Medium: Videogame
Hours Logged: 24; dropped
Genre: JRPG
Rating: T
Console: Xbox 360
I think I first heard of Eternal Sonata in some gaming rag or another; it looked interesting, but at the time I didn't possess anything to play it on. Fast-forward to when I picked up my 360, and- if I recall correctly- the five games I got with it were Mirror's Edge, Tekken 6, Sonic 2006, Halo 3, and Eternal Sonata, giving me a well-rounded beginning to my 360 library. Two sequels to action games that I liked, one platformer that I was certain couldn't possibly be as bad as everybody thought it was, one critically-acclaimed first-person parkour game, and an RPG I could sink myself into for countless hours- what's the worst that could happen? Well, Sonic 2006 was half-awful, Tekken's barely gotten any playtime as my greatest rival has moved away from videogames for the most part (and thus I have nobody to sharpen my skills against), I finished Mirror's Edge and Halo 3 and enjoyed them (so there's that), and Eternal Sonata, like Tekken, has just sort of languished on my shelf for the most part. Now, that's not a strike against the game itself. It's colorful, it's got a wonderful soundtrack, it's got an interesting history behind it, waxes philosophical frequently, and above all, tries to be as mentally stimulating as it possibly can. Which, are all very good reasons for me to want to pick it up and play for hours and hours on end. All of that is the kind of stuff I'm into.
...And yet...
Okay, before we discuss anything plot-wise, let's talk about the wonderful wonderful combat.
I doubt it would be a huge stretch to say that Eternal Sonata's greatest strength lies in how well-designed its battle system is- the game was made during the time everybody was obsessed with INNOVATION, but ES was one of the few games to actually do so. It's a 'turn-based' RPG, but I use that term loosely as every turn has a finite limit on how much time it gives you to move around the field, attack, and use skills and items. Once one character's turn is up, that's it- onto the next fastest character on the field. That's not the only thing keeping things fresh, though, as combat is also greatly influenced by whether or not a given character is standing in light or in the shadows. And I do mean greatly- your characters can use different skills depending on where they're standing, and some monsters transform into entirely different creatures when moving from dark to light (or vice versa). This can get hilariously meta when all of the battlefield is lit up like a candle, the exact spell you need at the moment is only available in darkness, and you have to use another character's shadow to be able to cast it. It's also gloriously silly when you can move a character down from the top of the battlefield to where a monster is, and the shadow they cast is enough to transform the big hulking death-tank of a monster into a teeny tiny hamster.
The cast can more or less be divided up into "power" fighters and "rapid" fighters; the more you use regular attacks against enemies, the more powerful your skills get, but using a skill instantly drains the meter, causing you to have to start over, encouraging strategic skill use and party makeup. There's nothing stopping you from casting that healing spell... but should you use it now while it's weak but urgently needed, or risk waiting until next round, after building up your combo enough that one shot of it will completely refill their health bar? Do you want to pack your party of 3 with slow-attacking but powerful characters, characters that can smack the enemy around with lots of small, weak hits to fill the meter fast and often, or maybe some mix of the two?
But, that's not all that makes the system wonderful-
you see, it eases you in comfortably. At first you have unlimited time
to decide how to approach the battle at hand, and you start your 'turn' by
moving or attacking. As you go, though, the game takes away more and
more of this mercy "tactical time" while granting you newer and newer
things to play with (like counterattacks, alternate skillsets, and the
like), until you have no tactical time to start your turn with
and a whole slew of abilities at your disposal to use as you see fit.
This happens over the course of the entire game, meaning you can get nice and comfy with your new toys and limitations before the game pulls just a little bit more of the rug out from under you and hands you something new to play with. At the time of this writing, I was still getting used to being able to counterattack enemies, and I was on the third to last chapter of the game.
Now, an amazing battle system is all well and good, but what is it actually about?
The central conflict revolves around the oppressive Count Waltz; Polka, the blonde up there on the cover, is a poor sick girl who sells floral powder (a healing item) for a living, who can't sell any because Waltz's mass-produced mineral powder is more affordable (though less effective... and secretly poisoning the populace). Allegretto (gray hair, far left, "Retto" for short) and Beat (middle-left, holding the brown boxy camera-thing) are a pair of poor orphans who've taken to stealing food from town and giving it to other poor orphans a la Robin Hood, and are sort of sick of the whole poverty thing. Polka, Retto, and Beat all go off on a journey to try and talk some sense into Waltz on behalf of everybody he's dicking over, and that last guy up there, in the background, wearing dark blue and sitting at what can only vaguely be identified as a piano? That's Frederic Chopin, master composer and pianist, and he's along for the ride because he's dreaming the whole thing up on his deathbed (he's more or less just curious where his brain's going to take him in his last few hours of life). Along the way they meet up with the rebellion, find out just how much more of a douche Waltz really is, join the rebellion, have adventures in several very pretty locations, and talk... a lot.
Now, the generic "rebels vs. empire" plot is something that I won't hold against it, because the game does its damnedest to draw parallels to Chopin's actual life; a big part of the reason for the game's very existence is that the director saw a gap between 'people who have an active interest in classical music' and 'people who play videogames' and wanted to bring one to the other. Along the way, about the beginning of every chapter or so, the game even takes a break from itself to briefly talk about who Chopin was and the things that influenced his life and his music. This is not an issue (actually, it's pretty interesting).
RPGs, especially JRPGs, I feel, have to have a lot of dialogue to convey their stories and themes- some, like Journey, can get away with not uttering a single word, but it's definitely not an easy thing to pull off and when you're trying to fill 80 or so hours worth of gameplay with enough story to keep the player invested, then I'd wager it's damn near impossible. At the very least, I've never heard of a game that managed to pull it off; if anybody knows of one, please direct me to it so that I may feast upon its juicy, artsy innards. The presence of a lot of dialogue is not an issue.
The way it is delivered, however, is.
It sort of feels like the creators forgot they were writing for a game and not an anime. The cutscenes, while they do try and touch up on a lot of really interesting topics, tend to drag hard. The first cutscene makes you wait something like ten minutes before you can even think about picking up the controller and exploring the world for the first time. One character, after being fatally stabbed by an assassin, soliloquies to an empty room about how much she loved character A but never told him, and how much she regretted working for the bad guys, and one part of her long, ten-minute speech involves showing again in its entirety- with only minor details added, none of which really change the meaning of the scene- something the game had already covered in yet another cutscene fifteen minutes prior. No, I'm not exaggerating. She seriously has ten minutes to live, and spends it rolling around on the floor recapping to herself and angsting at length instead of... I dunno... trying to stop herself from bleeding out? Getting help? Something?
There's a reason "show, don't tell" has been established as a law of storytelling, and it's a lesson I wish Eternal Sonata had taken to heart; there's a lot of things the characters talk about, plenty of which are great subjects for it to cover- the characters' own mortality, love vs. loyalty, subjective reality, man's inhumanity to man, etc.- and if the game were a bit more subtle in its narrative, then I wouldn't have any issues with it. But it isn't, and as a result of it choosing "tell" over "show" nearly every time, it has a tendency to trip over its own narrative with awkwardly-animated, overly-long cutscenes, and ends up coming off a little pretentious for it. I can't even blame bad dubbing on this one- while it's only mediocre dubbing, I don't mind the voice actors. It's entirely the script that kills me. My understanding is that the Playstation 3 updated rerelease does better in this regard... but as I lack a PS3, I don't actually know for certain.
I really want to like Eternal Sonata. The combat flows like butter and all of the locations you visit sparkle, shimmer, glow, and have enough color to blow away the dreary browns and grays of your Dark Souls's and Skyrims. The game perfectly captures that 'dreamlike' quality in its visuals and audio design, but for some reason, the more I try and close out the story, the more I have to push myself to actually do so. I just can't get into the experience, and as a result the whole thing drags uncomfortably and I find myself wanting to stop after maybe an hour of play. Which, considering how I lose myself in most other JRPGs, is completely and unabashedly nuts.
The truth is, I don't know how to close this one out. I like a lot of things about Eternal Sonata! I really do. But something about it is just off enough that I can't bring myself to keep going, so it languishes on my shelf for months until I've forgotten why, and I pick it up and slog through another hour or so before deciding that I'm not having fun with it. I don't know what it is. I just don't. I want so badly to like it, to the point that if/when I DO get a PS3, I'm willing to give it another shot. But in its original incarnation... I just can't.
Score: 7/10
Pass/Fail: Er.... go play the PS3 version, I guess.
Hours Logged: 24; dropped
Genre: JRPG
Rating: T
Console: Xbox 360
I think I first heard of Eternal Sonata in some gaming rag or another; it looked interesting, but at the time I didn't possess anything to play it on. Fast-forward to when I picked up my 360, and- if I recall correctly- the five games I got with it were Mirror's Edge, Tekken 6, Sonic 2006, Halo 3, and Eternal Sonata, giving me a well-rounded beginning to my 360 library. Two sequels to action games that I liked, one platformer that I was certain couldn't possibly be as bad as everybody thought it was, one critically-acclaimed first-person parkour game, and an RPG I could sink myself into for countless hours- what's the worst that could happen? Well, Sonic 2006 was half-awful, Tekken's barely gotten any playtime as my greatest rival has moved away from videogames for the most part (and thus I have nobody to sharpen my skills against), I finished Mirror's Edge and Halo 3 and enjoyed them (so there's that), and Eternal Sonata, like Tekken, has just sort of languished on my shelf for the most part. Now, that's not a strike against the game itself. It's colorful, it's got a wonderful soundtrack, it's got an interesting history behind it, waxes philosophical frequently, and above all, tries to be as mentally stimulating as it possibly can. Which, are all very good reasons for me to want to pick it up and play for hours and hours on end. All of that is the kind of stuff I'm into.
...And yet...
 |
| Settle in, this is gonna be a long one. |
I doubt it would be a huge stretch to say that Eternal Sonata's greatest strength lies in how well-designed its battle system is- the game was made during the time everybody was obsessed with INNOVATION, but ES was one of the few games to actually do so. It's a 'turn-based' RPG, but I use that term loosely as every turn has a finite limit on how much time it gives you to move around the field, attack, and use skills and items. Once one character's turn is up, that's it- onto the next fastest character on the field. That's not the only thing keeping things fresh, though, as combat is also greatly influenced by whether or not a given character is standing in light or in the shadows. And I do mean greatly- your characters can use different skills depending on where they're standing, and some monsters transform into entirely different creatures when moving from dark to light (or vice versa). This can get hilariously meta when all of the battlefield is lit up like a candle, the exact spell you need at the moment is only available in darkness, and you have to use another character's shadow to be able to cast it. It's also gloriously silly when you can move a character down from the top of the battlefield to where a monster is, and the shadow they cast is enough to transform the big hulking death-tank of a monster into a teeny tiny hamster.
The cast can more or less be divided up into "power" fighters and "rapid" fighters; the more you use regular attacks against enemies, the more powerful your skills get, but using a skill instantly drains the meter, causing you to have to start over, encouraging strategic skill use and party makeup. There's nothing stopping you from casting that healing spell... but should you use it now while it's weak but urgently needed, or risk waiting until next round, after building up your combo enough that one shot of it will completely refill their health bar? Do you want to pack your party of 3 with slow-attacking but powerful characters, characters that can smack the enemy around with lots of small, weak hits to fill the meter fast and often, or maybe some mix of the two?
 |
| Rip 'em apart, Beat! |
Now, an amazing battle system is all well and good, but what is it actually about?
The central conflict revolves around the oppressive Count Waltz; Polka, the blonde up there on the cover, is a poor sick girl who sells floral powder (a healing item) for a living, who can't sell any because Waltz's mass-produced mineral powder is more affordable (though less effective... and secretly poisoning the populace). Allegretto (gray hair, far left, "Retto" for short) and Beat (middle-left, holding the brown boxy camera-thing) are a pair of poor orphans who've taken to stealing food from town and giving it to other poor orphans a la Robin Hood, and are sort of sick of the whole poverty thing. Polka, Retto, and Beat all go off on a journey to try and talk some sense into Waltz on behalf of everybody he's dicking over, and that last guy up there, in the background, wearing dark blue and sitting at what can only vaguely be identified as a piano? That's Frederic Chopin, master composer and pianist, and he's along for the ride because he's dreaming the whole thing up on his deathbed (he's more or less just curious where his brain's going to take him in his last few hours of life). Along the way they meet up with the rebellion, find out just how much more of a douche Waltz really is, join the rebellion, have adventures in several very pretty locations, and talk... a lot.
Now, the generic "rebels vs. empire" plot is something that I won't hold against it, because the game does its damnedest to draw parallels to Chopin's actual life; a big part of the reason for the game's very existence is that the director saw a gap between 'people who have an active interest in classical music' and 'people who play videogames' and wanted to bring one to the other. Along the way, about the beginning of every chapter or so, the game even takes a break from itself to briefly talk about who Chopin was and the things that influenced his life and his music. This is not an issue (actually, it's pretty interesting).
RPGs, especially JRPGs, I feel, have to have a lot of dialogue to convey their stories and themes- some, like Journey, can get away with not uttering a single word, but it's definitely not an easy thing to pull off and when you're trying to fill 80 or so hours worth of gameplay with enough story to keep the player invested, then I'd wager it's damn near impossible. At the very least, I've never heard of a game that managed to pull it off; if anybody knows of one, please direct me to it so that I may feast upon its juicy, artsy innards. The presence of a lot of dialogue is not an issue.
The way it is delivered, however, is.
It sort of feels like the creators forgot they were writing for a game and not an anime. The cutscenes, while they do try and touch up on a lot of really interesting topics, tend to drag hard. The first cutscene makes you wait something like ten minutes before you can even think about picking up the controller and exploring the world for the first time. One character, after being fatally stabbed by an assassin, soliloquies to an empty room about how much she loved character A but never told him, and how much she regretted working for the bad guys, and one part of her long, ten-minute speech involves showing again in its entirety- with only minor details added, none of which really change the meaning of the scene- something the game had already covered in yet another cutscene fifteen minutes prior. No, I'm not exaggerating. She seriously has ten minutes to live, and spends it rolling around on the floor recapping to herself and angsting at length instead of... I dunno... trying to stop herself from bleeding out? Getting help? Something?
 |
| Nah, 's cool, we got it the first time. |
I really want to like Eternal Sonata. The combat flows like butter and all of the locations you visit sparkle, shimmer, glow, and have enough color to blow away the dreary browns and grays of your Dark Souls's and Skyrims. The game perfectly captures that 'dreamlike' quality in its visuals and audio design, but for some reason, the more I try and close out the story, the more I have to push myself to actually do so. I just can't get into the experience, and as a result the whole thing drags uncomfortably and I find myself wanting to stop after maybe an hour of play. Which, considering how I lose myself in most other JRPGs, is completely and unabashedly nuts.
The truth is, I don't know how to close this one out. I like a lot of things about Eternal Sonata! I really do. But something about it is just off enough that I can't bring myself to keep going, so it languishes on my shelf for months until I've forgotten why, and I pick it up and slog through another hour or so before deciding that I'm not having fun with it. I don't know what it is. I just don't. I want so badly to like it, to the point that if/when I DO get a PS3, I'm willing to give it another shot. But in its original incarnation... I just can't.
Score: 7/10
Pass/Fail: Er.... go play the PS3 version, I guess.
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