Pandora's Tower
A tale of unfortunate circumstances, Pandora's Tower, known in Japan as パンドラの塔 君のもとへ帰るまで Pandora no Tō: Kimi no Moto e Kaeru Made (Pandora's Tower: Until I Return to Your Side), opens in the Kingdom of Elyria, where an unassuming singer named Elena succumbs to a wretched curse during a festival performance. Bearing an arcane mark on her back, she starts transforming into a savage monster, causing the town guards to attempt to kill her in order to prevent it. A young ex-mercenary named Aeron, whose heart has forever been pledged to Elena, whisks her away in the nick of time - and with the help of a mysterious witch named Mavda, he learns what must be done to avert her wretched fate. He must descend into The Scar, a massive chasm tied down by twelve chains connected to a floating island in its center, atop which sit thirteen interconnected towers. There, he must use his sword and a sacred chain to battle his way through each tower and extract the flesh of the boss "masters" that dwell within, which Elena must consume in order to reverse her ongoing transformation. But the clock is ticking! The longer Aeron takes to vanquish each beast, the less human Elena becomes, affecting her character and the game's final outcome in a profound manner. Time is of the essence...
Pandora's Tower | |
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Developer(s) | Ganbarion |
Publisher(s) | NA XSEED Games JP/EU/AUS Nintendo |
Platform(s) | Wii |
Release date(s) | JP May 26, 2011 AUS April 12, 2012 EU April 13, 2012 NA April 16, 2013 |
Genre(s) | Action role-playing |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Input methods | Wii Remote + Nunchuk, Classic Controller |
Compatibility | 4![]() ![]() Playable |
GameIDs | |
See also... |
Dolphin Forum thread |
Problems
Zoom Pointer Chain
When using the zoom to aim more precisely with the chain (holding the B button), some textures are white.
Freezing Audio
This title may require LLE for proper audio emulation without freezing, though that may have been resolved with recent HLE improvements.
Enhancements
60 FPS
The game can be forced to render at 60 FPS, but this introduces a number of issues, some of which significantly affect gameplay:
- Zooming while targeting will no longer slow down time - the game continues to run at full speed, increasing difficulty greatly
- Some enemy timing delays disappear - knocking certain enemies into water should lead to a short delay before they return, but this happens immediately when running at 60 FPS
- Aeron’s cape will no longer move - it is locked to a rigid position during gameplay
Use this Action Replay code to enable 60 FPS.
$60 FPS 04774AB0 0000003C
HD Textures
Gamma Correction
The in-game brightness setting is nonfunctional in Dolphin, and the default is -1 click which doesn't get applied, resulting in a lighter image with less contrast. A gamma correction can be applied using Dolphin's post-processing effects shader to approximate the default setting:
void main() { float4 col = Sample(); float red = pow(col.r, 1.3); // >1 = darker midtones, <1 = lighter midtones float green = pow(col.g, 1.3); float blue = pow(col.b, 1.3); SetOutput(float4(red, green, blue, col.a)); }
Save the above code as eg. C:\Program Files\Dolphin-x64\Sys\Shaders\PandorasTowerBrightness.glsl, and enable it by pasting the following in the game's right click menu > Properties > Game Config > Editor > User Config:
[Video_Enhancements] PostProcessingShader = PandorasTowerBrightness
Configuration
Only configuration options for the best compatibility where they deviate from defaults are listed.
Audio
Config | Setting | Notes |
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DSP Emulator Engine | LLE | Avoid audio freezing |
Version Compatibility
The graph below charts the compatibility with Pandora's Tower since Dolphin's 2.0 release, listing revisions only where a compatibility change occurred.
Testing
This title has been tested on the environments listed below:
Test Entries | |||||
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Revision | OS | CPU | GPU | Result | Tester |
r6890 | Windows | Intel Core i5-480M @ 2.93 GHz | NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M | Pandora's Tower on Dolphin Emulator | thousandsmagister |
r7451 | Windows Vista | AMD Phenom II 955BE @ 3.8 GHz | ATI Radeon HD 3300 | Playable(Set textures to Safe mode),also constant FPS drops(which causes small freeze-ups) | |
3.0-591 | Windows 7 | Intel Core i5-750 @ 3.5 GHz | AMD Radeon HD 5850 | Pandora Tower Intro + début sur Dolphin r591 Only little sound issues, 30FPS constant 1080P, PAL version | Smash15195 |
3.0-600 | Windows 7 | Intel Core i7-940 @ 2.93 GHz | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 | Perfectly playable with default settings, constant 30FPS. Rare sound issues. | |
3.5-305 | Windows 7 | Intel Core i3-2350 @ 2.3 GHz | NVIDIA GeForce 410M | Playable with default settings one bug, when zooming with the pointer to the string (no audio problem) | Dratal |
4.0.2 | Windows 7 | Intel Core i5-3570 @ 3.4 GHz | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 | Run at full speed on all Backend with Major Enhancements. Can even run at Playable SPEED on Intel HD Graphics (No AA&AF on DX9@1366x768i yes,old display:P) | SuckerBer |
4.0-3599 | Windows 8.1 | Intel Core i5-3570 @ 3.4 GHz | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 | Most Run at Full-speed. but have audio issue that can cause game freezing some time.Use DSP LLE Audio instead. | SuckerBer |