24. Eternal Sonata (Xbox 360)
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Eternal Sonata is the story of Frederic Chopin's dying dream. In this dream, we meet a young girl named Polka who has a fatal illness, but also grants her magical powers. The dream world is ruled by the comically evil Count Waltz, who is pushing something called Mineral Powder on his citizens, and all of our heroes have reason to stop him.

This is a somewhat unique RPG in terms of gameplay. Each characters turn has a time limit during which you can move and attack until time runs out. When attacking you'll build up a combo bar or sorts, which is always a good thing. Another unique aspect of the game is that there are light areas and dark areas which will affect skills. For example, if you're in a sunny field, a certain skill might be a healing one, but if you move under the shade of a cloud that healing skill will become a different skill. Each battle area will have access to light and dark areas. Like a dark ship having light pools from the hanging lights. There are 10 playable characters total in the Xbox version, one temporary and/or missable, and 12 playable in the PS3 version.


General impressions:
I want to start by saying that I had no idea this game had a PS3 version until AFTER I bought the Xbox 360 version. Then I moved and lost it and said this time I will get the PS3 version, since it has extra characters, switchable outfits (I think), and is on a console I can more easily access. But I couldn't find that version until after I caved and bought the Xbox version again. The whole thing is quite frustrating. It's super cheap now so maybe I'll end up with the PS3 version someday anyway. Anywho, about the actual game, I think it's incredibly charming, beautiful, and has some great characters. Music in video games has never been the most important thing to me but if you're in to that this game has some beautiful music. Since one of the main characters is Chopin and all. Speaking of which, between the chapters you get some neat little info history sections about his life with some of the wonderful music playing in the background. It's a nice touch.

Story:
This is the weak point of the game to me. I was much more invested in the individual characters than I was in the main story and it's honestly pretty forgettable overall. I wouldn't say it's bad, just doesn't stand out. The part that does stand out is that they took a real person from history and invented a fantasy world for him, and spend the game trying to figure out if the people and the world in his dreams are real or not. That part was pretty neat. But the whole Mineral Powder story seemed more tacked on just to give it a goal.


Gameplay:
It's pretty fun and more involving than a lot of RPG's where you stand there and select a command (not that I dislike those at all). I really liked the light and dark element and how that could affect the battle, especially in places where the light or shadow would move, so one second you're using one attack and then the cloud moves and you have to adapt really quickly. I also liked the aspect of manually shooting the Viola's bow, but I sucked at it, so I wasn't the best. But overall very fun and involving gameplay.


World:
Beautiful world, one of my favourite video game worlds ever. Some of the locations are breath taking and I have a hard time narrowing down my favourite areas. Each new spot brought something different and there were just so many that I can't wait to see again when I replay the game. If I had to pick favourite areas, it would be Baroque because pretty snow city, Elegy of the Moon for it's uniqueness, and Ritardando despite it's stupid name.


Characters:
I loved the characters. A lot of them are cheesy cliches, but I don't even care, they're cliches that make me care about them and make me invested in their story. Even the annoying ones didn't really annoy me that much, and the whole cast just made me smile. I also liked how often the party would switch, giving you different perspectives of the story and seeing different people and areas. They also all had cute musical names.

Favourite character: Viola rmiKjn8.png
Honourable mentions: March, Polka, Claves JrOlCK2.png4Bsz4sW.pngnZml6Kt.png

Viola kicks butt, she's strong willed, and she doesn't take crap from anybody. But she's still sweet. Plus she's an awesome archer which we know I love. March was very useful in battle and was quiet and sweet, it's just a shame she doesn't join until later on. Polka is dying and hated by everyone, but that doesn't stop her from being sweet and kind and helping everyone she can. And I'll be honest, a lot of why I like Claves is actually her look and femininity.

Overall this is a cute sweet game with some touching moments but an overall forgettable story. But the gameplay is fun, the characters are sweet, the music is great, and the world is beautiful. It's a very magical adventure.