#45 - Eternal Sonata

Eternal Sonata is a JRPG that's based on the classical composer, Chopin - or rather, it's based on a coma fantasy of his where he embarks on an adventure with a bunch of characters that he's dreamed up. Said adventure is to stop the evil Count Waltz from turning people into zombies with mineral powder. It's not some generic good vs evil story, as it dabbles into politics and philosophy at times...

I really wanted to put this higher, but Eternal Sonata just had to give me monotonous dungeons whenever they damn well pleased and kept on trying to wax philosophically. Generally, monotonous dungeons are just terrible and do not sit well with me, feeling like incessant filler that wastes more of my time than Naruto's filler ever could. As for the philosophical bits... I appreciate the effort and I know that it has relevance to the setting, but I just couldn't stand how they were very lengthy and ended up boring me to sleep.

It's sad, because it's a fun JRPG. The story, whenever it doesn't try to wax philosophically, is a lot of fun, especially Count Waltz and his voice actor's bad habit of overacting. The combat is a lot of fun - easy as pie on the 360, but whatever, a real time-y strategy-y kind of system that tends to result in flashy moves always gets me going if it's done right and Eternal Sonata sure as shit gets it right. Honestly, it's one of those games that's simple enough to get you going, and stays simple to keep you hooked. It's fun enough to let you overlook the crappy dungeons... that's enough to get my praise.

Summary - A fun combat engine to make the crap dungeons not so crap. A fun story to make the awkwardly executed philosophy less crap.
Rating - 7/10

playstation 3 xbox 360 gaming related eternal sonata