[ originally posted here ]

Eternal Sonata is a J-RPG through and through and its structure to me invokes memories of playing Chrono Cross and Breath of Fire 3, especially in the roaming areas which are generally linear (with a few paths branching off leading to treasure chests) with a set camera angle and several repeating elements. Granted this made it seem a bit old-school but the story, overall visual design and the battle system are what makes Eternal Sonata stand out the most.

Let’s start with the story: the great composer Frédéric Chopin is on his deathbed, comatose. During the final three hours of his life he has an intricate dream about another world, at first he is fully aware he’s dreaming, but then as the world starts becoming more and more real to him he starts to second-guess this. In this world he meets a young girl named Polka who is also dying of a terminal illness but because of this condition is able to preform healing magic, however as this is a well-known ability of the dying most people avoid her as if she’s deathly contagious. Chopin appears suddenly, and Polka seems interested in and slightly amused by him, especially after he claims the entire world is his own dream. Partly inspired by their meeting, Polka decides she wants to venture out into the world doing whatever good she can with the time she has left. They meet other characters along the way and a simple goal among them gets them swept up in the politics, rebellions, conspiracies and impending war in the surrounding countries of Forte and Baroque (yes everyone and everything is named after musical terms.)

The story is good, a bit strange, but very good. However that’s not to say there aren’t problems with its presentation. I know J-RPGs and anime in general are known for sappy, long-winded allegories but Eternal Sonata really takes this to overkill levels. It seems like every five minutes a character is making some obvious analogy or metaphor or allegory or existential philosophical musing, and just in case you didn’t get it the first time around it tends to be reiterated in summary by one or two other characters. If you can ignore this, however, the characters are rather likable, even if they are rather archetypal.

Speaking of archetypal, though the visual presentation is fantastic and the characters themselves are in a bit of that "bubblegum" generic, streamlined anime style which I think detracts from them. Take Chopin’s character for example: He’s 39 but he looks like a pretty boy in his early-to-mid-20’s. Extremely varied hairstyles and clothing prevents the characters from looking too much alike, but more variation in the faces could have done the game good. Other than that, the game literally looks like a living, breathing illustration and the effects are quite nice. The characters are smooth, they have no sharp edges or pixelation around them, they move in a light, spritely fashion and the environments they wander through are nothing short of breath-taking. The levels are always soft and pretty, dappled in subtle mutli-hued light and the overall effect makes them look nearly like a painting.

One other major problem I had, and this regards to the plot as well as leads me into the nature of the battle system, is that the game seems to have a very loose idea of what constitutes as "magic". Polka is supposed to have magic powers because she’s dying, but all of the characters have special techniques that look a whole hell of alot like magic to me. I suppose, considering this is a Japanese game, it makes a distinction between magic and special techniques with metaphysical manifestations, but this is kind of hard to swallow. I had eventually settled on "well I guess only dying people can do healing magic" when suddenly another character gained a healing technique and my disbelief was once again unable to be suspended. Is it a deep comment on how we’re all dying? Is it a translation mistake? Is it just a giant damn plothole? At this point I decided it was best to just stop thinking about it.

Now about that battle system: it rocks. It completely rocks. The fighting is turned-based, yes, but here’s the kicker: when one of your party’s turn comes up you have to physically move them toward the enemy and hit them with a succession of button presses before the time runs out (and squeeze in a special technique if you want.) So it’s partly turned-based and partly-real time battle and it is executed extremely well. It also implements some other features: first off, the special techniques are separated into either "Light" or "Dark" and you literally can only preform "Dark" techniques while standing in shadow and "Light" techniques while standing in sun or moonlight. Not only that, but some enemies take on different forms depending on whether they’re in the light or shadows. This adds a very interesting dynamic to the battle, and you can also pick up items that cast an aura of light or shadow around yourself and any nearby enemies. There’s also "Echoes", every time you hit an enemy with your melee weapon you build up "Echoes". The more "Echoes" you have the stronger a special technique will be when you have any character fire one off. As your party levels up you can hold more items and have other advantages, but the turn timers also shift to make things a little more difficult for you.

One character also has a camera, and you can take photos of enemies during his turn. This is actually a good thing, because you can sell photos for ridiculous amounts of money and be set for items the entire game. This has been a rather glaring criticism of the game, and it really is sort of silly. At times a seller will basically be saying to me "Well this photo is crap, I’m only giving you 3,000 gold for it."

Each chapter of the game is named after a Chopin song, and you get to hear it playing during these odd periods in which there’s basically a photo slideshow and information about Chopin’s life. These kind of jar you right out of the game, but luckily you can skip them if you want to. You can also collect score pieces throughout the game, and if you match it up to someone who wants to preform music with you they’ll give you some pretty good items.

Overall if you’re looking for something rather unique and fun, Eternal Sonata is a good one to pick up. It’s a little slow at times, the allegories can get groan-worthy, and there’s a few corny character exchanges here and there (you can play it in Japanese with subtitles to ease the pain, a stupid line doesn’t sound so stupid when you can’t actually understand what’s being said) but if that doesn’t bother you its a highly enjoyable and atmospheric game that’s easy to get sucked into.