Eternal Sonata was different though, It looked like what most JRPG fans had been waiting for, but the components that were lacking just made this another mediocre JRPG. It's sad when you think of what the game could have been with a few minor changes...
The first thing you’ll realise while playing the game is the horrendous voice acting, the opening cut scene isn’t that brilliant either and it’s just made worse with the unfitting or stereotypical voice acting for each character. The voices are just downright annoying. I honestly can’t get past how they even let some of these people do the voices, or maybe they did and couldn’t be bothered to change them that far into the development. Luckily, they realised they fucked up and included the Japanese Voices, which make the game far more bearable to sit through. There are a few English voices which are alright, and actually fit the character well, but...
Another incredibly distracting thing is the horrible attempt to try to sync the English voices to each character’s lips, in the end it just makes all the characters speak at a snail’s pace, trying to allow the lips to at least move while their talking. It’s instantly noticeable and just makes all the talking sections seem boring and drawn out.
You would hope that a game called “Eternal Sonata” would have good music, and thankfully it does, no doubt about it. The music is well fitting, and just has this nice theme running throughout the songs which make them worthwhile listening to outside of the game.
The story is average, there’s really not much to say overall – a typical “let’s go and beat the bad guy and form a party along our adventure” story which would be incredibly boring if not for the boss fights which keep the game interesting and slightly more entertaining. The story has a little twist with the main character being in a dream (that’s not a spoiler either, I personally think it would have been much better if that had not been revealed until much later in the game)
Combat is the games high point, the combat is balanced, well done and most importantly fun. It’s more of an active turn based style of game, and you’ll notice that throughout the game as you level up and become stronger the battle system actually makes itself harder with new rules to keep it interesting. It’s better if you just watch the video below to get a better understanding of combat then have me explain it badly.
Overall I wish I didn’t pay close to full price for the game, half price would have been a much better deal for what you get. Rent it over the weekend to see if you like it, or pick it up half price whenever you can, its more then worth if for that.
One little thing I noticed is that a character that looks about 20 has this really deep, manly voice and I wouldn’t figure out why – but after looking at his stats I found out he was 39, which really surprised me. I’m not saying that’s bad but it was a little confusing at first.
It saddens me when I think about the lack of JRPG’s that are coming out lately, with this being around the top of ones I’ve played. I really have little hope for final fantasy XIII after not liking XII at all pretty much, but we’ll see what comes of it if it ever gets released...
