Preview
Platform:
Xbox 360Developer:
tri-CrescendoPublisher:
Namco Bandai Games AmericaPreviewed by
Justin Fassino on 2007-07-11
Somewhere in a meeting, someone decided to make an RPG about classical music composer Fryderyk Chopin and his fevered death bed dreams. It turns out that that decision may result in one of the sleeper hits of 2007:
Eternal Sonata.
Eternal Sonata is the latest title from
tri-Crescendo, who previously worked on the
Baten Kaitos RPGs with Monolith Soft. Following the exploits of young adventurers in Chopin's unconscious mind,
Eternal Sonata mixes music and meticulous strategy in a beautiful visual package. And boy is it beautiful. At 720p, the game looks absolutely marvelous; every surface is smooth and colored in pastel hues. Environments are vibrant and colorful. In short, this is one of the most artistically pleasing games of this new generation.
Luckily, there's gameplay to match, and RPG gamers should enjoy the half real-time, half turn-based affair found in
Eternal Sonata. The system works wonderfully, and is somewhat reminiscent of the battle methods found in the
Star Ocean games.
A party can be made of three characters (and the game features 10 total); once in combat, each character and enemy gets a turn. Unlike most old-school RPGs, though, each character can move freely around the battlefield. The catch, however, is that they only have a certain amount of time to move and take action (it starts at five seconds, but as your party gets stronger, will become less and will thus force you to use more strategy during battle). Each time a physical attack lands, two things happen: a small amount of time is restored to the turn limit, and a combo meter counts out the number of hits. The more hits that are landed during a turn, the stronger a character's special attack will be. A good strategy to finish off enemies will be to hold that special move to the last fraction of a second, and then whip it out when it will do the most damage. The use of items, special moves, and attacks are all conveniently mapped to the Xbox 360 face buttons, making battle fast, fluid, and strategic.
But the complexity doesn't end there: the battlefield itself is divided into shaded and light segments. An enemy standing in a light segment can change form into something completely different and gain new attacks by moving into the shaded regions. And the same goes for party characters: they gain new attacks based on where they are standing. Some attacks may be more suitable when fighting certain monster forms. And some monsters emit their own light source, which means they will never be affected by shaded regions.
Finally, a rhythm-based blocking system has been implemented so you don't get hammered by enemies all day long. When an enemy begins an attack, an icon appears above the targeted character's head; if you press the B button while the icon is there, the character will successfully block the attack and take less damage. It's all about timing, so once you come to understand and recognize enemy combos, you can avoid unnecessary damage.
Eternal Sonata is an extremely polished, artful, and deep RPG with plenty of small touches that genre enthusiasts will eat up. There's also the score, which will feature piano renditions of the real Chopin's pieces by world-famous musician Stanislav Bunin, in addition to plenty of original music by famed game composer Motoi Sakuraba. Namco promises a demo sometime this summer before the game releases on September 4 for the Xbox 360, so make sure you check it out when it arrives.
