A tense tower

It might be too early to be a good judge of it, but Pandora's Tower's timer is stressful.

In my last session I brought Elena some flesh and it didn't budge the little indicator of her curse's progress. No big deal - I was still in the observatory, so the curse was slowed to stillness. But, once I left, the gauge remained unchanged. I came across more meat in the towers, but feel like I'm missing something since there's a locked door in my way and no clear key. Though there is an elevator in a room that didn't seem to be there before.

Maybe it's my familiarity with the Zelda games, but now that I'm into the meat of the first dungeon, I feel like the better analogue for Pandora's Tower is something like Castlevania or possibly (based on nothing but trailers and the box containing the as of yet unplayed) Baroque. Not necessarily in its design or mechanics, but in its mood.

Zelda dungeons can be stressful, but overriding that stress (even in Majora's Mask) is always a sense that exploring will be rewarded. With its fixed camera angle, Pandora's Tower just doesn't exude the same feeling. Aeron has a clear mission, and there's no time to dilly dally, even if it seems doing so could yield stronger items that might help you work faster. Link has a clear mission, too, but somehow there's no urgency, even in Skyward Sword when Link is chasing after Zelda through dungeons to try to get her back to Skyloft.

With all that said, Pandora's Tower also brings a sense of real threat. I haven't found any auto-revive items yet, and gangs of enemies (especially guardians) don't necessarily queue up for Aeron's meat-grinding sword moves. I find this frantic quality to the battles refreshing, and enticing.