thatbloke
Junior Administrator
Eternal Sonata is, at its core, an RPG game, similar to games such as the final fantasy series. I will warn you however that I have not played through the whole of the game and as such cannot review all of it, but I have racked up about 8 hours play time and so thought I's share what I have experienced so far here. I shall also endeavour to put in as few spoilers as possible.
The main story revolves around the composer Chopin, as he is in the last few hours of his life. He is experiencing the world of Eternal Sonata in a dream, and as he experiences it more and more the line between what is "real" and what is the "dream" becomes ever more blurred. Along the way he meets another one of the main characters, a young girl called Polka, who though carrying the burden of a terminal disease, is able to use magic healing powers as a result of the illness and decides to use them to help other people.
The game is, in a word, beatiful. This fact is rammed home by the opening sequence, in which a narrator tells you about the village of Tenuto, and about how it is idyllic, tranquil, peaceful, beautiful at night, etc.etc.etc.etc. (this bit goes ON and ON...) part way through this narration, however, I was getting annoyed with it as it was basically saying the same thing over and over but from a different camera angle :/
Other than that though, my experiences of this game are very positive.
The animation style is Manga, and it most definitely has that manga feel to it, helped especially by the excellent use of the cel shading animation technique. Movement is slick and the towns and buildings within them really do look beautiful.
So... on to the gameplay. You control your group of adventurers, who initially meet up rather fortuitously and just happen to all be heading to see the Count at Forte Castle for one reason or another. You have your usual RPG fare here, each character has items of equipment that raises one stat or another, but that is where the similarities end. The battle system is where this game is really unique.
There are a number of aspects to the battle system, and I shall try to cover them here. The battle system is an excellent combination of both turn-based and real-time strategy, which changes as you progress through the game and your party's level increases (more on party levels in a bit).
When it is one of your characters' turn, the first thing you must consider is the amount of "tactical time" that you have. This is denoted in the top left and (to begin with) is infinite. This is the amount of time that you can take to decide what you want that character to do, before they actually act. You have a number of options: Move, Attack, Special Attack or Use Item.
As soon as you move or press one of the attack buttons the second timer, the action timer starts. This starts at a value of 5 seconds (depends on your party level) and is basically the amount of time (in real time) that you have to perform however many actions you can cram into that 5 seconds. Keep hitting the attack button and your character will perform a combo, which in turn builds up echoes (from party level 2) which power up any character's special move when they next use one.
You don't have MP in this game, but each character has (to begin with) two special moves that can be equipped, which can do all kinds of healing/damage and can be used as many times as you can fit it in within your action time. Using your special moves is one of the strong points of this game, as it is affected by whether you are in light or darkness. Each character has a different special move that they can use based on whether or not they are within a dark part of the battle area or a light part. Some enemies emit different light auras and there are various buffs/debuffs that you can be affected by that also affect your light/dark status, which in turn affects which special move you can use. The size of the monster also affects it - if it's a big bugger then he's gonna have a big shadow - stand in his shadow and you can use your dark special attack. Dont stand in it and you can use your light attack!
When it is the enemie's turn you cannot sit and rest though, if you get your timing right you can block the attacks that are performed on your characters, reducing the amount of damage you take by around 75% (estimated figure).
When your party level increases later on in the game you also have the option to launch a counter-attack, but I haven't got that far yet
Using items is also nice and easy although you have to think about what items you want to take to battle with you. Each item has a set amount of "points" that it is worth, and you are only allowed to equip for use in battle a certain points value of items. For instance, at party level 1, you can only equip 10 points worth of items. At party level 3 you get 20 points worth.
Now for the party levels. By now it should be a bit clearer on how it affects battles. As your level increases, you are able to use/equip more items and abilities, but in turn both the amount of tactical time and the amount of action time decreases - but the benefits of more attacking options outweighs this. You just need to think ahead a little more about what each character can do and how to use them most effectively.
Another nice feature is the camera. One of the characters you begin with carries a camera around with him at all times, and during battles you can use his special attack to take a picture of the battle - these pictures can then be sold to shopkeepers for (in some cases) some very substantial amounts of money if they are good enough. I sold a picture for ALOT of in-game currency just a couple of days ago, so much in fact that I think it may have been a bug. But i'm not gonna tell anyone
In all, I think the battle system is very well worked out and works very well, and the effects used are also pretty stunning.
Right, that's enough rambling. Here's the Official Site and here's the wikipedia page. Feel free to look up other reviews!
And remember, if you had to sum up this game in one word, the word I would use is:
Beautiful
over and out.
The main story revolves around the composer Chopin, as he is in the last few hours of his life. He is experiencing the world of Eternal Sonata in a dream, and as he experiences it more and more the line between what is "real" and what is the "dream" becomes ever more blurred. Along the way he meets another one of the main characters, a young girl called Polka, who though carrying the burden of a terminal disease, is able to use magic healing powers as a result of the illness and decides to use them to help other people.
The game is, in a word, beatiful. This fact is rammed home by the opening sequence, in which a narrator tells you about the village of Tenuto, and about how it is idyllic, tranquil, peaceful, beautiful at night, etc.etc.etc.etc. (this bit goes ON and ON...) part way through this narration, however, I was getting annoyed with it as it was basically saying the same thing over and over but from a different camera angle :/
Other than that though, my experiences of this game are very positive.
The animation style is Manga, and it most definitely has that manga feel to it, helped especially by the excellent use of the cel shading animation technique. Movement is slick and the towns and buildings within them really do look beautiful.
So... on to the gameplay. You control your group of adventurers, who initially meet up rather fortuitously and just happen to all be heading to see the Count at Forte Castle for one reason or another. You have your usual RPG fare here, each character has items of equipment that raises one stat or another, but that is where the similarities end. The battle system is where this game is really unique.
There are a number of aspects to the battle system, and I shall try to cover them here. The battle system is an excellent combination of both turn-based and real-time strategy, which changes as you progress through the game and your party's level increases (more on party levels in a bit).
When it is one of your characters' turn, the first thing you must consider is the amount of "tactical time" that you have. This is denoted in the top left and (to begin with) is infinite. This is the amount of time that you can take to decide what you want that character to do, before they actually act. You have a number of options: Move, Attack, Special Attack or Use Item.
As soon as you move or press one of the attack buttons the second timer, the action timer starts. This starts at a value of 5 seconds (depends on your party level) and is basically the amount of time (in real time) that you have to perform however many actions you can cram into that 5 seconds. Keep hitting the attack button and your character will perform a combo, which in turn builds up echoes (from party level 2) which power up any character's special move when they next use one.
You don't have MP in this game, but each character has (to begin with) two special moves that can be equipped, which can do all kinds of healing/damage and can be used as many times as you can fit it in within your action time. Using your special moves is one of the strong points of this game, as it is affected by whether you are in light or darkness. Each character has a different special move that they can use based on whether or not they are within a dark part of the battle area or a light part. Some enemies emit different light auras and there are various buffs/debuffs that you can be affected by that also affect your light/dark status, which in turn affects which special move you can use. The size of the monster also affects it - if it's a big bugger then he's gonna have a big shadow - stand in his shadow and you can use your dark special attack. Dont stand in it and you can use your light attack!
When it is the enemie's turn you cannot sit and rest though, if you get your timing right you can block the attacks that are performed on your characters, reducing the amount of damage you take by around 75% (estimated figure).
When your party level increases later on in the game you also have the option to launch a counter-attack, but I haven't got that far yet
Using items is also nice and easy although you have to think about what items you want to take to battle with you. Each item has a set amount of "points" that it is worth, and you are only allowed to equip for use in battle a certain points value of items. For instance, at party level 1, you can only equip 10 points worth of items. At party level 3 you get 20 points worth.
Now for the party levels. By now it should be a bit clearer on how it affects battles. As your level increases, you are able to use/equip more items and abilities, but in turn both the amount of tactical time and the amount of action time decreases - but the benefits of more attacking options outweighs this. You just need to think ahead a little more about what each character can do and how to use them most effectively.
Another nice feature is the camera. One of the characters you begin with carries a camera around with him at all times, and during battles you can use his special attack to take a picture of the battle - these pictures can then be sold to shopkeepers for (in some cases) some very substantial amounts of money if they are good enough. I sold a picture for ALOT of in-game currency just a couple of days ago, so much in fact that I think it may have been a bug. But i'm not gonna tell anyone
In all, I think the battle system is very well worked out and works very well, and the effects used are also pretty stunning.
Right, that's enough rambling. Here's the Official Site and here's the wikipedia page. Feel free to look up other reviews!
And remember, if you had to sum up this game in one word, the word I would use is:
Beautiful
over and out.
