 Review By: Nick Arvites |
Developer: | Namco Bandai |
| Publisher: | Namco Bandai | |
| Genre: | RPG | |
| ESRB: | Teen | |
| # Of Players: | 1 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | HDTV 720p |
Fans of traditional console role-playing games are quick to tell you that there is a shortage of titles on the current systems. Traditional console RPGs, often described as Japanese RPGs or JRPGs, are mostly dominated in the modern era by high budget, massively hyped super-franchises with a few under the radar games between the major releases. It wasn’t always like this. Even in the last two generations, JRPG fans could easily find alternatives to the bloated budget Final Fantasy titles. The current generation has mostly shown us Western RPG gems (Mass Effect, Oblivion), but very little in terms of any JRPGs. Enter Namco Bandai’s Eternal Sonata.
Eternal Sonata is based on an interesting plot concept. The world in Eternal Sonata is the creation of Frédéric Chopin’s deathbed dream. Yes, the world you play in is the deathbed dream of a Polish composer. Chopin is a playable character, and accompanies your group during the game. Between acts, you get to hear a rendition of a Chopin composition while reading historical facts about Chopin’s life.
The game world is bright and colorful, and the almost impressionist effects on the background and world help to push a slightly noticeable but not distracting dreamlike haze over the world. However, character design leaves something to be desired. The vast majority of the characters in the game look like they’re at the oldest 15 and just playing dress-up. There’s almost a Peter Pan/Lost Boys feel to how the characters look. It just seems strange that the stat-sheets for some characters will have some absurdly high age for a character that looks like they might be just starting high school. The voice acting meanwhile is hit or miss. Some characters are voiced well, and others have all of the appeal of dragging shards of glass across a chalkboard.
The game itself is extremely linear with very little deviation off of the beaten path. Expect standard JRPG clichés to splash across your screen throughout. Yes, this includes everything from long boring Philosophy 101 speeches concerning the perception of reality, awkward kids trying to have romance, awkward young adults secretly wanting each other, shaky at best motivations for doing things, an untimely death, an unexpected betrayal, and many other plot elements you’ve seen thousands of times in this genre before. The real question with JRPGs is if they can do something better than those that came before it, and Eternal Sonata doesn’t provide anything different. This game is par for the JRPG course. It comes off as a paint-by-numbers JRPG in almost every respect. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some people love JRPGs in spite of their clichés and close to carbon-copy systems. It does, especially to a person that isn’t really a fan of JRPGs in general, feel slightly dated and akin to those smaller studio RPGs that were more prevalent during the 16-bit and 32-bit generations.
At the same time, I find it hard and unfair to fault a JRPG for just being a JRPG. For the purposes of this review, know that this game is essentially a standard JRPG. You get a party (limited to three at a time), and you explore a fairly straightforward world consisting of paths leading to towns. This is occasionally interrupted by mandatory dungeon explorations and boss fights. The game is divided into acts, and throughout the game you meet new members of your party, level up and find more loot. Enemies are displayed on the world map, and you initiate battles by walking into enemies. The battle system is the standard action-controlled one. You get a small arena, move your character and press a button for an attack (normal or special ability). The system becomes more advanced as you progress through the game, unlocking features like blocking, counters, and faster timers. Instead of heavily focusing on the standard features though, I’ll instead address what I thought the game did wrong and what it did right.
Posted: 2008-05-26 11:11:05 PST