Eternal Sonata

Written by Jason Young  on October 11, 2007

Review: Opening a can of whoop-ass with Chopin, one enemy at a time.

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When the Xbox 360 was first introduced in Japan, Microsoft promised players all over the world that they would be pushing for the one thing that lacked from the original Xbox: Japanese developer support. One of these by-products was Eternal Sonata, announced originally as an exclusive to the 360.



Noted by many as a colorful and heartfelt RPG featuring the great pianist Frederick Chopin in his final moments as he lay on his death bed, the game takes the player through a journey to save a world. As Chopin progresses through his journey, the player encounters multiple characters; from the street-urchins Beat and Allegretto to the resistance leader Jazz. Unfortunately, the game comes out almost as a disappointment due to Tri-Crescendo's decision to place an emphasis on graphics rather than creating a well-rounded story; which in my opinion is an integral part of any Japanese-styled RPG.

Although the game may have more character development than almost any other JRPG for the 360, almost all of the characters lack a clear motivation for why they're fighting. It seems as though they just are for the sake of doing so. In the game's prologue, players are presented with an amazing premise that dwindles until it gets lost along in the ride. For example, the character Polka, a magician who is close to dying, is shunned from society as a result of her power. She tries to help people with her healing magic, only to get rejected by those who believe that they might catch her Сdisease.' This intriguing premise should have been built upon, but in the end we're left with a story that deals with war, along with a social commentary on the destructive paths of capitalism.

Another example of the game's inert story would be the game's lack of a true antagonist. Sure Prince Waltz is a scheming, good-for-nothing prick preying upon innocent citizens, but like the rest of the cast in the game he lacks character development. Building upon his Сevil' persona would have helped the game a great deal, but instead the player is just left with feeling nothing towards him or any of the other characters for that matter with the exception of a few.

Story aside, the game is quiet attractive. From the lush palette storybook-style graphics to the character designs themselves, each moment you spend in the game is like watching a Monet painting in motion. Yes, the game is that beautiful. Every town and dungeon has been uniquely crafted to suit the game's overall atmosphere and you'll easily spend times side-tracking just to get a beautiful view of an upcoming vista. Leaning towards a heavy anime design, the design may or may not put some people off; depending on how they feel about saucer-eyed characters with colorful designs.

With all of the game's aesthetic appeal, problems still persist however. The lack of a player-controlled camera is a disappointment as it prevents players from fully being able to experience the game's beauty. In addition, the game's creature design looks uninspired and lazy as color swapping is used heavily in the game. Containing no more than twenty or so individual creature models, each dungeon only has about two creatures that the player encounters which can become extremely tedious after you see a walking onion for the nine millionth time.

During each battle, players are presented with a free-roaming/turn-based battle maps with areas of differing amounts of light and shadows. When a character or an enemy steps into one of these areas, his/her abilities change to correspond with either light or darkness, which brings a strategic element to the game. Aside from the game's presentation, this is definitely where the game shines the most. Attacks are divided into special and regular attacks which can be built up to create a stronger echo attack and then chained into harmony attacks. The more attacks you use the stronger your special attack will be. Each of the different attacks as well as items are assigned to the 360's control pad and you'll be doing quiet a bit of strategic button-mashing throughout the game.

During an enemy phase, players aren't restricted to just sitting there and taking a beating. Instead, players are presented with a chance to either guard or counterattack which is a lot easier to say than it is to do; especially when you consider you have a little less than a second to react. One of the other interesting features of the battle system is that more options become available as you progress throughout the game. At the first party level, the attack system is awfully restricted while party level six becomes amazingly complicated. This allows for a varying difficulty while letting players become more and more accustomed to the game's system. The main issue with the game's combat is the unbalanced use of characters. Since there's about nine playable characters or so in the game, several of them become lost and become completely useless.

Gameplay is largely linear and divided mainly into two different sections, heavy dialogue cut-scenes and the previously mentioned exploration/battle system to loan the game about thirty-forty hours of gameplay. In between your normal cut-scenes, a few tidbits on the real life of Chopin were inserted History Channel-style to inform gamers on his real life. Although it occasionally disrupts the narrative flow of the game, it's still an interesting and welcome gesture as it brings the game back to reality.

Sidequests are far and few between, with only an end-game bonus dungeon, a trade sequence, an extra boss battle, and a musical composition mini-game (which turns out to be a large case of trial and error). Also included is a photography feature which allows the player to take snapshots of different things on the battlefield and sell them for wads of cash. The only bad thing is that this easily makes the first ╛ of the game super easy as you can literally buy any item without having to do any work for it. For those looking for Achievements, the game will require you to go through the game a second time in order to collect everything in order to get a perfect Gamerscore. Thankfully, the game is much harder the second time around with enemies being about two times stronger.

For a game that centers around music, the soundtrack in Eternal Sonata has to be one of the best ones in recent memory. Composed by Motoi Sakuraba of Star Ocean and СTales of' fame, his use of baroque-inspired melodies along with progressive rock loans a very nice ambience to the game. Like his other works, Sakuraba leans heavily on a single instrument, in this case the violin, creating some of the most riveting battle themes for the 360. Also included are several Chopin scores composed by Russian-born Stanislav Bunin, one of the most renowned pianists in the world. The game's voice actors do a standout job in both the game's native Japanese and localized English languages and the player will do fine listening to either one depending on their personal taste.