UPDATE: Pandora’s Tower has been announced for North America, published by XSEED Games, and scheduled to be released Spring 2013!
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Since the beginning of the campaign, Operation Rainfall has been for the localization of three games, Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, and Pandora’s Tower. Each game carries its own weight on why it should be available worldwide, and (so far) 2 out of 3 will be. There has been one question that has always been constantly uttered though. Out of the three games, Pandora’s Tower doesn’t seem to fit in with the others. It doesn’t have the big names attached to it. It’s bizarre, and it’s not really in the same genre as the others. So why did we choose Pandora’s Tower?
It’s a fair question as there have been other Wii games that haven’t received a worldwide release that people would love to see. We hear a lot of people asking for Captain Rainbow, Day of Crisis, Fatal Frame 4, and even Mother 3. While they have every right to be localized, they are also in the unfortunate situation of being out of time. One common theme of the three games that we picked was that they were all rather new releases, and therefore, still being relevant. So if there’s one reason why we picked Pandora’s Tower as opposed to any of those other games, it’s because there’s still time.
Xenoblade Chronicles is developed by Monolith Soft, a company whose past works consist of the Xenosaga series and Baten Kaitos and has a history in past classics such as Xenogears and Chrono Cross. The Last Story is co-developed by Mistwalker, whose works consist of Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, and is home of the father of Final Fantasy. Ganbarion doesn’t have the luxary of having a huge hit in their arsenal with licensed games such as Jump Super Stars and various One Piece games serving as their catalog. That doesn’t mean Pandora’s Tower shouldn’t be viewed as having the same importance as the other games. While both Xenoblade and The Last Story have some heavy hitters in the making of the games, both developers had to start somewhere. In the Iwata Asks for Pandora’s Tower, the developers show a feeling of excitement, like they are both thrilled to be where they are and scared to death of what could come of it. I bet if you cut back 25 years ago, if there was an Iwata Asks: Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi would show the same excitement Ganbarion is showing now.
Why should we ignore Pandora’s Tower just because it doesn’t have Hironobu Sakaguchi involved? Giving Pandora’s Tower a chance is in turn giving Ganbarion a chance. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll be looking at Ganbarion in the same reverence as Monolith Soft and Mistwalker.
