Pandora's Boxed Set

And so the third and final target of the American 'Project Rainfall' campaign hits the UK. I'm pretty sure that, by now, it's US release has been confirmed, so Rainfall can be considered a success... or a wonderful example of American gamers allowing themselves to be baited by Nintendo's strategy of playing its cards close to its chest. Either/or.

I must admit that Pandora's Tower was the one game I was least sure of enjoying. It's a sort of 3D environment platform action adventure, with shades of Castlevania thanks to the inclusion of a very whip-like chain as one of the key gameplay mechanics. Worse still, while Xenoblade is awesome (and I really must get back to it at some point...), The Last Story has, so far, been a bit of a let-down (though that's as much to do with me being rubbish at tactical RPGs as it is to do with the game itself)... There would have had to be a compelling reason for me to pick up Pandora's Tower after such a disappointing showing.

Other than my natural tendency to pick up just about everything released in a console's twilight days, that is. I mean, look at Panzer Dragoon Saga. I picked it up for, what, £35 when it first came out? And now it goes for anything from £50 to over £200 on eBay. Mind you... that is an awesome game...

Thankfully, there was a Collector's Edition, just like The Last Story. Similar 'Steelbook' case, similar artbook... No soundtrack CD this time but, hey, at least it didn't come with a special controller.

The artbook is actually rather more extensive and impressive that the titchy little thing included with TLS but, even so, feels a little lacking. As far as controllers go, this game only needs the traditional Wiimote and Nunchuck arrangement - I'm not sure it's even possible to play with the Classic Controller.

And the game itself? Well... it's actually pretty good fun so far. I've only beaten the first boss at this point, leaving several rooms in the first tower unexplored because they're currently inaccessible (the game warns that you may need to visit some towers more than once, and I certainly haven't found any keys so far), and very little has been revealed of the story. I'm immediately suspicious of Mavda, who claims to be a merchant and so far appears to be helping, and the voice actor for Elena is good enough to elicit sympathy as a confirmed vegetarian who's now forced to eat meat ("beast flesh") to prevent her transformation into a hideous monster.

There's an obvious joke in there, but I shall refrain.

Aeron's voice actor is severely underutilised. Much of that character's vocal output is grunts for his various fighting actions. While he does have dialogue, some of it - most notably in the 'chat' sections of the game - is text-only, even while both Mavda and Elena have full speech.

At this early stage, I'm still having some difficulty remembering which button does what, but I suspect that'll improve with practice. It's also nice that, as has become traditional in recent years, the tutorial plays out as you encounter new ways of interacting with your environment, rather than trying to cram everything in to some completely random and unconnected 'training area'.

Graphically, it's closer to Xenoblade than TLS - much vibrant colour everywhere, though the draw distance isn't a factor because the game is room-based, and the camera position is fixed third person, rather than moving with the player character.

In other news, Grandmother has been moved to a new care home and, by all accounts, is settling in nicely. My mother visited for a second time on Monday and reported the she was behaving "as if she's been there forever", which can only be a good thing. There are more women there, and she'll be far more active, though I'm told there are some folks who are clearly a few sandwiches short of a picnic, so one can only hope that this new place is as close to a healthy environment for an Alzheimer's sufferer as possible.

One interesting bit of advice my mother received was that all the patients tend to get anxious "around teatime". One of them might start worrying about "picking the kids up from school" (even though the kids are fully grown and have families of their own), which will set someone else fretting about where they parked the car (which they gave up driving years ago), etc. I suspect the purpose of this snippet of information was to ensure that any and all visitors are prepared to leave before this wave of anxiety hits.