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Cool Game for Anime Fans

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Cool game so far. I wasn't sure what to expect but after playing it for the first time my jaw dropped to the ground after I saw the exquisite anime/3d styled graphics. The game has an interesting story about a young girl with real-time rendered cinematics to tell it. So far I am on a journey through a fantasy countryside (bird's eye view Diablo-style) and occasionally run into a baddie and then the screen zooms into battle mode similar to Final Fantasy battles.

I would recommend this game to anyone who, 1. Likes fantasy, 2. Likes anime (the sweeter side of anime - not ninjas, etc), and 3. Likes third person style games. One additional note is that you can change the cinematic/game play audio to Japanese with English subtitles - awesome if you like to hear the foreign language.

Awesome new generation RPG, great storyline, perfect for classical music lovers

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 15, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I've always been an avid RPG gamer, and Eternal Sonata is by far one of my favorite RPG games. The only potential drawback to this game is the fact that the graphics are nothing too special. I would say that they are comparable to many PS2 RPG games. Nevertheless, that does not detract much from my love for this game.

The storyline is quite poignant once you get into it, but I will try to prevent including spoilers in this review. The battle system is very unique with dark/light strategy depending on where your character is standing and real-time stamina. Some argue that the battle system is messy and hard to follow, but that is hardly noticeable after practicing a few battles.

This game is perfect for RPG gamers who also happen to like classical music, particularly Chopin's works. I've played the piano for over 12 years, and Chopin's compositions have been some of my favorites. At the enc of each chapter, the game plays a beautiful song and shows some biographical information about Chopin. Thus, this game is not only a game but also a music culture enhancer.

I just couldn't have enough of this game and had to do a replay with the New Game + feature. Discover an even deeper storyline the second time through!

Overall, this game has been one of my favorites due to the combination of excellent gameplay as well as overall content.

the most BEAUTIFUL game!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I haven't played a game this beautifully made in a long time. It's visually stimulation and with just beautiful music. The details of the graphics is just breath taking. Every grass and pollens are moving individually in coordination. There are times when I just wish I can be in the game, hanging out by the green grass or just by the sea.

Besides the graphics, the game play is amazing. The battle-style is like that of Grandia II. If you are a Grandia II fan, this is definite in your alley.

The storyline is rich, although a bit confusing. I had to play the game two times to appreciate the story. Anyhow, definitely highly recommend this game.

Mediocre at Best

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Given the detail of other reviews, I'll skip the synopsis of the game and go straight into the opinion section.

The game is quite beautiful, with an amazingly developed story line and a bit of a history lesson all rolled into one. The biggest problems for me were how slowly the game moved and how monotonous the play was. As a single player game I enjoyed the game, though it wasn't overly challenging. But, as a multi-player game, it just doesn't work at all. There's too much time spent waiting for your turn or doing nothing while player one makes their way through the map.

If you're going to play, play alone.

Camera angle is unacceptable

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: February 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The inability to control the camera angle and zoom is unacceptable for a game for an advanced platform and for a game that cost so much. If this was a 19.99 special it would make sense. You can't control the camera angle at all, you can't zoom in on objects or so you can even see your character. I have just started this game and probably will not finish it. There are times that the character is so small on the screen that it blends in with the background and I can't even see where it is, forget about finding ladders to climb or treasure chests.
The incredibly long cut scenes are an annoyance and the story doesn't really exist.
I just finished Morrowind so this game was an incredible let down.

Probably Not

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 4
Date: January 14, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Bottom Line: This game has enough major flaws to turn off all but the most devoted, patient RRG gamer.

A lot has been said about Eternal Sonata's visuals. The cutscenes and special attacks are beautiful. But so are many games-- the visuals here are merely consistent with this console generation.* In fact, I would argue that Blue Dragon's blur engine is superior. The landscapes are well-designed, if a bit too multi-colored for my taste.

ES's battle concept is fresh. The time you have to strategize is limited and gets shorter and shorter as your party progresses. Any maneuvering on the battlefield is also subtracted from your turn length. Unfortunately, the end result of these innovations is that by mid-game ES feels like nothing more than a button-mashing fighter. Which is a MAJOR turn-off for RPG fans. There is also almost no customization, and only three members of your party can participate in any battle. Another huge turn-off.

Otherwise, the gameplay is weak. No game in this generation should have a fixed camera, no matter what the trade-off-- even with cutting-edge graphics, this is so outdated. And I guess every game produced nowadays has to have annoying puzzles; I chose to skip as many as I could, even though I didn't get the special prizes (weapons and armor). Also, this game is the definition of linear-- you go where the story goes and nowhere else. No side quests!

But the storyline itself is where ES ultimately flounders. Character motivations are unbelievable. Voice acting ranges from dull (Polka) to mind-blowingly obnoxious (Salsa). The dialogue is preachy and can be excruciatingly redundant. The ending doesn't really make sense. You want to forgive all of this because the setting is a dream, but it's too much.

Conclusion: If you are a hardcore JRPG fan, rent and beat this game (30-ish hours). There aren't many RPG's on this console and we have to take what we can get. Then buy Blue Dragon, which is better and 2-3 times longer for the same price. For everyone else, this one is a maybe. I doubt anybody couldn't beat this game, and it's probably sort of fun if you're a kid.

* Check out Gears of War, Bioshock, Blue Dragon, The Darkness etc. etc. if you don't agree.

Not a great game, but if you are starving for RPG's, you may as well play it.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: January 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I had just finished playing 'Okami' (which is a fabulous game for PS2 or Wii) when I started playing Eternal Sonata. So, that might be part of my biased disappointment toward Eternal Sonata.

The first thing I noticed about Eternal Sonata is that it felt "OLD", even as a brand new game, and it seems like a game that was designed 5-10 years ago. The color is vivid in the game, but the gameplay itself lacks a modern feel. The characters at times move 2-dimensional directions and rarely have control over the full span of the screen, a similar feel to an old Nintendo game.

A lot of the design seems very lazy. Maybe half of the story scenes do cut to animated film of the characters talking with voices, but the other half of the time, they simply stand in front of something that might pace back and forth on screenwith text displaying on screen. Their mouths don't move, and it's just silly text-based narration. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why some parts are animated, and some are just boring text boxes that you escape by being forced to press 'A' over and over and over.

Gaining levels can be tedious. The battles are the same from beginning to end. This is another reason it feels old; each battle, your characters and the enemies stand in the same place every time. The battles are also turn-based. The only thing that changes from battle to battle is which side of the screen you'll be standing on and whether you or the enemy will have your back to the other, and also which characters you'll fighting with increased difficulty. Same with the battles with the bosses. The whole thing is turn-based and the same each time.

The story itself is laughable at best. It meanders and a lot of it doesn't make sense... nor is it engrossing. In fact it's downright stupid and pointless most of the time. The ending was almost the worst and nonsensical RPG ending ever, so look forward to that. The unfinished feel carries all the way to the very end after "45 MINUTES!" of ending and the credits rolling, when the game just goes to a frozen black screen, which you have reset the console just to even get back to the title screen.

As for achievements... about 1/4 to 1/3 of them can be achieved on the first runthrough (maybe 20-30 hours). To get all achievements, you must go through the game twice. You don't get to keep any of your hard-earned levels nor most of the items you acquired for the second runthough. You get to keep things called "scores" and something called "party levels", which assists you do to more damage in battles, but with more effort.

In the second runthrough, the enemies are more difficult, although the gameplay is identical and with very few new things to do or see. So, if it wasn't fun the first time... it'll be harder, and no more fun the second time, either.

One aside that may not bother everyone, but most of the battles are fighting animals who moan, groan, and wail when you're beating them with your weapons. After a while, it just kind of felt cruel.

Finally, there is no world map. Many times I wish I knew where I was relative to other places, but no such luck. If you forget which area you are in, you just have to run to the edges of each area until you find what you're looking for.

I would recommend this game only if you have time to spare and love RPGs. It's not the best title you can get your hands on, but it's fine if you like the genre. I tended to focus on negative aspects of the game, but there game itself is nice to look at, and some of the areas to explore can be interesting. Just don't expect perfection, because nothing about this game is perfect in any way.

If you own an Xbox 360 or PS3 and you like RPGs, then you have no reason to not own this.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I put "or PS3," because it'll be released in Februrary, apparently.

After watching some online videos of the battle system in play, I was instantly hooked on the game before I even ever played it. I was even more impressed with the game once I played it. I'm just going to jump right in to listing the things I liked and didn't like now.

The game is very well-themed and they keep it inside this theme throughout the whole game. Since we're talking about the famous Chopin's dream world once he slips into a coma, much of the game's music is made to feel classical. But it doesn't end there. Not only is the music excellent and fitting, but so are character's names. Allegretto, Jazz, Beat. Character's names are named after musical things and even their weapons are. A sword with a harp on it, for example.

The graphics, despite being a little cartoony/anime-like, is surprisingly very good. The water, grass, the blue sky, the blocks that make up city brick by brick are all excellent.

Storyline is almost the whole reason to even play an RPG, Eternal Sonata doesn't disappoint. As it develops, Chopin grows confused with what's a dream and what's not and at the end-game credits, all the characters have an epilogue moment about mostly the same subject. It seems there's a personal moral question to the game that goes beyond just someone telling you a story.

The battle system and the world explore system is very nice. The latter is like Xenosaga, where enemies are laid out on the out-of-battle maps and you can try to avoid them if you wish. The battle system is limited time turn-based on a free-roaming map. Standing in light or shadow also gives your characters different abilities as long as they stand there. I very much enjoyed it.

The game's not perfect, though. One thing I very much disliked about the game was how short it was. I beat the game in 20 hours, which isn't too bad for games in general, but RPG standard length time (in my experiences of playing games) is about 36 hours. Sure, the game has a replay mode where the difficulty is higher, but there's nothing that's worth unlocking to me. I only care about replay modes if you get to unlock extra storyline, or if the game is just so fun to smash things in that I want to play it again (and I didn't want to do that in ES. RPGs are harder to have replay value than other game genres due to you having to walk around in boring towns, do unimportant quests, sit through cutscenes). The length of the game is one of my only complaints, really.

It's an exceptionally good game. If you own an Xbox 360, or a PS3 when it's finally out for it, then you should definitely give this game a shot if you're into RPGs. I would still say I recommend Enchanted Arms above this, but having both is better.

Mediocre JRPG

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 10
Date: December 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a mediocre Japanese-style RPG for the XBox 360. It's worth your while to play it simply because there aren't many JRPGs on this platform. How much you will enjoy this game depends on the particular type of JRPG that you prefer.

Forget this game if you like your RPGs to have grand, epic storylines. If your preference tend to lean towards the likes of Final Fantasy and Xenosaga, with their deeply-emotional storylines, well-developed characters, grand orchestral soundtracks, and elaborate cinematics, then please stay away from Eternal Sonata. You will find none of those here.

If you don't really care to have a grand story, or an intriguing plot, then you might like this one. What Eternal Sonata will give you is a battle system that is easy to learn. There will be huge dungeons to navigate, and many, many opportunities to get lost in them. These dungeons also have many dead ends. Basically, the game will keep you very busy, and at the same time the story unfolding very slowly. The enemy battles in the dungeons are highly repetitive. Every time you engage the same type of enemy in a particular dungeon, the battle will play out exactly the same way. It will get old rather quickly if you're accustomed to a lot of variety in your game. There's definitely plenty of "activity"; however, whether such can be called "gameplay" depends on how you define the latter.

If simply navigating through lots of wrong turns, fighting the same exact battles over and over again constitute gameplay for you, then you will be happy with this game. If you're like me and prefer your gameplay to have a point (meaning it moves the story forward and unfolds the plot in a logical way), then you will be unsatisfied with Eternal Sonata.

Eternal Sonata is made by the same developer (Tri-Crescendo) that made Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean and Baten Kaitos Origins. Monolith Soft, the developer of Xenosaga, had a hand in developing the first Baten Kaitos. However, ES is nothing at all like Xenosaga or your typical Playstation RPG. Eternal Sonata plays more like a Nintendo game. Which the two Baten Kaitos are, by the way.

Eternal Sonata is not at all what I would expect from an RPG that was designed for a next-generation video game platform. There are no grand cinematics here. As a matter of fact, you will have to do a lot of reading because just about all of the lines are not "spoken". There's very little spoken dialogue in the game. I almost felt like I was playing on a Gamecube! As I said, Eternal Sonata is more like a typical Nintendo game, which tend to eschew deep plot, character development, epic story, and grand soundtrack in favor of puzzles and repetitive battles.

The story begins at the deathbed of Frederic Chopin. As the hours of his life tick away, he begins to dream. And the game takes place in his "dreamworld". There was a lot of potential here to develop a truly moving and epic story. However, Tri-Crescendo chose to keep the story light and character development became just an afterthought. The dialogue in the game are oftentimes awkward. It's not a problem with the voice-acting though. If you have played any of the Xenosaga and Soul Calibur games, the voices will be instantly recognizable to you. Rather the lines themselves are awkward.

If you only have an XBox 360 and you like JRPGs, then you simply have to give this game a try. It could very well be the best of the genre on this platform. For now, anyways.

kinda boring

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 8
Date: December 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

imma usually a role playing type of gamer. but this new generation system has boring rpgs. xbox 360 has more rpgs than ps3. but so far they are all kinda boring. blue dragon had big names but was not very fun, but you can get through it. i first saw this game called trusty bell and have been waiting for the north american release. but this game is extremely boring, i found myself not wanting to watching any cut scenes and just skip through it. graphics are nice, story is boring. i also finished mass effect, which is pretty much a copy of ideas from star wars/starship troopers and other sci-fi movies, but at least it was more fun than either blue dragon/eternal sonata. so far, rpgs have been a complete failure for this generation. next i'm waiting for fable 2. i'm not all that interested in FFXIII after how boring FFXII was.

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