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.)

(Hopefully) the last glitch

At long last, we discover why Zael wants to be a knight. His village had none protecting it and so was razed in the most recent war. Zael wants to be a knight to prevent that from happening to other villages in the future (I guess). There's not much to make the reason stand out, but I'm glad that a reason beyond their coolness has been given.

As you may've guessed, tonight saw some more The Last Story action. Chapter six has proven longer than those that came before, but we cut the game off just before chapter seven's start. At least, it would make sense for the next scene to be the opening for a new chapter.

At any rate, the latest Final Fantasy games have been called "Final Hallway," and I'm beginning to see why (Though Sakaguchi, The Last Story's director, is less and less involved with that series). There aren't a whole lot of branching paths nor is there much exploring in The Last Story. Everything's quite linear, with some of the game's areas offering treasure to those willing to look around an otherwise innocent corner. But for the most part you just march forward from battle to battle. Though the battles can be spectacular.

Aside from glitching out the fight with the Terracor, the game's battles have been pretty engrossing so far. The glitch seems to have emerged from bouncing the armoured beast into the wrong corner at the wrong time - it got stuck, the sound effect for its rolling played on loop, and the beast somehow emanated a damage-inflicting force-field around itself. It looked as though it could still be damaged, but Mirania and Lowell's attack spells worked at the beast slowly. After a reset (followed by a couple game over screens (Zael's slash seems to require sight of the target, something the game's camera is not always keen on giving you), the beast was no more, Zael and Dagran's old friend Zoran was taken out, and the quest we were on was completed.

The game really puts its streamlined play to good use, making for a very quick-to-play RPG. So much streamlining might have a negative effect on character development, though.

Somehow I'm not convinced that Zael is as young and inexperienced as he's depicted, he just doesn't look it. Were he a sprite, doing things like looming over the previously rescued Lisa when the option "Touch her" is chosen after the scene where the two discuss lucky stars, might be endearing or even charming. But with a full 3D figure the same gesture just comes off as weird and laughable.

This incident left me wondering: Is The Last Story's visual style out of sync with its cutscenes/characters' style?

Lazulis City 101

We're still not particularly far into The Last Story, but at least now I can say with confidence Zael's motivation to be a knight is clear: they're cool and majestic.

The thin (thus far) main character aside, The Last Story's Lazulis City is a fairly huge hub city to explore. There are tons of alleyways and narrow passages all around it, so that the city resembles an actual medieval town. Though I'm not sure about its major streets being circular and angular rather than grid-like.

Two things about Lazulis City aside from its design also struck me.

It's altogether too easy to bump into people as you walk through streets and alleyways, and what's more they actually call you out on it. This is a really cool feature, since it makes the city seem all the more lively, but I can't help but wonder if indiscriminately bumping into people will somehow have a negative effect down the line.

Before you even step out of the tavern and into the streets, though, you'll notice white stuff floating down to the ground. At first, it seems that this is snow. But, later on Zael is told that it's actually the dust from worn out land flaking off of said land, blowing away, and falling in Lazulis City. It's a rather depressing, though also simplistically beautiful phenomenon once you've learned about it.

But, along with adding a nice visual touch, there are things to catch the dust-bearing breeze. As far as I can tell these are minute status boosts (offering something like +0.02% per bit picked up). From what I've heard, the game offers little in the way of traditional grinding opportunities, but catching fractional status boosts could be considered a curious substitute.

The first of the last

In a surprise twist, I've gone ahead and started The Last Story. My roommate and I used to play console RPGs together on a regular basis, and once he found out about the game's pedigree he took an immediate interest in seeing what it's all about. What better way to do that than to play as a team, riffing on plot holes and character flaws together as The Last Story unfurls?

And, since it's a game on my list after all, why not blog about it.

The first thing that bites you as a player is the completely unexpected combat system. Rather than being turn-based, fights take place in real time, in fairly expansive environments that you can affect with your party's attacks and magic. True, much of the promotion of the game touted its combat mechanics as something that set it apart, but the control is more lockstep than you'd expect.

Rather than one button doing one thing and pressing that button to do said thing multiple times, the combat controls are similar to those of No More Heroes: Press the "A" button to attack, and you'll cycle through a few animations. The biggest difference, though, is that you need to be within range to actually attack - otherwise you'll just practice your hiding behind or vaulting over (if you're holding "R" on the classic controller) whatever is in your way. Otherwise, aside from the controlled character, Zael, having a handy crossbow with him, the controls are a matter of being within range and following the prompts in the lower right.

So far, my impression of the story is that it truly is the last of them. We've seen a couple of flashbacks and cutscenes to this point, and they've not been as exposition heavy as other RPGs' early parts. Most of the game's exposition - particularly of the characters' motivation comes from conversations had and scenes seen in the game's present. Though even then, some parts are missing.

For example, it may be a fine assumption to make, given the game's fantasy setting, but an explanation of why being knights is important to Zael and Dagran would be helpful. Plus, it would allow for some world-building. In the game's title card scene (that plays about 15 minutes into the game) we see a knight in a blue cape and gold armour standing fatefully and overlooking the city. He looks very cool doing this, and based on the get up he's a knight. But is this it?

From Zael's conversations with the others we can gather that there's a war that's going on in the outside world. Do he and Dagran want to become knights so they can do what they're currently doing as mercenaries but get more respect doing it? Right now that's the best guess I have aside from "being a knight is cool, I want to be cool, I want to be a knight."

Nevertheless, a game's story can't be judged from just under an hour of play. Especially an RPG's story. So we'll see how it plays out. We're already on chapter 3 of a grand total of 44, so there are still quite a few sessions left with it.