The Wii exclusive hit action JRPG, Pandora’s Tower, will be launching on the eShop for Wii U in North America on Thursday, August 13. Pandora’s Tower, which features quick, free flowing action combat, was one of the three Wii exclusive JRPGs that released to great critical acclaim in Japan and Europe, and which was part of a great fan campaign, Operation Rainfall, to ensure their release in North America.

Like with all Wii games on the Wii U Virtual Console, Pandora’s Tower will be launching for $20 ($25 if you live in Canada). Since the original game supported the Wii Classic Controller, the Wii U version will also make it possible for you to play through it using only the Wii U Gamepad.

Pandora’s Tower launched in Europe in April, and it is good to see that it has been launched in North America, albeit with a not insignificant delay- it gives me hope that Xenoblade Chronicles, which launched on the Wii U eShop in Europe last week, might also make it over to North America some time soon.

Although Nintendo has gotten a whole lot better about this lately, localizing all of their own games, and even helping third parties with localizations, so that their games can release in the west, they were pretty bad about bringing over games from Japan to the west last generation. It got to be pretty bad- major Nintendo games such as Fire Emblem 12, Fatal Frame 4, and Disaster: Day of Crisis never saw a release in the west, while games like Xenoblade Chronicles, Pandora’s Tower, and The Last Story only came over after a year plus of intense campaigning.

Discussing what motivates their decisions about what games to bring over to the west, Nintendo’s Chris Pranger said, “The hardest thing for everyone to understand and to accept — and I’ve seen this first hand in the company, that this is typified — people think that obviously they’re right, and what they like or dislike has to be the norm. Why would it be otherwise? And they just say the classic “Why do you hate money? Why do you hate money, Nintendo?”

“And it’s like “What are you talking about? We’re trying to make…obviously it has to make calculated risks, but at the same time, one of those risks…and I mean they’ll bring up games that are very Japanese games, like Captain Rainbow for instance. They’ll bring that up like “Look how many people want this. Don’t you want money?” And we’ll be like “Yeah, we do want money, which is why we know it’s a colossal waste if we ever try to localize that in this current market, because look at you people. You don’t make up a big enough group.

“The hardest part for people to realize is how much money it takes sometimes to make a game like…if it’s a Japense game, to bring it over the States. Not just translating and then localizing and marketing, but if it’s a game that has substantial voice text, oh my goodness! That is a collosal cost to bring that over. And some games you look at and you’re like “Well how are they going to bring that over?” and it’s like “Well, they can’t.”

“You look at something like even Xenoblade Chronicles. People love that game, you know, within a certain group. That game is not the type of game that just pulls in enough to justify the costs on that. So that’s like, we got it in the States by luck, that NoE decided “Oh, we’ll take the fall. We’ll localize that.” Okay, cause someone is going to have to eat the costs somewhere, because that game is guaranteed to not sell enough to justify how big that game is. You know, hundreds of hours, all voiced. That’s a lot of money that goes into that.

“And people are like “Why do you guys hate money?” We don’t. That’s why you literally can’t make everything. And people don’t like finding out that their fanbase is actually too small to justify the costs of the thing they want.”

I understand the reasoning here, but there are two intangibles that must be considered here too- diversity in a system’s library, as well as keeping your fanbase happy, both of which are achieved by sometimes undertaking projects that may not be profitable in the end. Sure, a localized Xenoblade probably won’t make money (although Nintendo insists that it did), but it keeps your fans happy, and it adds depth to your system’s library, so why not do it anyway?

Happily, it seems Nintendo has gotten better about it in recent years, so there is that, at least.

Ganborian Director Toru Haga has discussed Wii U’s potential with Siliconera.

Haga seems to have a-lot of interesting ideas on how the team could use the Wii U, even though Ganbarion has not announced any titles in development for the Wii U.

Ganbarion is obviously interested in the Wii U’s potential and they are trying to figure out how they can use it to their advantage for a possible future Wii U game.

This is what Haga had to say regarding Wii U ideas:

“With exciting features such as the GamePad,” Haga says, “we’re currently thinking of fun ideas using these features. For example, we’re thinking of a gameplay idea that uses two screens from different perspectives, like a tabletop RPG, where players could potentially give each other objectives and progress through the game. Or like with Miiverse, where players can share their gameplay experiences easily, we were thinking of a game that focuses on communication.”

Even though the team has plenty of ideas, Haga explains that “as a developer we need to focus on how welcoming it is to the players.”

Haga finishes his statement by saying “as a developer, we are very interested in challenging ourselves with new hardware, and we hope that everyone will look forward to our next project.”

Stay tuned on GamingBolt for more information regarding Ganborian’s future titles and the Wii U. Leave any comments you have down in the comment section.

Source – Siliconera

Pandora’s Tower was one of the three Wii RPGs that were released in Japan and were in danger of never seeing Western releases due to Nintendo’s apprehensions that they may not be successful. But the other two, Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story have been released all over the world, and Pandora’s Tower has been presented to the audiences in Europe and Australia. Now, the third RPG in this “trinity” of sorts is completing its localization process.

Nintendo decided not to release the title in US, but Xseed Games has stepped up and decided that it will distribute the RPG in US. Yes, Xseed has announced that Pandora’s Tower- which can actually be classified more as an action-adventure title than a Role Playing one- will be released for the Wii in the US this year.

A Spring 2013 release date has been set, but nothing concrete has been announced yet.

Stay tuned for more info on Pandora’s Tower.

[CVG]

Set in the continent of Imperia, divided into 9 kingdoms, in the wastelands of Akanos. A tale of romance, corruption and horror is woven in the first title from Ganbarion capping off a series of three JRPGs – The Last Story and Xenoblade.

You are tasked with saving the mysterious yet endearingly sweet Elena’s life as she is cursed into becoming a gruesome, tentacle waving beasty as time passes. The cure? 13 pieces of “Master Flesh” ripped from the heart of 13 colossal beasts ruling their own tower making up a fortress held together by gigantic chains wobbling over the deepest of chasms known as “The Scar”.

The whole game revolves around what is in its simplest forms a fetch quest. A rather tense, panicked and oftentimes revolting one at that. As time ticks on, displayed on the bottom right of the screen, Elena will slowly transform into a hideous beast where if she reaches full transformation she will be stuck like that. Game over. The mainly silent protagonist of the story – Aeron is set the task of adventuring up 13 different towers to slay the Master Beast atop and retrieve its flesh in which to feed to Elena. Yes, those scenes are exactly as horrific and stomach churning as you are imagining. Seeing a sweet and innocent girl corrupt herself through eating slimy, purple, pulsating blobs of flesh has its way of invoking sympathy for a character.

The main hook revolves around each foray into the towering fortress being a timed mission. If Aeron is gone for too long, he’ll return to find a pleasantly slimy, tentacle fiend instead of the endearing Elena. To prevent this from happening Elena can eat the flesh of the regular Beast flunkeys roaming the towers to stave the curse off that little longer. This means that the further you get to reaching the top of the tower through a series of less than taxing puzzles the more likely Elena’s sat back in the hub shrieking at her own wild tentacles appearing. The trick is to locate shortcuts and pathways leading back down to the bottom of the tower so that if you find you’re cut short three quarters of the way to the top you can slash a bit of prime cut Beast flesh, scurry back down to the bottom of the tower and deliver it to Elena just in time. This also means you have to make your way back to the top again with the knowledge now of where the correct paths are and the puzzles you solved already in place. As I played the first two towers I managed to finish both of them in one trip however I felt no rush as I didn’t even realise I was being timed. Although I did return from the second tower after a longer excursion to find Elena startlingly halfway through her horrific transformation.

Aeron is presented with the impressive weapon of a large chain that not only helps whip the Beasts of each tower into shape but also is used to navigate the environment and solve puzzles. Aeron is controlled using the nunchuck while his simple repertoire of combat moves revolves around hammering the A button to create simple combos. Aeron can dodge attacks however this feels incredibly clunky and the whole combat system lacks the fluidity and complexity of say other action RPGs such as Devil May Cry. However the addition of the chain to Aeron’s arsenal means you can point using the Wii-Mote at any Beast on screen and tap B to fire the chain at the enemy this will create a link between Aeron and the beast and allow him to either throw it around like a rag-doll or tie it to another nearby Beast. This means when Aeron attacks one of the Beasts it deals damage to both of them which is an interesting and useful feature. Once the chain is attached to a Beast you have the option of tightening the chain by pressing a button on the nunchuk and shaking the Wii-Mote once the tension has reached a satisfying level to deal a large amount of damage. The more tension the chain has the more damage is dealt, with this in play battles quickly become a case of dodging into a far corner and snaring your enemies with the chain for as long as you can without being attacked by others.

Pandora’s Tower features many different environments as each tower has a different theme of sorts. For example the first tower revolves around a huge tree growing from the base right up to the top and so on. Each tower has puzzles to be solved and rooms of enemies to be defeated which is all well and good despite being hugely clichéd however none of these aspects are very inspiring in the slightest. The puzzles are often simple and can be solved with a few points and clicks with your trusty chain. This leaves much to be desired and the journey to the top of the tower, which should feel exhausting yet hugely rewarding, doesn’t feel half as epic in scope as it should be. In the exterior shots of these towers they’re huge! So why does it take half an hour to reach the top of the first two? The enemies are generally bland and revolve around the usual gaming baddie tropes. Scary wolves? Check. Flappy bat things? Check. Generic lumbering demon? Check. Giant walking tree creature that spews demons? Um. Combat with these creatures requires little changes to your fighting techniques and tactics as they can usually all be dealt with in the same manner. One thing that I found annoying was that I would clear a room of lumbering monsters only to leave for a second and return to find them fully respawned waiting for more chain whippage. Rooms that respawn enemies is a no no.

The boss fights with the Master Beasts are at times creative but all revolve around the same action which is to hook the clichéd purple glowing weak point, wait for the chain to reach full tension and then tug to deal damage. Doing this while avoiding all of their repeated attack patterns is the aim of the game when it comes to defeating the big nasties and it just doesn’t pay off.

The textures are muddy and bland and each tower features similar looking rooms with blocky models and uninspired environmental designs. With this game being originally recorded in Japanese we lucky Westerners get the privilege of having it dubbed in English and what an awful mess that is. The voice acting is terrible for a start, Elena has this cute almost cockney English accent going on while Aeron is American. What’s that all about? Not only that but you can almost hear the dull hiss of the recording mics when Aeron’s dialogue is played which makes it seem like his voice is coming from someplace else entirely and stands out a mile during the cutscenes.

Although the narrative is imaginative and through some tenderly crafted cut scenes the characters become instantly likeable and familiar the gameplay is far too clunky and uninspired to become the next Legend Of Zelda or Final Fantasy. An interesting blend of button bashing and Wii-mote pointing redeems the game slightly however the whole system could be refined and polished a whole lot more to create a more altogether satisfying and slick experience.

This game was reviewed on the Wii

***Please note this walkthrough was not uploaded by GamingBolt.com

Special thanks to Youtube user nintendotriforce for uploading this walkthrough.

Check out more video game walkthroughs here.

Without further ado, let’s begin!

In Pandora’s Tower you take on the role of Aeron, a soldier, as he battles to save his beloved friend Elena from a mysterious curse that is gradually transforming her into a demonic creature. Only by battling through the towers of a nearby fortress can Aeron save her from her gruesome fate. Using his sword and the magical Oraclos Chain, Aeron must defeat the creatures that lurk there and harvest their meat to feed to Elena. Only by eating all of the “master flesh”, harvested from the largest monsters within each tower, will Elena be fully cured of the curse and free from its monstrous grip.

Stay tuned to GB for more news and updates.

pandoras-tower-hd-wallpapers

Pandora’s Tower, the third of the holy trinity of the Japanese RPGs whose releases everyone’s been clamouring for in the west (after Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story), has finally been confirmed for a European release.

The game will release in Europe on April 13 for the Wii.

Pandora’s Tower is an action RPG which sees Aeron, a 22-year old former soldier, who must travel from tower to tower with his swords and chains to kill monsters, so that he can lift a curse off his beloved friend Elena, who is slowly transforming into a demon. The game promises real time combat and motion controls.

Stay tuned for more info.

Do you love Xenoblade Chronicles and want to to sing it to the mountains? And would like a shot at winning two massive upcoming JRPGS for doing so? Square Enix have gotten clever with a recent marketing campaign and launched the “Let’s Play Xenoblade Chronicles” contest which encourages players to upload videos documenting their favourite sections of the game.

At the end of October, five finalists will be selected and from them a winner. The winning video will make it to the Xenoblade Chronicle’s youtube channel and the winner will receive a voucher with which they can claim both The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower. Four runner’s up will receive a voucher for one of the two games (which ever they want).

The deadline for the contest is October 18th. Participants need to be 16 years or older.