Eternal Sonata: Does anyone else think this game needs a map? The OCD tendencies kept nagging to draw a map to make sure there was no stone unturned but the laziness won out in the end. Jun 27, 2008 After spending a couple hours playing Eternal Sonata last night, I'm quite close to being finished. And though I was planning on completing a quest involving the Mysterious Unison, an optional dungeon in Eternal Sonata, I've changed my mind.
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Last generation was easy. If you wanted to play Japanese RPGs, you bought a PlayStation 2 - preferably investing in a dirt-cheap GameCube later on in the cycle when the likes of Tales of Symphonia tempted you to the platform.
Microsoft's failure to crack Japan meant that this entire genre of gaming remained largely untouched on the Xbox, and the opinion-polarising properties of JRPG styling and gameplay meant that the majority of Xbox owners were perfectly happy with that situation.Next generation won't be so easy. Change has been on the wind since before the Xbox 360 appeared, with legendary names in the JRPG field like Hironobu Sakaguchi signing up to produce titles for Microsoft Game Studios - and now there's a strong upswell in third party support for the console in Japan as well. Whether it's the lure of Bill's Billions or a genuine belief in the potential of the platform that lies behind it, Microsoft is no longer the little boy that Japanese developers forgot - and nowhere was that more obvious than at TGS last weekend, where the firm's line-up of locally developed software actually gave the PS3 a serious run for its money.Lost Oddysey and Blue Dragon are the headline titles for Microsoft in Japan, of course, but it would be wrong to assume that they're stand-alone RPGs on a platform otherwise bereft of turn-based goodness. Also on display at TGS, in a lengthy playable demo which occupied an entire row of machines, was the latest RPG from developer Tri-Crescendo - creators of quirky but eminently likeable GameCube title Baten Kaitos. Called Trusty Bell: Chopin's Dream in Japan, and due for a 2006 launch there, we'll be seeing it in the west in 2007 under the somewhat less snigger-worthy title Eternal Sonata.A little background, first.
The game is, as the name suggests quite heavily focused on music - specifically, the music of Polish pianist and composer Frederic Chopin. The slightly absurd conceit of the title is that three hours before he died (in 1849, at the relatively young age of 39, from tuberculosis, morbid fact-fans), a delirious Chopin entered into a dream world, and there met a young girl called Polka, who also has an incurable illness, along with her companions - who wield magical powers all based around a musical theme.
Contributing to the musical focus of the game, the score will be composed by the always-superb Motoi Sakuraba, whom fans will recognise from the Tales of. Series, the Star Ocean series, Valkyrie Profile and, of course, Baten Kaitos, while Russian pianist Stanislav Bunin will be performing the Chopin pieces for the game.Unfortunately, much of this aspect of Eternal Sonata was lost on us at TGS, for the simple reason that the show is really very noisy - which meant that while we could play the game perfectly well, actually hearing it was quite tricky.
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