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Manufacturers Description
Eternal Sonata sees the legendary composer Chopin on his deathbed; dreaming as he drifts between this life and the next. In his dreams, happenstance encounters with a young girl facing a terrible destiny and the boy who will fight to save her, leads to Chopin’s discovery of the light that shines in each of us in Eternal Sonata's enduring tale of good and evil, love and betrayal.
With gorgeous next gen visuals and style, a unique battle system, and a captivating story, Eternal Sonata promises to give Xbox 360 fans the RPG they’ve been waiting for.
Eternal Sonata Features:
- Custom-Made for Next-Gen: Enjoy amazing, high-definition, anime style cel-shading and high quality textures shine as Eternal Sonata truly delivers an awesome next gen experience.
- Innovative Battle System: Battle using Eternal Sonata's unique hybrid turn based/action RPG system that combines free-roam and turn-based action (up to three players during battle).
- Strategic Use of Light and Darkness: Adjust your Eternal Sonata battle strategy in the ongoing struggle between light and darkness. Beware of Eternal Sonata's enemies lurking in the shadows, as their stats – attacks and potency – will change, as will their physical form. Lure them out into the light or destroy them there in the cloak of darkness. Also, change your special attacks in Eternal Sonata depending on whether you are in the light... or in the dark.
- Dramatic and Evolving Storyline: Experience Eternal Sonata's deeply moving story focusing on the enduring struggle between good and evil all while taking place in a dream during the final 3 hours of world-famous music composer Frederic Chopin’s life.
- Mesmerizing Music: In Eternal Sonata, world-renowned pianist Stanislav Bunin performs Chopin’s original compositions, which are a key element in the environment and story of Eternal Sonata.
GameDaily Review
by Grant Holzhauer on Thursday, September 27, 2007
It's not every day that a Japanese RPG hits the Xbox 360. Last month's Blue Dragon didn't exactly make the waves that Microsoft had hoped it would; it was certainly a positive sign that things in the Xbox camp were headed in the right direction. Eternal Sonata, currently a 360 exclusive, now further hammers in the point that Microsoft is starting to take the genre seriously. As a semi turn-based, semi real-time RPG set in the dream of the coma-bound composer, Frederic Chopin, there should be little doubt that Eternal Sonata is something different.
The story itself, despite being somewhat bizarre due to its dream-based grounding, is actually one of the game's strongest draws. Set in the mind of Chopin, everything takes a musical tone, be that the names of the characters and towns, or even the play mechanics. One could even make the argument that the combat is in a way musical. Each character in Chopin's party has a time-based gauge that governs their actions in each turn. Any movement or action starts to lower the gauge, but if the character stops, so too does the gauge. Because of this and the fact that characters have a free range of motion during combat, the battles play out almost like a dance.
To read the full Eternal Sonata review go to GameDaily
Game Play for Eternal Sonata
Eternal Sonata follows many general conventions in a typical console role-playing game: the player controls a party of up to ten characters to explore the world, talking with its inhabitants, buying and selling equipment at shops, and encountering monsters while in the field. These encounters are visible, and the player can opt to avoid the encounter, if possible, as well as gaining an edge on the monsters by approaching them from behind. Experience points are awarded to all members of the party, though at a reduced rate for those not involved in combat, and characters will improve in various statistics with each experience level as well as learning special combat skills. Weapons, armor, and accessories can be used to improve these statistics, which can be purchased through money earned in combat, found in chests, or by selling both equipment and photographs which can be taken by the character Beat during battle. The player may also find Score Pieces scattered about the world, which represent short musical phrases. Various NPCs in the game will offer to perform with the party, requiring the player to match a Score Piece to the phrase offered by the NPC, with the resulting composition being ranked. Distonal matches will result in no reward, but close or perfect matches will gain a bonus item from the NPC. Game Play info continues at Wikipedia.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Eternal Sonata".
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