Well... the Cutscenes Sure Seemed Eternal
You know, I really wanted to like Eternal Sonata. I really did. It had an interesting premise, a really interesting set of ideas for the battle system, no random battles, and it was touted and reviewed very well.
I'm not sure what game those reviewers were playing, because it obviously wasn't the same one I picked up for EB. Anyone who downloaded the demo from XBLA has literally seen all the tricks that this pony has to offer. When I played the demo and got tired of fighting the exact same enemies over and over again, I thought to myself, "This is only the demo, they obviously are just cutting corners and only doing 1-2 monsters per area to save time." Nope. Throughout the entire game, there were literally only 2 monsters max per area. Don't give me the argument, "There can be up to 4 because the monsters change depending on whether they are standing in the shade or the sun!"
Even if we were going to agree that 4 monster types per area was an acceptable amount, they are literally standing in the exact same spot. EVERY SINGLE BATTLE. There are two iterations of each battle, one with 3 monsters, and 1 with 2. They stand in the same spot, the only thing that varies is if they are on the right or the left. But, you know, I'm an accepting guy. They could do only 4 monsters per area if they spent the rest of their time developing a variety of monsters. Nope. Easy route there too. Set number of enemies, colors and stats are the only things that change. I know most RPGs fall prey to this shortcut, but in ES this is extremely exaggerated, there were about 10 enemy types for the entire game.
Maybe if the combat had been more entertaining this wouldn't have been an issue, but it was just the same. Smash A, get your combo meter as high as it can go, hit Y. Thats what combat was most of the game, the only time you had to pay attention to combat was when you hit party level 6 and they started moving the buttons around on you, then you had to pay attention to do full team combos. Also, it is absurd that in a game in this age, you can pick your special moves by how many hits they have. That's it. More hits > all. The only reason to change your specials were if you earned one with more hits.
Just like the combat and enemy encounters, there was no variety in the rest of the game. You follow an extremely linear path all the way to the *gasp* twists at the end that led up to the amazing twist ending that really doesn't make any sense. It was like they got to the end and thought "Wow, I didn't think we would get this far, let's just do... THIS!" And just threw in some random story twists.
If you played the story through and skipped every cutscene, you would probably have about 15 hours in the game. This is really poor for a JRPG so they decided to stretch stuff a bit by adding increasingly longer cutscenes. There are literally 30+minutes of story between chapters. I'm not kidding. Every chapter included a story about Chopin's life that if you skipped, you skipped the plot crucial character dialog, which was also mind-numbingly long.
Maybe I am not being fair to this game. It was pretty looking. It does offer a replay mode (same enemies but harder and no increased rewards, all you get is a chance for the last 600 something achievement points).
It would have made an amazing early PS1 game. But, for a game of this caliber to be sold on XBOX 360, where they have a FPS with a story that was better thought out and more varied combat, it really is just sad. Take my advice, play the demo, you'll get a better experience out of the game because there are no cutscenes. Ignore those reviews, advertisements, and recommendations from really misguided friends. Save your $60 or use it to buy a good game like Bioshock.
I'm not sure what game those reviewers were playing, because it obviously wasn't the same one I picked up for EB. Anyone who downloaded the demo from XBLA has literally seen all the tricks that this pony has to offer. When I played the demo and got tired of fighting the exact same enemies over and over again, I thought to myself, "This is only the demo, they obviously are just cutting corners and only doing 1-2 monsters per area to save time." Nope. Throughout the entire game, there were literally only 2 monsters max per area. Don't give me the argument, "There can be up to 4 because the monsters change depending on whether they are standing in the shade or the sun!"
Even if we were going to agree that 4 monster types per area was an acceptable amount, they are literally standing in the exact same spot. EVERY SINGLE BATTLE. There are two iterations of each battle, one with 3 monsters, and 1 with 2. They stand in the same spot, the only thing that varies is if they are on the right or the left. But, you know, I'm an accepting guy. They could do only 4 monsters per area if they spent the rest of their time developing a variety of monsters. Nope. Easy route there too. Set number of enemies, colors and stats are the only things that change. I know most RPGs fall prey to this shortcut, but in ES this is extremely exaggerated, there were about 10 enemy types for the entire game.
Maybe if the combat had been more entertaining this wouldn't have been an issue, but it was just the same. Smash A, get your combo meter as high as it can go, hit Y. Thats what combat was most of the game, the only time you had to pay attention to combat was when you hit party level 6 and they started moving the buttons around on you, then you had to pay attention to do full team combos. Also, it is absurd that in a game in this age, you can pick your special moves by how many hits they have. That's it. More hits > all. The only reason to change your specials were if you earned one with more hits.
Just like the combat and enemy encounters, there was no variety in the rest of the game. You follow an extremely linear path all the way to the *gasp* twists at the end that led up to the amazing twist ending that really doesn't make any sense. It was like they got to the end and thought "Wow, I didn't think we would get this far, let's just do... THIS!" And just threw in some random story twists.
If you played the story through and skipped every cutscene, you would probably have about 15 hours in the game. This is really poor for a JRPG so they decided to stretch stuff a bit by adding increasingly longer cutscenes. There are literally 30+minutes of story between chapters. I'm not kidding. Every chapter included a story about Chopin's life that if you skipped, you skipped the plot crucial character dialog, which was also mind-numbingly long.
Maybe I am not being fair to this game. It was pretty looking. It does offer a replay mode (same enemies but harder and no increased rewards, all you get is a chance for the last 600 something achievement points).
It would have made an amazing early PS1 game. But, for a game of this caliber to be sold on XBOX 360, where they have a FPS with a story that was better thought out and more varied combat, it really is just sad. Take my advice, play the demo, you'll get a better experience out of the game because there are no cutscenes. Ignore those reviews, advertisements, and recommendations from really misguided friends. Save your $60 or use it to buy a good game like Bioshock.
Labels: Eternal Sonata, xbox 360
posted by Tori Niku at
10:38 AM
2 Comments
