Jared Rea

Now that I’ve been afflicted with all this free time, I can go back and tackle a few games from a genre I’ve long since abandoned. No, I won’t be playing any highly advanced submarine simulations, but some Japanese RPG’s. You see, there was a time when I gobbled up every turn-based grind that came over from the great island nation, but I was also in middle school and my social life solely consisted of going to the bowling alley to play some Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting. Since the release of Final Fantasy IX (loved it), I’ve only seriously played two JRPG’s: Dragon Quest VIII and Pokemon. I didn’t even come close to completing Dragon Quest and the only time I became a Pokemon master, Mew was considered an impossible dream.

I’m either past my grinding prime or I have the attention span of a chickpea. Either way, I’m looking to ease my way back into these infernal time leeches and I’m doing it with Eternal Sonata — Tri-Cescendo’s ode to Tales for the Xbox 360. In most Japanese RPG’s, your party consists of mostly blue-haired, anime heroes who talk with their hands on their hips all the time. Eternal Sonata, thankfully, kicks this trend to the curb.

It instead features blue-haired, anime heroes who absolutely refuse to lower their arms.

Initially, I was hyped for Sonata, then called Trusty Bell: Chopin’s Dream. From its debut at the 2006 Tokyo Game Show, I was enraptured by its cel-shaded beauty, snappy action and the incredible costume designs. Heck, I even cosplayed it after burning myself out on a preview copy. While it was largely ignored upon release, it did garner mostly favorable reviews. This is what happens when you launch a niche product in the shadow of anything Halo. I, of course, was too busy with my early review copy of Halo 3 to even notice that Sonata still existed.

It’s odd coming back to it now and while hindsight is 20/20, I’m surprised that it was seen in such a positive light. The battle system is entertaining to be sure, but I can only stomach it in brief sessions as each new enemy only presents one, maybe two new scenarios, forcing players to act out the same exact battles over and over again. Eternal Sonata is more action packed than your average JRPG to be sure, but now you’re simply acting out the routine in real time.

But it’s the way Eternal Sonata handles both its characters and storytelling that leaves me empty. Its whacked out plot has been well documented, one that tells the story of famed composer Frederick Chopin’s final dreams, so I’m not looking for anything terribly profound, but with that sort of crazed idea, shouldn’t I be? Instead, we have this been-there-done-that tale of a bunch of ragtag anime kids who want to stop the evil, boy prince. I have a half-naked archer girl who just wants to protect her sheep. Everyone keeps talking about this “mineral powder” and I didn’t even know what it was until 3 hours in. Where the heck does Chopin matter in all this, anyway?

I feel as though I’m witnessing a digital monument to every reason why I abandoned the Japanese RPG. Many would look to the blue haired protagonist, muddled plot and repetitive gameplay and say, “Well, that’s tradition for you,” but I disagree. Dragon Quest VIII proved that even with the most archaic of facets, you can succeed if you’re at least charming enough to hold ones attention. I’m looking for reasons to stick to the combat regimen set forth by Eternal Sonata, but instead I’ve become increasingly distracted by these large headed creatures and their incredible upper arm strength. There is not a single scene in this game where the majority of the characters on screen aren’t holding their arms out in some fashion. Behold!

Next up in this cliche buffet is Mistwalker’s Lost Odyssey, which I’ve heard is a much more solid experience all around. Looks like I’ll have to put that special sandwich edition to good use after all.