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9.0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ETERNAL SONATA Posted by Dan Pearson on Feb 9, 2009 20:52 (364 days ago) |
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Eternal Sonata is finally set to be released on PS3 in Europe, more than a year after it hit the Xbox 360, however don’t be fooled into thinking that this is yet another poor port, because that couldn’t be further from the truth.
The main story behind the game is that it is based in a dream world of the famous composer Chopin. As he is lying on his deathbed, his mind has taken him to a fantastical place where a momentous adventure awaits him and a few friends.
The first thing you will notice about Eternal Sonata is that graphically the game is amazing, the characters and environments are anime like in appearance, with a hint of realism and each level is beautifully represented in a colourful way. The PS3 version expands on the 360 version by providing new music, costumes and also gives you the ability to play as two new characters, Crescendo and Serenade.
 The adventure itself has you controlling a group of characters, using their combined strength to get yourself through the game by defeating the many foes that you will face, although there will be points when you do control one character as they wander the lands on their own. When wandering the lands you will find that whilst Eternal Sonata is a large game with plenty of dungeons and other areas to explore, it does feels quite linear, with not many branching storylines, so once you have finished there isn’t really much else to do.
Once you come across any of the various enemies during the game, the combat itself takes place in a separate battlefield, therefore when you encounter an enemy the screen will change and the action will begin. Once in combat you are able to run around, approach your enemy to attack, or run for cover. You can’t run and attack forever though, there is a bar at the left that reduces with each move you make, therefore once you reach your movement limit its someone else’s turn, make sure you use this wisely. It’s not all doom and gloom should you use all of your movement points up though as you can still block with a well timed bash of the button, which will perhaps leave your character to fight on or run depending on how you are feeling at the time.
The combat offers a really good blend of turn based movement and action, which is something I really enjoyed as it involves using tactics as well as hack and slash. It’s also worth mentioning that the battle arena is split into light and dark areas, and depending where you are your attacks will change accordingly, the items and special menu at the bottom of the screen is very easy to use and the menu will change automatically as you move from each area of the arena, taking away the headache of changing moves all of the time and keeping the pace fast.
 Another important part of Eternal Sonata is the music, in fact it almost seems as important as the game itself and is heavily involved throughout, being Chopin’s dream, some of his music does appear in the game, even some of the weaponry is instrument based.
Eternal Sonata is certainly a well put together game which strays away from the norm, it is almost always very pleasing to the eye, in fact if you only caught a glimpse you may think someone has put a colourful oil painting where your TV used to be. There is no doubt that this is the type of game that the PS3 has been waiting for, it provides an epic adventure which is both interesting and challenging, and let’s face it, the PS3 is lacking in the RPG department slightly, so adding this game to it’s catalogue won’t hurt.
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