Eternal Sonata

[Matblack]

http://www.game.co.uk/Xbox360/RolePlaying/~r331683/Eternal-Sonata/

Anyone planing on getting this?

Apparently its the game that Blue Dragon should have been and despite being cutesy it supposed to be pretty cool. Might have to pick it up as I'm missing a decent adventure game at the mo :)

Anyone else heard good things?

MB

[Haly]

Me :D
It looks great and I adore all RPGs. If I can manage to stop myself spending too much of any birthday money I receive, I'll save some just for this as I bet I'll love it.

[Daz]

The usual suspects are saying better things about it than they were Blue Dragon. It's definitely on my list, the demo was truely stunning to look at, and I found the battle system more enjoyable (with the usual demo caveats anyway).

No excuse for the soundtrack to be pants either, and that's a big thing for me when it comes to RPG's.

[Haly]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/24972.html video review of it.
Can't wait :D

[Veteran Tyke]

Picking mine up Friday morning, been looking forward to it for ages.

[Mondo]

Me too ! The only problem is finding the time to play it.

In need of a good RPG, FFIII on the DS wasn't that great.

[Haly]

Bah, was hoping it'd arrive today as usually gameplay are really good at getting games to me the day before, but it hasn't :(

[Matblack]

I've reserved a copy to pick up from Gamestation on my way home tomorrow

MB

[Haly]

Woo, I have it :D

[Daz]

Do let us know how you get on, I'm very interested :)

[Haly]

I will :D Despite the wealth of new games I have at the moment, I've been looking forward to this the most. My weekend is going to consist of sleep and Eternal Sonata :cool:

[Haly]

My first impression: I like it, a lot :D
I've only played it for about an hour and a half but so far it feels very old school RPG in the good way. It had a 10 minute intro which I thought was excellent because it actually made me pay attention and go 'ooooh' which I'm crap at usually, usually I get bored halfway through, even for the best games.

I was concerned that fighting involved running into opponents to trigger a fight rather than be random a la FF, but it works well. The fighting is quick enough that it doesn't feel like a chore and there's the added bonus that you can explore without being interrupted by a crappy random encounter.
The fighting itself is extremely like the Star Ocean series if anyone's played one of them. Basically you have a set time within your turn to either fight, cast spells, use items or move. Most of the time in the early stages, you run at the opponent which takes up a little time then press a to attack lots, or sometimes use a special attack.
Once the turn ends, the opponent gets a shot.
However, this means it's as quick as you want, if you don't move, the turn doesn't time out, it just waits for you.
The first boss fight I had went relatively quickly which meant it was good fun.
Plus you start out with what feels like a fair amount of HP and punching power, so your'e not sitting there thinking 'wow I hit them for a whole 1hp, when do I end up amazing'. Although obviously it's balanced out anyhow so you're not 'uber', just feels better ;)

Minor spoiler:
It seems to have a story with a fair amount of relevance to it so far, at least when it comes to two of the characters discussing how they have to steal bread for the poor because the government taxes food too highly. Then somewhat suggests that wealth's not everything.

Oh and the music's lovely, even if the intro does remind me of Aeris's theme from FF7 :D

So far, I'm really keen :) I hope it continues. The cut scenes are long but they're so beautiful, I don't care.
It's one of the few games that have made me desperately want to go out and buy a HDTV because I bet it looks amazing compared to my 19" TFT!

[Matblack]

I'm enjoying this, the graphics are very good and the fight system seems to work well, there are though a HELL of a lot of cut scenes! At one point I waited a good 20 minutes between using the game pad for anything at all, this would be fine if all the cut scenes were relevent but in between a couple of plot enhancing ones you'll get a load of all tosh about the life of Freidrick Chopin which isn't really relevent. The first time this happens its a bit interesting, later its like someone walking in in the middle of a movie at the cinema and giving a lecture on Art History :/

The game is however very good, there is character development, typical Japanese kiddie philosophy and the despite being quite linear the maps are good.

I would however like to see the characters change when you change their weapons. Despite having loads of different weapon options neither the fight or the other animations change at all :(

I probably wouldn't have scored this game as highly as the reviews but it is a good first stab at this genre on the 360.

MB

[Haly]

Yeah the Chopin cut scenes are a bit dull at times.
I'm still loving it though, it's the best RPG on the 360 imo although that's not saying much really.

[Haly]

How are you finding it now Matt?
I'm on Chapter 5 now and still really enjoying it, seem to be getting some pretty cool equipment now too which is nice :D
I am starting to skip the Chopin cutscenes though, they just detract too much from the main story. I've hardly touched another game since getting this though :D

[Matblack]

I'm on chapter 7, just it a tough boss battle though.

Will finish it soon and trade for Jericho :)

MB

[Haly]

A tough boss battle would be nice :D I haven't found anything too hard yet.

[Haly]

Well that's that completed :)
I really enjoyed it but admittedly it wasn't a huge challenge, the worst that happened was it'd take a couple of attempts to defeat a boss. But usually that was because I wasn't properly prepared anyhow with my item sets.
I'm hoping on the second playthrough it's harder as supposedly it's meant to be. I'll definitely play it again to wrap up the remaining achievements and see what else I can find within the game.

One downside was the final boss was far too easy, literally took me 2 mins to defeat :( I did have the advantage of doing a long sidequest which gave me some great equipment but it would have been nice if they'd have been a bit more challenging.
Oh and the ending is 45mins long, which is scary :eek:

Otherwise imo, a great game but flawed :)

BTW Matt, what was the tough boss you hit? I didn't seem to have any big problems :o