon items: the map, the compass, and the item. Though, part of that is just statistics, since more people are likely to turn right when given the choice (if I'm properly remembering my signs from the Dungeon Man dungeon in Earthbound). Not that getting everything in this dungeon really tacks on that much extra time. From start to finish, it must've taken just a little over 10 minutes to get through.

What I don't understand, though, is why you're given so many rupees. There's a cache in a room behind Sahasrala, there's a room full of blue rupees in the dungeon, and chests give you fifties and hundreds like the rupee's as valuable as all the sand in Hyrule. Actually, considering the fact that an empty bottle is going for 100 rupees in the Kakariko Village marketplace, maybe that's not far from the truth.

Link eludes capture

One of the reasons why video games entries have been spotty lately is because I was waiting.

Waiting for a good time to test out my video capture set up.

Unfortunately, it looks like there are a few bugs that need working out, particularly my program's telling me that there is no capture device attached in the middle of displaying what's being fed through my capture device. That device by the way is the Diamond VC500. The software I'm running is Ulead VideoStudio 10. And yes, I'm running it all on an old version of Windows (XP).

Another of the reasons for the scarcity of entries about video games is that I was waiting for an opportune time to marathon A Link to the Past, my favourite entry in the Zelda series. Since I don't currently own a 3DS (or a 2DS, for that matter), I can't play A Link Between Worlds just yet and so I figured that its predecessor is the next best thing. That time's not come up, but more important than marathoning it, I want to get through the game without dying a single time.

Unfortunately, all I have with me (aside from an emulated copy, either on the Virtual Console (VC) or through less legitimate means) is the GBA port. Since I've already played through it on the GBA, I figured why not put the old Gamecube Game Boy Player to use and play it on the TV (or computer monitor, as the case may be). The trouble with the game's GBA port, though, is that Nintendo either forgot or neglected to port over Link's grunts from the original game. Instead Link's cries and struggles call up the Nintendo 64 entries in the series thanks to the use of child Link's sound effects.

Not only does this ruin the charm of the original game, but it assumes that this game's Link is the same age as child Link. But what in the game itself even suggests that?

Is it that he's living with his uncle? That he isn't in the middle of military training?

Everyone in Kakariko seems to know Link - unless he's some sort of Dennis the Menace-type character before the game begins, it seems like he'd need to have been active around town before people would be able to know him. To do that, he'd have to be at least a little older than the Link of Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask. I'd like to peg his age as that of the main character of a fun Zelda-esque Genesis game called Crusader of Centy: 14.

So, why am I playing this version when there's a perfectly good port on the VC? Because controlling it with the Gamecube controller's analog stick almost simulates walking on ice. It's just a little bit too sensitive. Considering I know the game well from playing through it several times, I welcome the extra challenge.

New tower, new arms

When I first played A Link to the Past, I was terrified of fighting the Grey Ball and Chain Trooper that guards Zelda. An enemy with a ranged attack that I can't block or effectively dodge? That's madness! Then I discovered that a few hurled jars put the fiend to rest. Unfortunately, in the Iron Turret there are no jars.

The Iron Turret is the next tower in Pandora's Tower. So far, it seems like a bit of a retread of the first tower, at least in its look. Though there are the added mechanisms and gears. It's not quite a Steampunk tower, but it comes close. Along with the new look, comes a new breed of beast.

By this point in the game you've already encountered armoured servant beasts. However, up to this point they've just come in groups of one and have a harmless, melee-range, lance hand.

In the Ironclad Turret these armoured servant beasts get a bit of an upgrade.

Now, they're packing morning-star-like weapons - weapons with serious range. Plus, they seem to come almost exclusively in pairs. Needless to say, there was some trash talk when I faced off against the first couple.

However, along with trapping you in a narrow area with this ball-on-chain-swinging duo the developers over at Ganbarion give you one bit of slack. In the far corner of the room is a chest. In that chest you'll find the "Military Scythe." Its range doesn't quite match the beasts', but it's a welcome cross between the Athosian Sword's power and the Twinblades' speed with a bit of reach thrown in for good measure. Plus, because it's a scythe, Aeron swings it in arcs - meaning that you can hit both beasts in one go.

So that scythe is a very welcome scythe indeed. Maybe it'll even figure into this tower's master. Though that might make it too easy to compare this game to those in the Zelda series.

Another drop of story after Wellspring wrapped up

I'm not sure how I feel about the drip-brewed style of story telling in Pandora's Tower. 

On the one hand, revealing a bit of the story after each tower suits the game's restricted in-game world. I mean, you never have to run between the towers, you just choose your destination and appear there. This limited travel makes the game into a collection of locations. As such, limiting the storytelling to scenes seen after each tower's master has been defeated makes sense since it makes each block of the story into a collection of nodes rather than something that moves continuously like something unravelling (or travelling over an overworld).

On the other hand, only telling the story in bits tossed to the player after each tower's cleared means you have to finish each tower to learn it. 

As much as I'd prefer a less controlled release of the game's story (it's shaping up to be quite interesting, just as twisty as that of any dramatic anime), the game's bit-by-bit method does build up a lot of anticipation. 

Of course, the anticipation I feel for the next bit of the story as I near a tower's master is probably making the game's story appear more interesting than it would be otherwise. 

The most recent wrinkle, the revelation of the "Other World" supposedly under the towers (or accessible from the valley found beneath them) brings a lot of possibilities to mind. Not to mention the revelation that the masters are living weapons created from living things paired with Elena's dreams after she eats their flesh. The little boy featured in most is probably the base for one of the masters, or so I'm guessing at the moment. 

Speaking of masters, the one sitting atop Wellspring Steeple offered almost more than ample challenge. Actually, much to my surprise, the fixed camera might have made it easier. After all, in most 3D Zelda games, the camera has a terrible habit of locking onto Link so that the boss is obscured from sight - especially after Link's been knocked down or back. And the boss atop Wellspring Steeple? It knocks you down a lot. 

As if it wasn't enough that the master flesh on this thing is in near constant motion, it's constantly spraying jets of water at you and launching venomous bubbles that lower the power of your attack. Plus, when its health starts to get low it sprouts tentacles and sees fit to fire more and more of those bubbles off. Not to mention the beast's cornering you, or the fact that the only assailable piece of this master is its juicy, yellow flesh. 

It was a fierce battle, but a successful one for me. Since it's only the third boss of the game and there must be at least 10 more it leaves me wondering how the next one will prove difficult. Perhaps I'll need to use the environment to my advantage or reflect an attack to deal damage. Until I learn the next tower's name all bets are off about the next master. Though, thankfully, Wellspring Steeple's boss was not a fish at all but a kind of tentacle-concealing spiral shell. So who knows what's up next.

Swinging through Wellspring

Wellspring Steeple just became much more interesting. Amidst my wandering, I came into an entirely new room. Though, more importantly, I found a scientist's text about a fish that he created. At first I was sure that this fish would be the tower's master. But, much to my relief, it's just a nuisance enemy in the adjoining room - that newly discovered one. Actually, it's that room that holds the master, so I'll soon see just what it is.

Of course, the fish from the text being in the next room doesn't mean that the tower's master won't be a different kind of fish, but I'm heartened by the possibility that it won't be. Somehow, I imagine it will be a more powered up version of the aquatic servant beasts. Though so far the game's boss chambers have been uniform - large, cylindrical rooms with the master waiting at the center. Unless there's a big pool in the center, it seems unlikey that I'll be facing a fish in Wellspring Steeple.

Speculation about the game's next boss aside, I find the swinging mechanic really frustrating. Too often do I find myself flinging Aeron off and into his doom, missing the aimed-at platform by an arm's length. In part, this is due to the game's fixed camera - it's hard to judge distance when you're always given a different context for that judgment. Maybe the developers were aware of this and tried to compensate with Aeron's flipping to face the side that he's coming closest to, but that little animation also throws me, more often than not.

It seems that once again Zelda has spoiled me. I mean, how can you fall to your doom when you can rotate the camera to check your distance or actually see the ground rising up beneath you?

The wet and wild tower

On one hand I'm glad that it's come up so early. On the other, I wish it never had to come up at all.

With Sheerdrop Spire's master defeated, Aeron's next stop is Wellspring Steeple, the water-themed dungeon of Pandora's Tower. So far it's not as puzzling as Ocarina of Time's, but it's still got me stumped. A second look at the water wheel and the mechanism behind it will probably yield the solution. Or I'll find a door that I missed tonight. The new, semi-aquatic servant beasts threw me off my game, after all. They threw me so far off, in fact, that Aeron was battered and bombarded into an early grave.

At the least, my initial encounter with these new beasts revealed that the Elena's homemade cakes give Aeron temporary regenerative powers. Surely that will come in handy down the line. Learning this has also turned me from using the cakes as my primary curative to saving them.

My slow crawl through the game's mechanics aside, I'm convinced that a major variable in the rate at which I'll finish Wellspring Steeple is how much I perceive water-themed dungeons to be difficult. Really, the water temple in Ocarina of Time isn't tough, it's just something that requires attentive playing. I'll definitely be trying the simplest solutions before the most complex ones.