Eternal Sonata

Eternal Sonata is a blindingly chromatic Japanese RPG about the imaginary, whimsical world of music that Frederic Chopin finds himself spiritually occupying while he lies on his deathbed. Is this phantasmagoric world of musically named inhabitants, tune-bearing townsfolk and purple velvet and white lace attire an invention of Chopin’s fevered mind, or is our own world the illusion and this land with its flaming green angel-winged goats roving around butterfly-dappled pastures the only true reality? Somehow, this never seemed like a tough question to me, but poor Chopin grapples with it throughout his entire mystical journey.

First Impressionsby Tanx - Video Game Reviews by a Very Busy Math Teacher

Making use of the HD on the Xbox 360, Eternal Sonata is the shiniest game I’ve seen yet. Dazzlingly colorful and bright as can be, Eternal Sonata is so lovely that it makes all other games look drab by comparison. You’ll be so entranced with sparkly eye-candy wonder that it may be easy to overlook some of the game’s more dubious aspects. Characters are pretty and well-realized, with an almost porcelain appearance at times… although they do have a strange “floating arm” affliction, as if they have all spent too much time pressing their arms against the sides of a doorway and have just released their muscles. It must be tough to go through life keeping your arms at least one foot from your torso at all times. Think how hard it would be, unable to rummage your pockets or tie your tie… this must be how Play mobile people feel. And the great visible effort the characters make in this game to slowly bend their elbows… tragic.

A major issue that creeps into game-play immediately is the minimalist approach to variation in monsters you get to fight. The critters that are present are fun and weird, like giant robo mice that throw explosive poop at you, weird jousting ostrich things and, yes, the flaming green angel goats. But you’ll only see two monsters per dungeon, with lots of repeat models as you progress through your adventure. For a game that is pretty much about fighting monsters, this was pretty lame… why build a beautiful expansive dungeon and then put the same two critters over and over again on every level? Even worse, the two critters turn into each other when they move between light and shadow… in effect you have one critter with two forms, and every battle in a given labyrinth is exactly the same.

Which is too bad because the fighting system was pretty decent, and allowed for the party to be split between the two controllers… making this game the first my Fiancée and I have played together to fruition! One character in particular captured her imagination, brave little Beat, kid brother and obsessive photographer. My Fiancée would insist on controlling Beat whenever he was up in party order, taking pictures and using his gun to shoot things from afar. Strangely, the game awarded us an inordinate amount of gold for Beat’s pictures in the first town… introductory armor and weapons and such were on the order of 100 gp each, and Beat’s first foray in photography raked in 20,000 gp. I don’t know if this was a game bug (not converting yen gold pieces to American gold pieces properly?) or maybe photography is just a secretly lucrative career and nobody knows about it.

Even though my Fiancée and I had fun with the fights, facing endless repetition in monsters would grow tiresome. Fortunately, the monsters are all ridiculously stupid, allowing you to slip past them or encounter them from behind (and thus gaining a surprise round) with ease. You could often get to treasure chests while avoiding the guards completely, although of course you have to choose to participate in a certain number of fights to level your characters before you face a boss.

On a final note, the moral messages and story ideas in this game are something of a mixed bag. On the one side you have the whole Frederic Chopin edutainment aspect… after every chapter of the game you are treated to a lengthy exposition on Chopin’s life and times, accompanied with rather beautiful and welcome music by the Composer himself. I like getting a little real world info mixed with my game-play, and these segments helped add atmosphere and beauty to an already odd, strangely fragile but beautiful game. Eternal Sonata succeeds here because it displays a true appreciation and love of Chopin and the classical beauty his works represent.

On the other hand, the game is plagued with cheap political moralizing. It features a character who has to be just about the worst Prince ever in the history of gaming. Here he has a hostile war-mongering country next door with a cruel, despotic Tyrant. Rather than preparing to defend his country, this Prince thinks it is a good idea to stave off war by summarily surrendering and offering himself as sacrifice… he just throws his country into enemy hands… and this is treated as heroic. Yeah, sure, it may sound like a great idea on paper, saving lives by being pacifistic and allowing occupation without resistance. But this only works until your new evil overlord guts your country for resources, conscripts your citizens to fuel his next conquest, and busily rounds up subpopulations for arbitrary extermination. Sorry, Eternal Sonata, but sometimes wars need to be fought, and we can’t always just agree to all get along.

Played For: about 18 hours