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| Eternal Sonata Review (360); Score: 9.3/10 | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 26 2008, 11:10 AM (449 Views) | |
| Fayt | Dec 26 2008, 11:10 AM Post #1 |
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Easy wins have never been my style
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Full Name: Eternal Sonata Japanese Name: Trusty Bell Genre: RPG Developer/Publisher: tri-Crescendo/Namco Bandai Platform:Xbox 360/PS3 Players: 1 (up to 3 for battles) Xbox 360 Release Dates: JP - 14 Japan 07 | US - 17 September 07 | EU - 19 October 07 PS3 Release Dates: JP - 18 September 08 | 21 October 08 | EU - Unknown Official Sites: Japan | North America | Europe Eternal Sonata is set in a period around the early to mid 1,800s. It follows the story of three predominant characters. One of which is based on the Polish Frédéric Chopin, a musical composer and fine pianist on the brink of death due to tuberculosis. He is deeply troubled, and confused by the distinction between a dream and reality. The remaining two predominant characters (whom are fictional, as is everyone else in the game) include Polka, a young girl, also suffering from tuberculosis. She runs a failing Floral Powder business, largely suffering due to high taxes, while an opposition product, Minder Powder is dirt cheap. And finally Alegretto, a petty thief who has adopted an underground lifestyle for himself, but also to assist some friends who are also suffering due to the extremely high taxes on everything, with the exception of Mineral Powder. Why is Mineral Powder so cheap compared to everything else? What does the historical Frédéric Chopin have to do with the game? These are just two of the many questions that you will ask, and have answered during the course of the game. You’ll also come across several other characters along the way, one of which is voiced by the amazing Cam Clarke, I might be biased as hell but he is by far one of the best voice actors out there. Also our very own Mei Ling is a voice actor in the game, for Salsa and March, and does a pretty damn good job too I might add. The story is quite deep & philosophical at times, no doubt about it, particularly when Frederic is involved. Yet, on other occasions it will simply make you laugh and smile, scenes between Salsa and Beat in particular stand out in this area. The story has a number of elements in it which are both thought provoking, and extremely enjoyable. It’s one of the most astounding stories I’ve seen in an RPG. During the course of the game you will have what appear to be random scenes, which look back on Chopin’s life. You’ll be able to differentiate these pretty quickly as it will play one of the many scores he created in his lifetime, and have a rather slow narration to read while some actual photos during them. These don’t affect the story of the game whatsoever, and are essentially there to tell his story as a composer and about his life. I must admit these appear quite random, although if you know something about Chopin then you might truly appreciate these. Thankfully there is an Event Skip option available via the Pause menu to bypass these if they don’t interest you. Event Skip is such a handy, yet simple addition to an RPG, particularly for scenes before tough battles you may need to repeat a few times… That’s enough for the story, moving into the mechanics of the game. Battles typically take place in a local action/turn based hybrid fashion, and you can have up to 3 members in your active team at any one time. As you are adventuring through the various dungeons and paths you will be able to visualise your enemies in front of you, also in terms of size and appearance - there are no false impressions here, what you see, is what you will battle, that is something I really like. With this if you do not wish to get into fights you could potentially avoid almost all battles, with the exception of large enemies that block pathways, it does happen occasionally. Just keep in mind that if you avoid too many battles you run the obvious risk been underpowered when facing compulsory, more difficult opponents along the way, or what we tend to call ‘bosses’. For regular battles, if you connect on mutual terms you will start the battle purely based on who has the higher speed rating. Although if you approach the enemy from behind, or should they do the same to you then that team will get a full round of turns first, then the speed ratings will take action thereafter. You should definitely avoid getting attacked from behind at all costs, you will be unable to defend yourself and it can potentially have fatal consequences. Battle progression takes place with a rather unique style where characters taking turns based on their SPD rating, ok that’s not unique, but the next part is. Once your turn arrives you are permitted a short amount of ‘Tactical Time’ (dependant on your Party Level, see further down for more on that). Here you are permitted a period of time to plan your move, change the camera angle, sort your items or whatever you please until the tactical time gauge is reduced to zero. At this point your “Action time” will commence. You can also commence your action time by simply moving during tactical time. Once the Action time begins you will be permitted free movement for a fixed period of time, to perform whatever actions you please, such as move to a new position, attack an opponent, heal an ally etc, or a combination of those actions. It may sound a little daunting, but you should pick it up pretty quickly, and it’s a real joy to take part of, such a unique element to the battle system. The usage of special attacks is also quite different to a typical action battle system, here the special attacks you can perform depend entirely on whether you are standing in an area of light, or not. If you are in an area of darkness you will be able to perform dark only attacks, and vice versa for an area filled with light. To make things even more interesting sometimes you will be relying only on passing clouds in the sky, or shadows of your enemies to access dark areas! The same applies for light areas; sometimes only an enemy can provide a light source, meaning you have no choice but to get close to perform a light attack. Placing your characters where they are best suited is another challenge you will face during battle. This is just yet another truly intriguing aspect to battles. So what happens when it’s the opponent’s time, just give up and get hit? Well, not exactly, while you do indeed stand idol during the opponents turn you are able to defend attacks (and even under special conditions perform counter attacks) by using the defend button with good timing. If you can master this you could outlast almost any battle, but of course enemies are not completely stupid and have attacks which are sometimes fast, and sometimes slow. Also to prevent button mashing abuse you get only one chance to press it during an enemy attack, mashing almost insures it will fail. Good timing and anticipation is the key, use it well and you can potentially outlast even against the toughest of opponents! Upon winning battles you will get a post battle summary, showing however much (or generally little) gold you received, and also your experience points. Eternal Sonata has a fairly simplistic level up system purely based on accumulation of experience points. When you level up you get a notification of how much your stats have increased and whatever new skills you have learnt (if any). Also, even the characters that are not active in the battle will also gain a percentage of experience. This can really help keep even your lesser active members at a reasonable level to give you more flexible options for the different battles you will face. Level up development is very simple and easy to understand; as a consequence it’s overly flexible either. Although you have various skills and equipment to tinker around with which I believe provides more then enough flexibility in this area. That is a quite a bit on gameplay, and that isn’t everything either, you will also come across the ability to charge, or chain attacks and also encounter the Party Level. The Party level is yet another truly unique feature in that, once you progress to certain points in the game you will unlock a new Party Level. When this occurs various battle conditions will alter, such as your Tactical Time & Action Time allowances, number of special attacks you can perform and more. These are compulsory adjustments on your first playthrough, but they adjust conditions rather smoothly and fairly (except for the final one in my opinion, but it’s not part of the main story anyway, so you can easily bypass it via a replay!) I think this is absolutely stunning, just when you think you are mastering battles and think they are getting stale, you’ll have amended conditions to face and adjust to. It will really keep you on your toes! To boot there are a number of collectibles, such as Score pieces and diversions you can participate in to branch away from the regular story as you wish. Including Beat’s special camera that can take photos during battles, and be sold for big bucks (if the photos are deemed to be good, that is). The game is also reasonable flexible to allow you to access many areas as you progress (even more flexible on a second play through). Summary: Story: Aside a few random scenes regarding the life of Chopin it’s quite outstanding, insightful, full of laughs and twists and turns, some bleeding obvious, some out of no-where. I’m really amazed by how different, yet beautiful it is. The sore spot however is that is appears a little short, you seem to end up towards the final stages rather suddenly as it progresses. If you are a straight shooter you could potentially finish it within 30 hours, mind you I think that’s long enough. I’ve played RPGs with shorter stories then that before. 9/10 Battle System: This is the most enjoyable hybrid action/turn based battle system I’ve experienced in a video game. It has a number of unique factors in place, and ones that also change somewhat as you progress via the party level. This helps prevent the battles becoming stale from constant repetition. You think you master it, then bam, another set of conditions are in place to challenge you. It will keep you on your toes, and should make battles as enjoyable (it not more) then the game itself. 10/10 Music: Well it’s nothing short of excellent, the inclusion of some amazing scores by Chopin, and of course with many Namco based RPG’s the soundtrack has been handled mainly by the great Motoi Sakuraba. For music with power, this game is loaded with it. 9.5/10 Graphics: The game looks great, the world you venture is big and beautiful, the characters look fantastic and individual, and battles progress very smoothly. I guess if there is anything to criticize it’s the lack of FMV/Music style cut scenes, but it doesn’t really need them, it’s good enough without an excess of them. 8.5/10 Replay Factor: Since it’s not the longest game in the world, and features a top class battle system it’s worth playing at least one more time. Just to try getting your head around the story, but also to search any areas you may have missed last time, or work on collectibles such as finding Score pieces along the way. You’ll also get some carry over data, such as musical scores, ability to access new areas etc; the price you pay will be stronger enemies. Even on a replay the challenge remains and you’ll access even more. A great game to play again for another round! 9/10 Final Thoughts: Definitely one of the most unique RPG’s I’ve played, a quality story, phenomenal battle system and some great characters to boot. Unbelievably, I’ve also witnessed the price of the title drop considerably (perhaps due to the pending PS3 release on the cards with some additional content). If you love RPGs and have a 360, then just grab a copy, it shouldn’t get you back much at all. If I can find one for $40AU new it should be very affordable anywhere in the world. It’s definitely outstanding value for its current asking price to any RPG fan. The PS3 version might set you back a bit more though; it offers a couple of extra playable characters with some other minor changes I believe. Rating: 9.3/10 *This review is based on my personal opinions from my own experiences with the game, which is an Xbox 360, English PAL version. It’s also one of the longest I’ve written, yet I think I could probably add even more. I may make edits if/when I get around to replaying it more. |
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7:00 PM Jul 11