Eternal Sonata

I had alot of fun with Eternal Sonata.. for the first two chapters. I was expecting a game that started off with a couple main characters, and then you followed through with them til the end. That did not happen. My fondest memories of this game will forever be with the first couple chapters, that is before the game turn into a total mess with me. That is when you had a solid group of likeable characters with a goal. At the end of the 2nd chapter you're met with your 6th playable character. You would think that would be it, but no more than a few minutes after you recruit her, you gain 3 more freaking characters that pretty much changes the game from them on. Eternal Sonata was only a 25 hour game, and thats not enough time to flesh out any characteristics of that many characters. They try, and ultimately fail with me.

One of my biggest beefs with the game was how there wasn't a main character at all. This was fine with Final Fantasy III, it's different for this game. Eternal Sonata is a very short game, and when your supposedly main characters, Chopin, Polka and Gretto, not even have any lines during an entire chapter, then there's something wrong. After chapter 2 Chopin pretty much becomes a background character until the final chapter. Gretto is your avatar when you're walking around in towns, much like Vaan in Final Fantasy 12, but he seems more a secondary character.. ok that sounds alot like Vaan too. Polka is probably the most important character, since she's the first character you're introduced, and she has the most important plot points. However, she also becomes a background character near the middle the game, and then shine at the end. The pacing is just really really off in this game.

Besides how they messed up a good idea, I did enjoy the battle system at first, but it became tedious after a while. Eternal Sonata was also painfully linear, much worse than Final Fantasy X. It was also extremely easy as well, MAYBE easier than Blue Dragon. It's close.

I did enjoy the graphical style alot, despite the lack of anything truly impressive. The dungeons were big and explorable (but the respawning enemies gave me little incentive to explore). Overall, Eternal Sonata is a fairly average game that had alot of promise but ultimately failed. This is coming from a guy that LOVED Baten Kaitos and Radiata Stories. Trust me, I WANTED to like this game, but it just didn't live up to it's potential.

----------Battle System----------
Eternal Sonata is a mixture of Turn-based and action RPG. Turns are determined by the character or monster with the highest speed. Once your character's turn is up, you are given a set amount of time to act. First I need to explain party levels before I get into all of that. Your party gains levels after certain spots in the game, and you can't revert back to previous levels either. Levels increase your sack to carrying items, it increase your running speed, but it also decreases your act time and your "tactical time". Tactical Time is the time when your turn starts and before your make your first act. Tactical Time gives you a chance to rest and plan your next move, however, the game is painfully easy so you'll never worry about Tactical time. The second you move or act, your Tactical Time is over and then your "Act" time has started. This gives you between 4-5 seconds of pure action. You can use an item, attack or use a special ability. With each attack you make, you gain a little bit of "time" bonus, so if you normally attack, you'll gain fight longer than 4-5 seconds. Special attacks don't increase your time though.

Another feature in the battle system is the "echo system". This echo system is a way to build up for powerful special moves. Each time you attack a monster, you built up more and more echo power. When you want, you can then unleash a powerful attack.

All and all, the turn-based mixed with Action based is kinda cool.. for about a minute. There really isn't any strategy involved in a game like this. All monsters have the same tactics, same weakness'. The only strategy you need to do is hit A,A,A,A,A,A then Y until a monster dies. This is a repetitive battle system and can get really old. Atleast in Tales of... games the battles are quick. You gain special abilities over time through your levels. You can equip up to 4 special abilities per-character. The coolest thing about this game is a how Light / Dark areas on the battle field effect how your enemies behave and how your special attacks work.

For example, you have to equip 2 Light attacks and 2 Dark attacks. If you're standing in a shadow, and then attack with your special move, then you'll use a Dark attack. Simple as that. The monsters are effected as well. They even can completely change. If a monster runs into a light, it might turn into a weaker version of itself, or possibly a stronger version. It's a pretty need gimmick, although nothing that anyone will remember fondly of.

One of the most annoying things about this game is the dungeons. While I liked their layouts, I HATED how each time you pan to a new section of a dungeon all the monsters you defeated respawn instantly. This SUCKS if you're trying to explore and need to backtrack. While monsters are all visible, much like Grandia or Tales of.., they're NOT easy to run away from. Most dungeon and field screens have very small corridors or lands, you can't run around most monsters.


----------Characters / Story----------
The world of Eternal Sonata is a figment of an imagination in the crazy mind of Frederik Chopin. Chopin is on his deathbed in the real world, but he's also alive and feel in his fantasy world. He knows it's all a dream, but there's nothing he can do about it, so he hooks up with Polka, a young flower girl trying to stop the government crazy tax problem. On the way to the castle, Polka and Chopin meet Gretto and Beat, who are also on a similar adventure. What the group doesn't realize is the two power nations of Forte and ___ are on the verge of war, and they're in the middle of it.

Eternal Sonata is a strange game, but also pretty typical in a sense. The strangest thing is there's no main character in the game. There's a couple important characters but there's no main focus. This reminds me alot of Final Fantasy III for the SNES. Another strange thing is the fact that your entire world is based off a crazy dream that the famous pianist / composer Fredrick Chopin is having on his death bed. However, if you take away this crazy plot point, Eternal Sonata is still just a typical JRPG at heart.

That's not a big problem with me, because I love light-hearted Japanese style RPGs, but I won't Eternal Sonata off to easily though. I still wasn't a big fan of the pacing of the game. I really hated how many characters joined your team. I REALLY hated when they split your team up during chapters. The game was painfully linear, and when characters leave and re-join your team 100 times during the course of the game, it gets really annoying.


----------Graphics----------
I have mixed feelings about the graphics. I'll start with the good. The colors on this game are extremely vibrate and will make your eyes bleed, in a good way. I love the character models, each character are carefully detailed. The characters have very weird postures while standing and acting scenes, but I think I like it. It's weird to me how they stand like they're dueling in a spaghetti western.

I also like the large confusing dungeons (for the most part) but here's where I also step into the bad side of things. Outside of the cutscenes and character models, everything else looks like a later PS2 game, Grandia III for example. The towns, the dungeons, the enemy models, just about everything else doesn't look any better than Grandia III. Grandia III looked awesome though. Another huge complaint is just the lack of enemies. You might run into 3 or 4 enemy types per-dungeon at the most, but most often you'll just fight the same 2 monsters over and over again for an entire dungeon until you reach a boss.

One complaint I hear alot about that didn't really bother me was the fact that weapons and armor doesn't change on your character when you equip them. It never really bugged me much and with 10 characters in your party it would be confusing if your characters kept changing over time. Keeping a signature cloth style makes them icon, much like a Superhero or cartoon character.

----------Sound----------
The sound is pretty amazing. The voice work is excellent. The character's all have battle cries during special moves, and have catch phrases before and maybe after a battle too, just like Tales of games. I love when games do that.

The music is excellent of course, since the game is based around Fredrick Chopin, there's alot of classy piano pieces, some opera inspired tunes, and typical Japanese RPG style techno-fantasy stuff. Eternal Sonata is made by the same people that did the music to Baten Kaitos, and it really shows. The main battle theme could easily be mistaken for the main theme to the original Baten Kaitos. With the start of each chapter in the game, you are treated with a new Chopin piece plus a small biography on his life. So I guess that's cool.

----------World Map----------
There isn't a world map, there isn't even a final warp function or anything that can help you travel between lands in a jiffy. The game is just a linear flowing screens of fields, towns and dungeons. Without any kind of over view map of any kind you really have no sense how big the world is. Since the game only has 2 or 3 real towns, and just a handful of dungeons, you get a sense that the world is super small.

----------Time to Complete Game----------
24:32:23

You can save clear data after you completed the game to create a New Game+ file. The ending was fantastic, probably one of the best endings to a game I've sat through in a very long time, makes grinding through this game almost worth it. When I say the ending is long, I mean it. It's so long there is 2 credit scenes.