Lately, very little interest is in Japanese role-playing games (in short, JRPG), or maybe even typical RPG at all. Network based massive multiplayer first person shooter games such as Call of Duty (or Modern Warfare), Gears of War and Battlefield are on the top best-sellers in the world. On the other hand, generations who grew up with Playstation X, Playstation 2 and older Nintendo game consoles had a great variety of role-playing games at that time. Now, only a few of them are produced. We decided to buy one of the few JRPG's available for the latest video game console Playstation 3.
At first glance, Eternal Sonata seems to be a game for young children who have yet to explore the world of RPG. But Eternal Sonata has much more to offer. For those who are interested in anime, adventures and modern Japanese culture (such as I), this is the ultimate RPG for the Playstation 3 console.
Eternal Sonata is loosely based on the life of Frédéric François Chopin, who is on his deathbed dreaming. He finally enters the dream which he has created, and he meets the girl Polka, the protagonist of this colourful dreamworld. The country in which Polka lives is currently suffering from addiction to a medicine called "mineral powder", which is intrinsically dangerous and driving people to death. They both set off on a journey to meet the ruler of the country to make him cease production of the powder. On the way, they meet like-minded people who become their friends and companions on this journey.
Character names and names of locations are all related to music. Meet characters like Beat, Allegretto, Salsa and Jazz and enjoy the wonderful views of a country called Baroque. The gaming experience is wonderful. Moreover, it offers up to three players to play together in battle, which is very nice. As far as I know, there are not many games like that out there in the market. The controls are fairly difficult, but satisfying, with a battle system based on Light and Darkness attacks and chain attacks that can be carried out if the player presses the right button at the right time. The PS3 version includes two additional playable characters, character costumes, extra scenes and a few other featured materials that are not available in the Xbox 360 version. Eternal Sonata comes with English and Japanese voicetracks with subtitles, which is a big bonus.
The world of Eternal Sonata is colourful and stunningly beautiful. The characters are sweet and funny, and although some parts are a bit cheezy, we had a great time playing it. One thing about this game that we really disliked is the ending. It is, all in all, very dissatisfying. The Eternal Sonata epilogue in the PS3 version has a few added scenes in an attempt to explain the already unclear ending, but instead it ends up being long, dreadful, and poorly thought of. It left us in deep frustration over crucial details that were not explained. This makes defeating the last boss most anticlimatic. The first thing we did after finishing the game was to look up for explanations on forums and other websites, and considering that more than half of the posts were named "Eternal Sonata explained", we are guessing that we are not the only ones that are confused over the ending. However the intentions the creators had for having a wonderful game end with such a dissatisfying epilogue, it is worth playing Eternal Sonata, but only until the second last boss.
NOTE: After comparing the ending in the PS3 version with the Xbox 360 version, we prefer the Xbox 360 ending. If you are to play Eternal Sonata, we highly recommend that you play the PS3 game but watch the ending in the Xbox 360 version.
Playing an RPG game as new as Eternal Sonata triggers wonderful memories from when we first started playing RPG, although ours was a late debut. One can call it being conservative, but we find nostalgic feelings most captivating. We can't get enough of RPG games. We look forward to see more of these games on the market.
Original title: Trusty Bell: Chopin's Dream (in Japanese, Torasuti Beru ~Shopan no Yume~)
Genre: JRPG
Publishers: Namco Bandai
Developers: tri-Crescendo
Year of release: 2007
Console(s): Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
SPOILER WARNING: If you have a hard time finding video posts on the Xbox 360 ending, please click here (English dubbed, part 1).
