Eternal Sonata Catch-all

(Yes, I realize there's probably no need for a "catch-all" thread for a game no one seems to be talking about, but there wasn't one already so I thought I'd make it...)

I know what you're all thinking, "Oh, jeez not another JRPG about the deathbed dreams of Frederick Chopin," but if you're willing to look past some of it's flaws, I think you'll find that Eternal Sonata is quite endearing and even a little innovative. I picked up it up on launch day and have been steadily plucking away at it since then. So far, I'm about a dozen hours in and I've got to say that I'm really enjoying it. My fairly unorganized highly unjournalistic views on the game are below.

Eternal Sonata's presentation is a mixed bag. Some of the core concepts of the story are very cool and original and, being a music geek at heart, it's really fun to see music used as the basis for many elements of the game. However, in typical JRPG style, some of the voice acting is terribly melodramatic or cartoony and much of the dialog is stilted. It's not that it's poorly translated - everything makes sense... it can just be really corny in that JRPG way we all have come to be familiar with (like it or leave it). Graphically, the art direction is fantastic. Tri-Crescendo have done a wonderful job bringing Chopin's dreamworld to life in a unique and simply breathtaking style. Many of the environments have they look of highly detailed living watercolors and are just a joy to look at. That said, the character designs, while stylish, just don't have that special "something" that gets you attached to characters like FFX's Auron, FFXII's Balthier, DQIX's Jessica and other memorable JRPG characters.

Sonata's game play is a mixed bag as well, but overall it's pretty strong. Traversing the world via the various fields is relatively painless. Encounters are not random, and therefore avoidable, but sometimes dungeons feel artificially long or save points feel awkwardly spaced. Eternal Sonata's battle system is definitely its strongest point, which is good because, like any other good JRPG, you spend a lot of time within it. Battles always seem to be fun and character skills are fun and interesting.

My only other complaint in terms of game play is that it is, so far, pretty easy. One of your characters gets the ability to take pictures of enemies in battle, which is a cool throwback to games like Dark Cloud 2, but in practice essentially breaks the game's economy by offering far too much money for the photographs you take. Rest assured that you'll never be low on funds. Even worse, though, is that at only about 12 hours in, I'm finding battles to be far from difficult, even against bosses. I generally would chock this up to my slightly-higher than mediocre skills with RPGs, but it just feels like the game, overall, is too easy.

There are certainly quite a few quirks with Eternal Sonata's presentation and game play, but it's got a certain charm to it that has just hooked me in. It is *not* the epic JRPG we've been waiting for on the 360 but, so far, it's been a really enjoyable experience. Is it worth $60? Not sure... you'll have to make that call for yourself. I'm personally not looking for another 100+ hour RPG right now, so I think this is going to be a great little tide-me-over until the likes of Mass Effect come out. Until then, I'll be toiling away at the nice little gem I've found here - and I'll be sure to post up my final impressions once I'm done.

My experiences:

You get about 100 Gamerscore IN TOTAL for beating the game the first time. 100 Gamerscore for about 35 hours. You have to play through the second time to get the rest.

And the second playthrough? It's incredibly hard. About 100 times harder. And the pictures breaking the economy? The second playthrough they don't sell worth ANYTHING.

By the time you beat the game, you're ready to shoot yourself everytime a cutscene starts.

I am really enjoying the game. I am about 13 hours in. I don't think it's too easy, but if you fight most of the enemies you come across you will begin to outlevel them around 10 hours in.

The environments are really nice to look at and the combat is simple but interesting. Every time is starts getting a little stale, they throw in a new ability, change the way the combat works (really neat idea), or throw in a new character. So far, the plot has been nothing to write home about, but it's servicible.

I like it a lot more than Blue Dragon.

Definitely prefer this game over Blue Dragon. The story and presentation alone makes this game worth getting.

shidarin wrote:

And the second playthrough? It's incredibly hard. About 100 times harder. And the pictures breaking the economy? The second playthrough they don't sell worth ANYTHING.

I only wish there was a way to change the difficulty for the first playthrough. I shouldn't even bother complaining about it now because I'm currently stuck at a boss. I was surprised to see the Game Over screen 3 times in one day.

I'm about 1 hour in, having just finished Bioshock last night.

So far, so good, though I haven't yet seen anything that wasn't in the demo.

Just picked this up yesterday. I am looking forward to starting into it once I am finally able to beat the last boss on Heavenly Sword.

I'm not sure at what point I am in the game but so far I'm enjoying it.

The only thing that bugs me about the game are the moments when they brake up my party. I have a preference of certain characters... and so I tend to use them more often. Yet, when the story kicks in, I end up with either leveled group or really, really under-leveled group. <- Which becomes a problem.

Second playthrough? Is it a "New Game+" type of thing?

Kinda. You don't keep your level or weapons or damage or any of that. Basically you keep any scorepieces you collected, and you gain the ability to be beaten to a pulp by your enemies.

[semi-spoiler]

I missed one of the trading places and I got dumped into the river. Is there a way to get back?

[/semi-spoiler]

shidarin wrote:

Kinda. You don't keep your level or weapons or damage or any of that. Basically you keep any scorepieces you collected, and you gain the ability to be beaten to a pulp by your enemies.

Wow... sounds like fun... :-/

doogiemac wrote:
shidarin wrote:

Kinda. You don't keep your level or weapons or damage or any of that. Basically you keep any scorepieces you collected, and you gain the ability to be beaten to a pulp by your enemies.

Wow... sounds like fun... :-/

Yeah seriously. All the cons of a New Game +. Count me out.

While the game is beautiful, this days I can't spare the attention needed to sink into a 35 hour RPG. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to return to it.

I couldn't get into this game. I gave it a go. The game is beautiful. Gorgeous. It looks fun. But then the combat is very button mashy because of the counter. Started to give me the hand pain. That and my wife was annoyed by the voice acting. It got returned unfortunately.

shidarin wrote:

My experiences:

You get about 100 Gamerscore IN TOTAL for beating the game the first time. 100 Gamerscore for about 35 hours. You have to play through the second time to get the rest.

And the second playthrough? It's incredibly hard. About 100 times harder. And the pictures breaking the economy? The second playthrough they don't sell worth ANYTHING.

By the time you beat the game, you're ready to shoot yourself everytime a cutscene starts.

From online, it looks like you get most of the achievements from the first play through. I'm thinking about picking this up when I get back from Taiwan.

One of the better J-RPGs this year. Great combat system, poor US voice acting. Unbelievably deep and complex story that I doubt many got, or took the time to try to get. Seriously. The story is brilliant.

Trashie wrote:

While the game is beautiful, this days I can't spare the attention needed to sink into a 35 hour RPG. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to return to it.

You have my sympathies. I'm a hair over eighty hours into my latest favorite tRPG with no end in sight.

I've played a lot of RPGs over the years, and, to be honest, I'm finding this to be a real chore, even on the first play through.

The battle system is fun, but once you find a good system for a particular enemy set, it gets boring until you find the next set. The balance on the characters in the party is fairly awful, so you avoid certain characters. They still get 50% experience even if they don't fight. I only ever used Beat to take pics and when I had to, and have avoided Polka whenever possible.

The cutscenes are generally overlong and dull and the dialogue can either be skipped entirely or has to be listened to; I prefer to turn on subtitles and read through a page at a time. Since I read far faster than I speak, I tend to get distracted between "pages" and often end up missing one.

My biggest gripe is the voices. Beat, Polka and the forest guardian girl have extremely annoying voices. And could they not have even tried to give Chopin a more genuine accent?

The game is generally very good looking, and the art direction is excellent. I like the whole Chopin angle on things. On the whole, however, I wish that I had not dropped £32 on this one.

This is why I turned on the Japanese voices.

I've found the story surprisingly engaging (with the Japanese dub). I'm around a dozen hours in and thus far I'm liking the linearity. I have to play so many games at the same time, getting lost is always a problem. Not here, but I don't mind it one bit.

My biggest gripe is lack of variety. There are not enough types of enemies and the structure is too plainly "corridor based dungeon hack followed by lengthy cutscene". The combat can be fun, though, so no biggie there.

then the combat is very button mashy because of the counter. Started to give me the hand pain.

I just finished Lost Odyssey and am jonesin' for another RPG 360 fix. This comment scares me though; can anyone elaborate and let me know exactly what sort of combat system Eternal Sonata employs? Some have compared it to the 'Tales' series, which would mean an immediate 'no thanks' from me, but others have mentioned it's more of a 'Shadow Hearts' type of thing, which I love. I don't mind if actions have some real-time elements, as long as it pauses before you select the action. (Shadow Hearts style, where there was a bit of a real-time clicking (via the judgement ring), but you had as long as you wanted to decide what to do - admire animations, watch the enemy detailing, etc.)

From some of the previews I've seen it may be the horror of having a great system *before* your party hits level two, at which point they arbitrarily throw a countdown timer into your menu structure to make it more 'peppy'.

There's a pause between each character, and the countdown for maneuvers doesn't start until you move. So if you want to stare at the scenery, all you have to do is wait until one of your guys turn and not move him.

The part that I've been having fun with is the environmental position-based attacks. If your characters are in the sunlight, they have one special ability. When they're in the shade, they have another. And some of the monsters also change based on that. Each stage is laid out differently, so you have to take that into account for your battle tactics.

Overall, I've enoyed it so far. It's gorgeous to look at, I haven't run unto any graphical or technical panty lines, and the soundtrack is an excellent mix of original pieces and variations on Chopin's real works. The voice work doesn't bug me nearly as much as Naruto: Path of a Ninja.

There's a pause between each character, and the countdown for maneuvers doesn't start until you move. So if you want to stare at the scenery, all you have to do is wait until one of your guys turn and not move him.

Thanks for the information! It seems like such a minor point, but for me it makes all the difference. It's part of the same variation of minutae that enabled me to love Chrono Cross and FFX but not be able to get more than forty-five minutes or so into Chrono Trigger or FFVII before giving up in frustration over the battle system.

I haven't run unto any graphical or technical panty lines

My first LoL of the night, thank you again. ^.^

Ha, this never made page 2.

Oh well, playing through again in encore mode. It's rough, but not unbearable. The only brutal part so far has been fighting Dolce on the pirate ship. I ended up having to grind a good 6-7 levels for it to even resemble a close fight. I think I'm going to have to ebay this game after I finish out of spite.

It's funny that this thread popped back up; I just finished this game a couple of days ago. Overall I liked it, although the syrupy voice acting and the repetitiveness of the fighting did start to get to me just a little near the end. I never did get hand craps from the combat though I felt my thumb muscles bulk up in ways I hadn't seen for years. That said, the art and the story of the game really pulled me in. It's also really nice to see a game focus so much on classical music; I have this (probably unrealistic) hope that somewhere out there there's a few kids who found a new appreciation for it through this game.

The ending is probably not what you're expecting though. Without spoiling anything, I will tell you that when the word "Fin" comes up it is NOT time to quit the game. Just sit for a few, it'll be worth it if only for the "WTF" factor.

And just in case it's not too late...

momgamer wrote:

There's a pause between each character, and the countdown for maneuvers doesn't start until you move. So if you want to stare at the scenery, all you have to do is wait until one of your guys turn and not move him.

While this is true at the beginning, later in the game as you gain party levels you'll go from this to having a second or two to having to act as soon as it's your turn. Thankfully by that point in the game you're used to the combat system enough that all it does is increase the speed of the action. If it's really a bother though, you can always lower your party level so you do have that endless pause - at the cost of some of the gains you get from a higher level, though for me the combat was never so tough (until maybe close to the very end at the "optional" dungeon) that I can't imagine this wouldn't work.

Speaking of this, after Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey and this, I'm happily going back to the "old style" of JRPG combat for my next game where I can hit a button and watch my guys attack - no timing thingies or extra button presses to worry about. Although all these innovations definitely increase the excitement of battles there's something to be said for the good 'ol "fire and forget" combat.

I'm looking forward to giving this game a decent try. I picked it up when it was first released a while back but then Bioschock hit and, well, I'm sure you can guess what happened next. Being a music teacher and a fan of Chopin myself I feel a little bad that I didn't play this one a little longer. Of course I've also got Blue Dragon to go through as well. My backlog pretty much hates me

Is this another timesink in the same vein as Lost Odyssey (which I loved btw).

QuVat wrote:

Is this another timesink in the same vein as Lost Odyssey (which I loved btw).

This is much much shorter than LO. Maybe 20hrs max if you take your time.

Drekk's right - at the time I answered that question my party was at Level 1 and I wasn't aware that mattered yet. But by the time it levelled up I was too busy in other ways to really want to stand there and stare. I'll also heartily second the hang on after the credits part.

This game finally got me off my arse to take piano lessons, which is something I'd been planning to do for years when I "got around to it".

Did anyone manage to get Claves back from the dead?

momgamer wrote:

Did anyone manage to get Claves back from the dead?

I did. It's a big waste of time. Doesn't really contribute anything to the story (not that the story cares about making sense at that point). Some of the later levels of that dungeon are super-annoying, and (at least when I played it) no one on gamefaqs had made a map for them yet. But despite that, I think of the three 360 JRPGs I've played, it's the optional dungeon I like the best. You get achievement points for it (unlike Enchanted Arms) and there's basically no game after it (unlike Lost Odyssey) so you don't feel like you're overlevelled for the endgame content.

4dSwissCheese wrote:

I did. It's a big waste of time. Doesn't really contribute anything to the story (not that the story cares about making sense at that point). Some of the later levels of that dungeon are super-annoying, and (at least when I played it) no one on gamefaqs had made a map for them yet. But despite that, I think of the three 360 JRPGs I've played, it's the optional dungeon I like the best. You get achievement points for it (unlike Enchanted Arms) and there's basically no game after it (unlike Lost Odyssey) so you don't feel like you're overlevelled for the endgame content.

They're available: gamefaqs

Also, I just found this for the score pieces: http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Eternal_Sonata/Score_Pieces

And if you're going for all the achievements, you better comb through the optional dungeon the first time around. In the second playthrough the enemies ramp way up and you'll have to level to 99 to make it through.

Eternal Sonata is coming out for the PS3 here soon. If anyone is planning on getting it, I'd love to hear if there's any extra content/etc on that version.