1. wyvernshido

   Jan 15, 2013

   10

   This game is everything i love about the Wii, i enjoyed it from beginning until end. Aaron & Elena's characters and there relationship was very heart felt and touching; it makes you want to save from her fate. I thought the story was very well written and understandable; the music and level design where akin to the 3D Zelda title (that's a good thing in my book) .... and finally the endings (especially the final one) are beautiful and close all loose ends. It took me 43 hrs. to complete with the best ending; and I'm glad i purchased this game. This has become my favorite of the 140 games i own on Wii.… Expand

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful
2. Thegodfatherson

   May 20, 2013

   10

   Pandora's Tower is heavenly mixed as a good game. Zelda and Castlevaina mixture has its own elements, story and new characters in the industry. Must Play.… Expand

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful
3. KongsNutz

   May 23, 2012

   10

   This game has the feel of some great games, Castlevania, ICO and Zelda with the RPGness of Final Fantasy.
   
   Great Game with good gameplay, definitely worth a look for fans of those series or anyone with a Wii that wants a new game.… Expand

   • 3 of 4 users found this helpful
4. JGreenhill

   Jul 16, 2012

   9

   As the Wii approaches its end, original role playing games seem to be landing left and right. Xenoblade has its grand vistas, The Last Story has its amazingly natural dialogue, and Pandora's Tower well it has Elena. The aim of the game being to prevent a curse from turning her into a monster. To stop the curse you take control of the semi-silent protagonist Aeron; for the most part he's a bit like Link from the Zelda series or the vault dweller from fallout 3 but in scenes with drama he does talk. It's a nice halfway house that sets out to give you the immersion of playing the part of the character while at the same time allowing for dramatic scenes to feel fluid and not like a series of button prompts. Armed with the mystical oraclos chain, given to you by a creepy old woman named Mavda you are instructed to collect the flesh of beasts from the towers for Elena to chow down on. You soon find out that said beast flesh is only a temporary solution; it only delays the effects of the curse for 30 or 40 minutes. The only way to truly break the curse and save the day is to obtain flesh from the masters lying in wait at the top of each of the thirteen towers.
   
   The aforementioned towers are guarded by enemies and puzzles, in order to reach the final room of each tower the plucky hero must first unseal the rooms containing the dangerous creatures known as the masters. This is achieved by destroying a handful of pedestals which ground the chains barring entrance to the final room of a tower. As you begin scaling the towers you will notice two things, the first is that each tower corresponds to an element a bit like The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of time's fire temple, water temple, forest temple etc. This is great for the first five towers as it keeps things fresh both in terms of art direction and game mechanics, the second half of the game isn't quite so interesting due to tower 6 to 10 repeating the themes of 1 to 5. Nobody really wants to go through two water temples. The second thing you will notice about the towers is that you are not going to manage to get through them in 30-40 minutes, most will require at least two trips back to the observatory. This could have easily made the whole experience a lot more tedious, to the developers credit though they have done an amazing job making backtracking bearable. Each tower has shortcuts you can open up in the form of unlocking barricaded doors and dropping down ladders, which make traversing to the top of each tower a quick and painless task. Also included is an item that instantaneously transports you back to the observatory, these are particularly useful in getting the most out of your time in the towers.
   
   The unique concept of having to come back at regular intervals to prevent the damsel in distress from mutating horrifically is quite gripping. On the one hand you want to fully explore the Towers and discover the mysteries behind them but on the other you don't want to watch Elena Gag as she eats raw oozing purple monster flesh. There aren't too many games that make you feel guilty for wanting to explore every nook and cranny. One of the thing the game does really well is make you want to protect Elena and get back before the curse takes hold. There's a kind of morbid curiosity at the start of the game where you want to see what happens when you leave it to the last minute to get back to Elena. Once you've watched that scene once, you will never want to see it again, probably the darkest thing you will ever see in a Nintendo published game.
   
   When you eventually reach one of the towers masters you will immediately be reminded of the colossi from Team Ico's epic shadow of the colossus, in the sense that each of the boss battles feels like a puzzle rather than a challenge of your reflexes or combat proficiency. It feels a lot more brain over brawn. The idea behind these master battles is to hook onto the glowing weak point with the oraclos chain and perform some abrupt, unwanted keyhole surgery. The difficulty comes from trying to figure out how to reveal the masters weak point and get off a fully charged yank. Generally if you impale something with a metal spike, they are not likely to sit there and wait for you to remove their aorta. So before going for their Achilles heel you will need to stun them, figuring out how to stun them is the important bit. It's a really interesting dynamic combined with the constantly draining hourglass, the pressure doesn't come from beating the boss but beating the boss in a timely fashion so as not to see Elena horribly deformed.
   
   These days every JRPG seems to feature a group of seven unlikely heroes saving the world from a generic bad guy on a power trip, it's refreshing to see a developer put some thought and originality into a game's story. It's not perfect by any means but it is memorable, and I'd take one flawed game with with spirit over 50 games that are more of the same but a little better.… Expand

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful
5. czerro

   Jun 21, 2012

   8

   This game is quite ambitious which I think is what will draw you in and allow you to forgive some of the shortcomings. As a Wii title, it stands out as impressive use of almost every function of the controllers without going into useless, annoying "waggle to win" systems. In a lot of ways the mood, art, and gameplay reminds me a lot of Vagrant Story meets Metroid with an Original X concept in there. Game looks beautiful. It's a little cut-scene heavy for my tastes, but they still manage to hold your interest and sorta flesh out this story that is just bananas ambiguity in the first 10 minutes. It's an enjoyable game, with a high concept design scope. I look forward to a pandora's tower 2 or 3 which can maybe streamline some of the world camera work, the control scheme, and a little less watch the story and rather we can PLAY the story. This game really pushes the Wii on every level from gameplay concept, to art design, efficiency and breadth of controller input making ACTUAL use of the nunchuk-wiimote potential in a sensible manner, graphical prowess of the Wii, story-telling. This is one of the few games that ALMOST fully realized the potential of the Wii with minor stumbles. If you own a Wii, you need to play this game.… Expand

   • 1 of 2 users found this helpful
6. TheRavingTimes

   Apr 23, 2013

   8

   An amazing game with fast paced combat, Zelda-like explorations, and much more. The combat may suffer from annoying camera angles and a lack of characters which makes the characters repetitive in some sense. The story makes the game feel like a side-story in some way. The bond between Aeron and Elena does bring out the game's potential, especially since the game features 6 separate endings, each one settling with a completely different outcome. Possibly the strongest point of this game would have to be a the Zelda-like structure which combine with a unique gameplay style makes for an amazing experience. Possibly some of the game's best moments are the boss battles which feels like Zelda and Shadow of the Colossus combined. Even after the boss battle I keep on forgetting "this is not a Zelda title, so stop looking around for the heart container and portal out of this dungeon/tower."… Expand

   • 0 of 0 users found this helpful
7. Displayer

   Apr 16, 2013

   1

   This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This game is boring,extremely,Is one Rpg gonna disappoint you from the Beggining from the story until the end, The story isn´t touching,is stupid,or just happen!,
   
   The gameplay is extremely worse than any rpg i DID EVER See! boring,Linear,Enemies repeat alot the bosses battles are Boring and easy!
   
   This game is so bland!
   The ONLY good thing! the puzzles are extremely easy!.
   
   This game is so annoying! is anything else than a RPG
   or one of theses kill monsters with awesome power! Castlevania,Resident evil,Contra or others.… Expand

   • 1 of 7 users found this helpful

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