awoolcott's Full Review: Eternal Sonata for PlayStation 3
With all the role-playing games mostly headed towards the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, current-generation console owners are stuck with a very small selection of games, and few are up to the level seen during the peak of the PlayStation or PlayStation 2 eras. As such, PlayStation 3 owners have to make do, and Eternal Sonata is one of those “make do” kinds of games. A greatly enhanced port of the Xbox 360 version, the PS3 conversion features a bonus dungeon, a bump in challenge, new playable characters, and new costumes, making it the “ultimate” edition of the Tri-Crescendo developed game. This doesn't bump the game to a must-own status though; a ridiculous – if not original – plot is barely saved by beautiful high-definition visuals, an amazing soundtrack, and most importantly, a great battle engine. PS3 owners could do worse – after all, Cross Edge is available – but while Eternal Sonata is definitely playable and worth going through if you can find it for $30 (its current going price) or less, it's probably not something memorable enough to play through more than once, even though the game demands it if you want to see everything.
In most respects, Eternal Sonata is your typical “save the world” kind of story, as a ragtag group of orphans, wide-eyed kids, and a couple gruff adult role-models set out to accomplish the task. However, this is where things get weird – the entire thing is a dream...the dream of famed pianist Frederic Chopin, who is on his deathbed, about to succumb to Tuberculosis, as it happened in reality. Not only that, but Frederic himself is one of the playable characters, appearing first to the main female character, Polka, who is dying for whatever reason that's not really explained. Polka sells a special powder from her town that is used for healing, but she can't sell it because the big bad Count Waltz of Forte has a form of the powder cheaper than hers, and initially the quest is about going to pay the Count a visit. Over time, thankfully, the story improves to a level of tolerance, as it splinters into a political drama between Forte and nearby Baroque, but it's mixed in with some really cheesy moments that typify the Japanese role-playing game. Meanwhile, the game often flashes back to Chopin's time, and also each chapter has a five-minute history lesson covering the life and times of our nearly-dead hero. It's all so very weird, indeed.
Though the plot can be nonsensical and at times embarrassingly juvenile intelligence-wise, it's made up for with an outstanding combat engine. And why not, most of the time through ES you'll be fighting. The game balances a real-time combat engine with a turn-based mechanic; each character gets a few seconds of time to make their moves before it's some else's turn. Over the course of the game, the battle system gets more complicated; early on you can stand in place to think and the timer won't begin, but by the end of the game the Tactical Time is gone and the clock begins to tick as soon as a turn comes up. What makes the battles unique is the use of light and dark; depending on where you're standing, the special moves of the party members change. This also applies to enemies; though in many cases the enemy type itself changes depending on whether they're in the dark part of the battlefield or the lit part. Strategy plays heavy into beating many of the more difficult bosses later in the game; Eternal Sonata offers “echoes” that are like a combo meter – fill it up by using normal attacks over and over, and you'll be able to use a more powerful special attack. Later in the game, you can chain these special moves up to six times for extremely brutal damage.
Eternal Sonata follows the usual town-dungeon-town formula, though it's definitely heavier on the dungeons. The towns are usually not really large aside from the two capital cities and you don't spend much time there. While a couple of the dungeons are tricky, for the most part they're straightforward and oftentimes, pretty brief. Same goes for the fields you wander in to get from place to place; they sometimes have alternate paths that lead to items but there's one linear way out of each area. As the battles are not randomized, you'll see enemies out in the open – getting the jump on them is a good idea as it's easy to get mixed up in a tough fight because they got the jump on you. Aside from the bizarre, often unexplained plot (and completely baffling ending), the game is dragged down by a short play-time; it's been bumped up from the 360 version, but it's still finishable in 25 hours or less if you don't spend a lot of time grinding. On the other hand, if you enjoyed the game enough, replaying it opens a new dungeon, contains numerous new side-quests, and features an added bump in challenge, countered by the ability to carry over your Party Level – but not the individual character levels. It might all seem like a cheap way to encourage replaying the game, but given how few JRPG's encourage multiple plays, it's almost innovative.
Now while the game is a conversion of the Xbox 360 Eternal Sonata, the game has numerous changes and enhancements exclusive to PS3. The aforementioned replay dungeon is only on PS3, and is the hardest dungeon in the game, tougher than the Mysterious Unison area. There's also a new dungeon that appears during the events in Baroque that lasts about an hour and can be fairly interesting; it also brings Serenade and Crescendo, previously non-player characters, into the mix for this area, though they rejoin the party towards the end of the game. The three “main” characters Allegretto, Polka, and Beat all get extra costumes; Polka gets two, one only available in a replay. There's some minor touches too, namely items being different and whatnot. Pretty minor league stuff. What's big league is the rebalancing of the game itself. On the 360, Eternal Sonata was somewhat easy. On PS3, the difficulty has been ramped up. Enemies dish out more damage and have more HP, and bosses are quicker and tougher. On the other side, experience is doled out in smaller portions, making it tougher to level up, requiring some grinding to make things easier. It's still a mostly easy game, but it's no longer a complete cakewalk. In short, if you're deciding between which version to acquire...this is the one.
If anything, Eternal Sonata should be known as one of the best looking games of this generation, at least artistically. Because the game is gorgeous. Sure, it tends to borrow from the “snow, plains, mountains, etc” cliché, but it's all done so well. A couple places; Baroque City and what I dub Spoilerland towards the end are beautiful places to look at, and the field areas are full of great landscapes. The characters are right out of an anime, but everything else, wow. On an HDTV the game is just amazing looking. The audio matches; the Chopin tunes peppered about are played very well, and the in-game soundtrack composed by game veteran Motoi Sakuraba is also great, and in a retro move, you can listen to it all through the menus...more RPGs need to do this. The only downside is the ham-fisted voice acting, which countered with some terrible and cheesy dialogue (which is apparently supposed to be “moving” according to the back of the box) makes for cutscenes of cringe. At least the game contains the Japanese voice track, but you still can't get around the awful lines given in the subtitles.
Final Thought
Eternal Sonata is not a bad game, neither is it really great – it's just a good, solid game with a lot to offer...it's just that what's bad in the game is really, really awful. It plays well and looks great, and is accompanied by a great soundtrack. It's just the story (the parts that aren't about the political scene, anyway) and dialogue are so...awful that getting through the lengthy cutscenes is a chore; at least they can be skipped if you don't care about the plot. Getting past all that rewards you with one of the best battle systems in quite a while. The concept is really sound; and as a likely one-off game, there won't be any sequels, making this the only place to get a role-playing game starting a 19th century Polish pianist and his trippy near-death experiences. For $30, Eternal Sonata offers a fun game that does require patience, but if you're looking for an interesting mix of action and turn-based RPG, this is the best you're going to find. PS3 owners especially should be happy; this is the best and most feature-packed of the two versions.
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