I must bring to your attention that I rarely play JRPG’s (Japanese Role Playing Games, for the confused individual) except from the odd Final Fantasy game here and there. This means that the standard of JRPG’s are unknown to me, this goes with their longevity, replay value and their general gameplay features. So, please bear with me if your expectations go beyond what I think made this game great. Eternal Sonata takes an interesting path with its story, if not a slightly strange one. The basic outline of Eternal Sonata is that the famous composer Frederic Chopin is at his death bed, as he died at a relatively early age of 39 years, and a doctor and his family are waiting for some sign of life. While this is happening, however, Chopin is having a dream. A dream about a world where certain people have been cursed and destined for death, a side affect of this curse though is being able to use magic which is, unfortunately, a well known side affect to other people. Eternal Sonata follows a more specific story about several characters who eventually merge to pursue the same goal. The main character is a girl called Polka, who is one of the victims of a disease and meets up with Chopin earlier on, who himself takes a more from the sidelines view of the story. Immersion of the world of Eternal Sonata is destroyed a tad though by the odd history cutscene that pops in about Frederick Chopin, it’s really strange and unexpected, but I suppose some relation to Chopin needs to be there for the game, with him as a major character, to make sense. The story itself isn’t the best and most well thought out story ever created, but I don’t think the developers were set out for that. One of the areas this game does shine in though is how well it depicts the characters personalities and social interactions. As the game progresses, you will attach yourself to these characters, and have a sense of care for them.

Gameplay:

The focus of gameplay in Eternal Sonata seems to be more about the battle system and how you choose your fights than what you do in the overall game. This may sound odd as it is an RPG, but for all you western game lovers out there think of this game more as a ‘Fable’ than a ‘Morrowind’. It takes the wide open world of choice and swaps it for specific detail, now this might not be to everyone’s liking, but that is how a lot of JRPG’s work. This game though is a little bit too linear. Everything is guided generally in one direction, the only real choice you get is either to skip a fight or search a smaller area. The highlight of this game's gameplay shows within its battle system. The battle system mixes the typical turn based RPG elements of Final Fantasy, but makes it more unique by making it real time. Instead of just choosing an attack and then switching character, you get given a timer which counts down to every step or attack you make. This is so you can think before you make your move, and it works really well as it takes the best from both worlds without any real flaws. The only annoying aspect I found is being forced into a battle when you actually just wanted to sneak past the enemy, some enemies become a little repetitive to fight after a while and you can’t sneak past all of them, but that’s just me being picky about the turn base style. If the turn based, plus real time battle system wasn’t strategic enough, then Eternal Sonata goes one step further with an interesting shadow and light power bonus. When you’re in a shadow you get different special powers from when you’re in the light, so depending on the enemy, and situation, you can jump in to the shadow to get a better edge and in the end win the battle. This becomes vital later on in the game when enemies start to get a little tricky. Enemies can also use this to their advantage and use different powers when they choose to; so if you thought the turn based fighting style restricted strategy, then you may change your mind after playing this game. There is one flaw that I do have to pick out though, because of the combination of shadow/light bonuses and real time fighting you can, by accident, jump into an enemies shadow and use the wrong attack. This doesn’t seem too bad and it may sound quite stupid, but it can be easily done when you’re so close to killing quite a tough enemy where every special attack counts, then does become a problem. Other then that though, the combat is solid and good fun to use. Gameplay outside the combat system takes an opposing position and is quite basic. It’s all analog and ‘A’ for interaction and you can only get useful information with certain characters. You can’t do much as there aren’t really any side quests to the game because it generally follows a single path to your destination through out, but this doesn’t matter too much, as the compelling and uplifting story between the characters keeps you more than interested.

Graphics:

This to me is my favourite area of the game. Graphically the game looks beautiful, everything looks really attractive and colourful and even better on a HD screen. You really don’t want to play this game on a black and white TV as half the immersion comes from the fantastic art work and detailed scenery; you really do feel like you're in a second world. I can’t think of any downfall to the graphics, every detail to the characters, background, surroundings and even the ground looks spectacular. The linearity of the game does restrict you here more than anywhere else as you just want to run out into the distance and explore the unknown. Some may think the game has gone overboard on the amount of ‘bloom’ effects and pixel shader graphics, but I feel to create a new world it must be unique, and not many other games with ‘cartoony’ style graphics look as good and as well thought out as this.

Sound:

Now, as this is a game inspired by, and including the famous composer Frederick Chopin you would have thought the sound was a major feature to the game. Well, to a certain extent it is, but there's a lot of points where there isn’t any music at all or any background ambiance, which I found slightly weird. The music that is played is very theatric, not surprising as it is mainly Chopin’s music that is played. The music is all played at the right times as well, not like some games where action music just suddenly appears out of no where, here the most eccentric music is played alongside the more emotional situations. On the other hand the music is played during some clichéd moments of gameplay, but this doesn’t alter the game experience, if anything, it fits in very well. The voice acting could have been better as certain voices, including some of the main characters, sound quite ‘non fitting’ with their tones, but this is probably because it is translated from Japanese originally, so this is as good as you’re going to get. The voice acting isn’t bad however, as characters emotions are conveyed quite believably and you do get attached to certain individuals. There have been many worse western, non translated games.

Longevity:

This game is about 20-30 hours of gameplay, which in my opinion is quite long (or standard) for an RPG, but, compared to other JRPG’s games like Final Fantasy then the game isn’t that long. If you have played many other JRPG’s then you may play this game at a faster place than me, so, about 20 hours it should take to complete and for the casual gamer about 30 hours. There isn’t any Xbox Live gameplay support except from extra game content, which I have yet to see. Where this game does fall short in length and lack of online multiplayer it gains from its nifty support of two extra players in battle mode. Okay, this isn’t really a co-op type game, but it does make the game that slightly more interesting and strategic.

Overall:

To sum it up, I was surprised with this game. I had barely heard of it before I had it in my hands and now I really like it. This is the kind of game you can play once or maybe twice and maybe never come back to it, but the experience from playing the game is one to remember. What makes this game enjoyable and worth the money is the mix of outstanding visuals, greatly written scripts and a highly strategic gameplay style, this is also what makes the game unique from any other western game and any other JRPG game that I’ve played. Unique gameplay is a rarity in today’s modern gaming world. Eternal Sonata does have its negatives and minor flaws, but these do not compare to the implicit immersion and uplifting experience the game provides.