Eternal Sonata - Not that bad

[TVC15]

Here are my first impressions, after completing the first boss.

A little info, first.  I first tried out the game just about immediately after finishing Blue Dragon.  This. . .was not a good idea.  Most RPGs out there would compare poorly to Blue Dragon.  Luckily, I realized this quickly, and quit playing in order to put some time between me and my BD love affair.

So with that in mind, take these as my first impressions.  Things I said previously about the game were affected by a distinctive Blue tint.  But it's fair to compare the game to BD in some respects:  they are both the first big next gen JRPGs, so it's kind of hard not to compare them a bit.

Let's get that part out of the way.

In comparison to BD, Eternal Sonata's presentation is not as impressive as it teases us with its potential.  You see, the game's got gorgeous visuals, but you only really get to look at them close up in their high res glory during cut scenes.  There's no movable camera like in Blue Dragon.  Don't get me wrong, the game is gorgeous looking, but coming off BD, you'll wish you could move that camera around to see every little detail.  I think it is for this reason that Eternal Sonata feels akin to the PS2 Tri-Ace RPGs:  it's gorgeous in the same way as Radiata Stories, with a distinctive art style and lots of colors.  An hour in, it seems the storytelling might be near to Radiata in style, as well.  But the way the visuals are set up, the way the game sort of sets you up on mostly linear paths, this definitely feels related to Radiata, VP2, and SO2.  Now, that's not really a bad thing, really.  It just reminds me of older games.

The combat also feels like a descendent of the aforementioned games.  Different, of course--this one is reminiscent of turn-based strategy--but the field size and layout seems familiar if you've played any of those 3 PS2 RPGs.  Personally, at this point, I like the combat.  It's fast, and good looking.  The one thing I am worried about is that it might be kind of thin.  Every character has an attack and 2 special attacks, one usable in light, one in shadow.  That doesn't sound like a lot of attacks to me, so I have some concerns over that.  I have been told that it's really not a worry point, so I'm trying to let it go.  I have also been told that there are changes to combat as the game goes on.

The story is a snore, at this point, hence the Radiata comparison.  For the first half hour you might think you bought a game intended for the female gender.  Tortured anime-style metaphors abound in the game.  The voice acting is pretty good, but the lines it delivers are frequently kind of embarassing.  I'm glad that, say, my mom isn't watching me play the game. She might offer me a good douchin.

The story is almost detrimental to me, so far.  But it's really in a place where I feel up is the only place it can go (although orphan children complaining about taxes has me set up for some boring political plot a la Phantom Menace).  I like the combat and the visuals, but this game had better improve if it's to hook me.  It's good, but it's on the edge right now.

[Mondain]

It won't improve. The music is good, the game gorgeous and sorta relaxing, but these are the sole positive points. The premise involving Chopin is interesting and sorta cute but it's almost not used at all through the rest of the game.

Enjoy your endless cycles of mashing the A button + touching the Y button with the same enemies in the exact same spots on the fighting field over and over again in each area and dungeon for the next 20 hours.

There are like 10 different enemies in the whole game, too, excluding bosses. They just have palette swaps in every new chapter.

[demi]

This game will be amazing, I will get all 1000

[TVC15]

I also heard the game is mercifully short.

[Van Cruncheon]

the mechanics get better, and i am really liking the combat. i skip the story, but i skip as much of the story as humanly possible for MOST j-rpgs. it fills a niche on the 360 satisfactorily.

mondain bitching about the combat yet hyping xenosaga's abysmal mechanics makes him something of a doofus on the subject

[TVC15]

I don't want to point to Blue Dragon as the apogee of interactive RPG worlds, but going from BD to Eternal Sonata is a big contrast when it comes to searching random shit for items.  In BD, items were EVERYWHERE and everything was searchable.  In Eternal Sonata, there's none of that at all.  It's hard breaking the nothing habit.

[Van Cruncheon]

i have a sort of an affinity for the tri-* tendency towards combat-heavy mechanics, so i don't think i have the same expectations. really, in tri-* games, i anticipate three things: an engaging active quasi-realtime combat system, nice special effects for attacks, and really really consistent art direction. beyond that? it's up to them. i'm not looking to compare it to bd, because it largely satsifies a different need entirely, which is them sexy sexy lolis a semi-linear rpg-lite with an active battle system.

[MrAngryFace]

I just dont get mondains 'mashing' claims. I could claim Zelda Phantom Hour Glass (which rocks so far beat first boss) is just a bunch of touching the screen with a stylus at each enemy.

[Van Cruncheon]

mashing just creates all kinda random chains and combos, which seem to get me close to killed. when i get back from clallam bay, i'll mash some fights and report the results!

[MrAngryFace]

well not only that but there's the balance behind using the unified combo meter for healing and attacking. That meter doesnt just fly up there, you have to make some hard choices. Mondain is either lying, or over-simplifying whats going on.

Also you were right about the Phantom Hourglass boss, that was a lot of fun, the boomerang is fuk awesome.

[Van Cruncheon]

phantom hourglass has great albeit easy boss fights. the third dungeon boss is

[MrAngryFace]

Probably the first REALLY impressive DS game, visually. I mean I mock its 3D abilities, but this game is pretty impressive





















for DS.

I am going to hit up Eternal Sonata more this weekend. Probably taking a few days off of WoW just to turn my attention to other games. Blue Dragon is on my list there somewhere too. Blame the GUNDAM

[Van Cruncheon]

it looks good. i say that, and i'm the foremost ds hater on the internet!

[demi]

One of the achievements requires 99,999,999 Gold

Blue Dragon owned

[MrAngryFace]

Demi: If I get the 50,000 shot down for Gundam will you take the challenge on the game?

Also I guess once you can sell pictures the money is easy to rack up in Eternal Sonata.

[demi]

What challenge?

[MrAngryFace]

Get the Gundam Achievements.

[Smooth Groove]

So Eternal Sonata is not a purchase either for Mondain? 

[Van Cruncheon]

oh, bad news maf (since you aren't on im): jason gave me frickin' halo the tin game, NOT the cat helmet version. there's a bag of shit on the kitchen table to loot when you drop by to feed the cat. there's shadowrun (lol), viva pinata, a pgr4 faceplate, a keychain, an xbl 12-month card and a buncha other shit. take whatever you want. enjoy!

[MrAngryFace]

Oh well, ill take the extra Halo 3 and make it some kind of...prize to someone or something. Did you get two of the cards or one? Keychain and Viva are mine!

[demi]

Get the Gundam Achievements.

All of them? I'm not really interested in a Musou game.

[Van Cruncheon]

there's a bunch of 'em. there's a bag fulla shit. leave me the water bottle though!

[MrAngryFace]

haha, ok ill go through it and scavenge.

Demi: I WILL DEFEAT YOU AT GUNDAM

[demi]

Official Mode
Kamille Bidan
Mission 1
2000 Kills
Less Than 20 Minutes

[Van Cruncheon]

let's make shadowrun an evilbore exclusivo prize too!

[MrAngryFace]

I WILL TAKE THAT CHALLENGE DEMI!

Prof: Sounds good lol. I traded in my store bought Viva back when, so getting it again will be nice.

[Smooth Groove]

Can I have the PGR4 face plate?  I've a brand new Gundam model to trade, MAF.  I got it as a gift but I most likely won't ever build it. 

[MrAngryFace]

sure, faceplate is urs, send the model to distantmantra lol

[Van Cruncheon]

the halo 3 keychain is kinda nifty

[Mondain]

Come on, any Tri-Ace RPG has more gameplay and more depth than ES, and a better story too. ES feels like a mediocre take on that sort of RPG.

It's easy to understand why people like ES' novel combat system and it is quite fun at times, but it is spoiled by the repetitive fights and the relative lack of strategy and variety.

[MrAngryFace]

Oh mondain, why did you even come back? Just to lie?

[Van Cruncheon]

radiata stories has far far less depth in combat; the same for star ocean 2 and 3. vp2 is the only deeper tri-ace game off the top of my head. since tri-crescendo also did the baten kaitos games, i'll give 'em credit for those, too.

i'm surprised you aren't pimping this game, because it will actually have one of the rare superior ps3 versions!

[Mondain]

Radiata Stories was far more enjoyable, had better characters and the game world was much richer

[demi]

Radiata was wack blahhhh, dumped that turd

[Van Cruncheon]

even though it had no legitimate battle system to speak of, a tiny world, repetitive dungeons, and an equally distinguished mentally-challenged plot?

[Mondain]

uh, the game wasn't that tiny, it had varied environments, and taking on all those side quests as a mercenary was pretty fun

[Van Cruncheon]

the largest area -- the city -- was like 12 whole segments! the game was as long as eternal sonata, and had a real lack of enemy variety and similarly linear dungeons (only most had no puzzles to speak of); only difference was the pokeymon character collection and the dumbest real-time battle system ever made! radiata was the variety-free button masher you're thinking of, troll.

also, i just caught your histrionic thread about how the 360 will "never be your base platform" because of the "candy-coated graphics." the fuck! is this how you excuse the ps3's lack of aa now?

[brawndolicious]

funny thing about that is that he uses Marvel:UA as an example.

[demi]

This game is amazing. So pretty. 1000 here I come!

[MrAngryFace]

I enjoy the game but there seems to be a distinct lack of deep strategy in the battles where there could be a lot more.  it seems they were right on the edge of making a great battle system a-la VP2 but held back.  Better than FFXII, to be sure.

I dunno if I agree. I think at a strategic level VP2 battles are interesting. You have to assign spheres and skills and unit combinations ahead of time to create battles in your favor. Beyond that the battles themselves just demand proper positioning and getting the most hits in you can.

In eternal sonata there is very little going on before battles, but there is a lot more going on IN battles. Like active blocking, the shared party combo meter, the 10 item limit, using the combo meter effectively for both healing and attacking spells and the fact that most of the characters attack in different ways and demand the player handles them differently.

Im not sure either is deeper than the other.

[MrAngryFace]

Im just saying VP2 isnt deeper, it just frontloads the strategy prior to battles. Both are about equal in my eyes.

[demi]

I like the history lessons I get. George Sand the ladyboy!

[TVC15]

So I have put about 12 hours in, and I am digging the game.  I got past the rather annoying puzzle dungeon MAF gave me.  Hopefully it doesn't get much worse than that, but if it does, well, I'm not above using gamefaqs if a portion of a game is adversely affecting my enjoyment.

I'm digging the characters, but the plot is really not doing anything for me.  I would no longer call the plot detrimental--I see what they are doing, trying to draw a big metaphor between Chopin's disappointment that his homeland was never free and the situation in his dream world--but it's just really not the most interesting thing in the world.  Still, I give them applause for trying something different, and if anything, the game got me to read a few Wiki articles about Chopin's life and download some MP3s.  That probably makes it a more worthwhile game than the vast majority of stuff out there.

I enjoy the battle system, but I have to echo Billy Rygar's sentiments.  You only ever control 3 characters in battle, and while the game tantalyzingly teases you, it never achieves depth, or gets past being easy.  The shadow stuff all sounds very interesting on paper, but once you get a variety of skills in your spellbooks, being stuck in either shadow or light is not much of a big deal.  You can always reconfigure your skills to get what you want, for everyone.  Similarly, the lighting hasn't been used as well as it could.  Most battle fields have similar layouts--mostly light or mostly dark--so ou can always get away with very basic skill strategies.

The enemy layout is also pretty lazy.  You only ever fight three, max, enemies at a time, and they are ALWAYS in the same layout.  No, it's not that every party of enemies has the same layout, it's that every single group of enemies in the entire game has the same layout.  I know I am only 12  hours in, but if there were going to be various layouts, it would have changed by now.

Those seem like hefty complaints, but the battle system's got the important stuff down.  Battles are fast all around; fast loading, fast moving, and increasingly neat rules that make sure you are even thinking fast.  This makes the game god damned fun, and the battle system never gets old, even if the game isn't very heavy on variety of combat.  With a similar easy, compulsively playable quality to Blue Dragon, I will have no problems running through this game--maybe even twice for the 3 or so big achievements.

Also, I have to defend Jotaro here:  Enemy variety is not the game's strong suit.  Again, only 12 hours in, but I doubt this will change.  Every dungeon area only has two to three enemy types, and I have seen palette swaps of MANY, if not most, enemy types already.  Heck, there are at least three (make that FOUR--new area I'm in has another subsequent palette swap) incidences of me seeing palette swapped enemies in adjacent dungeons areas.  Now, this isn't really detrimental to the game, or how fun the battle system is, but it is a wee bit disappointing.  And come on, you are making me defend Jotaro.  He was using hyperbole (there are more than ten enemy models), but repetition of enemies is definitely a valid issue here.

Oh, also, money in the game is very borked.  Take one role of pictures with Beat, and you basically never, ever have to worry about money in the game.  Money is usually broken in RPGs, but it's an especially broken twist here.

I am enjoying the hell out of this game though.  Good show!

EDIT:  Oh, overall battle system quality amongst the Tri-* games (since they all use flavors of similar real timey systems):

VP2 > Eternal Sonata > SO3 > Radiata Stories

VP2 is tough to beat.  It takes the charming (but not great) system of the first and shoehorns it into an incredible realtime system with mini-dungeons in every battle field.  I wish I could play that game in HD.  Eternal Sonata is fun, but it could have been much better, maybe even on par with VP2.  SO3 and Radiata . . .both had major issues, but Radiata takes the loser cake for being depthless.  SO3 had annoying AI whereas Radiata didn't, but in just about every single area, Radiata's system was SO3 lite. 

[MrAngryFace]

So3's problem was the story pacing, really nothing as bad imo

[MCD]

You know TVC, it would have helped more if you just say the game fucking sucks.

i has no monies 

anyway, thanks for the impressions TVC, i will buy it as soon as i get some money.

[TVC15]

I'm enjoying the game though.  I'd recommend renting it first, though, because the story tone, especially at first, is really slow and off-putting.  It gets better, but I'm not certain if I'm just used to it, or if anyone would actually find it engaging at this point.  The combat is also fun, but if you like a lot of variety, you might grow tired of it.  I certainly haven't, and I don't think I can see myself growing tired of it.  Aside from the plot, I don't feel like I am "putting up with" or tolerating any bad elements in order to enjoy this game.  It's a fun, solid RPG with great visuals, fast and engaging combat, and some pretty likable characters.

I'd hate to think my impressions turned anyone off--the lack of variety hasn't soured my enjoyment one bit.  I was just saying that Jotaro wasn't crazy.  Well, at least not in the variety case.

[demi]

You haven't mentioned the biggest flaw in this game

* Lack of weapon variety

In a game like this, there is no excuse to have each weapon look differently. Even Enchanted Arms did it. Who cares about enemies when I have ot keep whacking them with the same weapon!

[MrAngryFace]

I wouldn't give Jotaro any credit, he claimed you could button mash through combat, and thats just ridiculous

[TVC15]

Also, not sure I mentioned it, but this is my greatest fear at the moment concerning the game's quality:

This game is one of those rare cases where it improved quite a bit from its initial state.  I play lots of games expecting them to improve from mediocre or meh into good territory, and while I said in my first post that this game seemed to be teetering on the edge at first, there is still one remaining aspect that I affear could dip the game into the "I'm not finishing this" pile. The funny thing is that that fear is one of the very same things that has swung my opinion around on the game, the Party System.  About once a chapter, your Party Level goes up (this happens at a set story point).  When you level your Party, changes to the battle system occur.  In the first chapter, the turn time system changes from a wait to an active system, aka time is always going down, adding a bit more challenge.  The echo system is altro introduced, which is a Skies of Arcadia-esque shared party skill point system that lets you unleash bigger and more damaging special attacks.  When you level it in the next chapter, you are allowed to equip more skills and bring more items into combat, but more time restrictions are added, making combat more challenging and faster paced.  I am worried that future Party Level ups can make combat a bit too challenging.  Time at the point I am at is already brief, and I think making turns much more brief might introduce some frustration.  In short, I am afraid that further levelings might make the game more frustrating rather than more challenging, which may make my patience run out really quickly.  I can't say for sure until that happens--maybe I will like it.  When I first heard that leveling fucked with combat turn times, I was worried, but so far it has only made things better,

We shall see.  I should be leveling again relatively soon.

Also, the game is not very difficult.  More difficult than Blue Dragon, yes, but it's still on the easy side of the scale.  I have not died once, nor had a party member die on me. Now, it does start out REALLY easy, but the time restrictions introduced thus far have made things a bit more satisfying.

[MrAngryFace]

No, most people commented that its relatively short (.hack length) and not super hard.

[Van Cruncheon]

yeah, fort fermata definitely needed a map. i like es a great deal -- it's a great lazy sunday rpg -- but there's a lot of room for improvement.

[demi]

Fort Fermata is killing me right now.  The lack of a map is inexcusable if you plan on doing something like this.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/file/934162/50153

I just started Chapter 3 (out of 7)

[demi]

yeah, fort fermata definitely needed a map. i like es a great deal -- it's a great lazy sunday rpg -- but there's a lot of room for improvement.

Do you play with your X360 offline? You don't have any achievements when you should if you are at Fort Fermata

[Van Cruncheon]

i'm using my brother's machine while i am trapped in clallam bay, i should probably stop as i should probably stop as i desperately need the gamer points :'(

i am internetting from my 3g phone

[demi]

lol, ES and BD arent generous with gamerpoints, I wouldnt worry too much about it.

Enchanted Arms is a better title, you get all 1000 just for beating it

[Van Cruncheon]

for the record, es is a bad influence on children, my daughter and her cousin are using umbrellas as implements of bap and the cats here are NOT happy

[demi]

I havent touched Polka since I had the option to toss her ass to the curb

[MrAngryFace]

id play it but im not in a 'living room' gaming mood right now lolololol

[TVC15]

Just finished Chapter 3.  I have not hit Party Level 4 yet, though.  Maybe this chapter.

I'm kind of digging the story a bit now, so just about everything has turned around for me.  The story is a bit low key, still, and the whole affair is decidedly animu, but the character's charm, including their fagtastic designs, has worn down my defenses.  I also find it kind of neat that each chapter has a sort of point that wraps into Chopin's life.  I might end up buying some of his music. . .the pieces featured in the game's interludes are really nice.

[TVC15]

Also, I suggest playing the game with Japanese voices.  I am usually not a snob about this, but some of the lines in the game are, well, embarassingly animu.  The English VA from what I played is more than adequately done, but it still helps to not have to actually hear some of the terrible things the Precious Moments bobbleheads are spitting out.

Oddly enough, I played through BD in Japanese, too.  I heard that some of the English VA was annoying in that, and I am kind of glad I never had to hear whatever pinhead from the English VA circuit they got to voice Marumaro.  Patel and Wapanese crew, in Japanese, how are the VA's for these things for quality as compared to the shit we usually get for English?

Another factor for BD was that it was really the first time I had the opportunity to play an RPG in Japanese and understand it (I think).