Trusty Sonata

So over the weekend, I finished and beat Eternal Sonata for the PS3. This was a very enjoyable game and I'm glad that I picked it up. It provided such a great, traditional RPG experience that I haven't had in some time due to the number of other games that I've been playing.
The story of this game starts out incredibly slow. It is so mundane at first ("We're going to go complain about taxes") but gradually picks up throughout the game. I think that was something that this game did surprisingly well. Although it didn't really grab me in the beginning, it kept building on to itself making the story more complex and easy to continue with. The pacing was pretty good for most parts of the game since it kept building and getting more intense. The ending wasn't really a let down, but I wish it could have been tighter and less confusing. Much of it made no sense and it is a shame to an overall good game. The story also made little references to Frederic Chopin's real life either through in game events or through documentary style cut scenes usually every chapter. The documentary scenes were told through text while a solo performance of Chopin's music was played, usually telling bits of his life and possible inspirations for the piece. I found these pieces interesting and something fresh in the game since much of it was repeated stereotypes. I found the solos didn't harm the pacing too much and were too interesting for me to not like them. In addition, it provided some great insight to the main character.
The battles in the game were done in a very interesting action RPG way. Each player had their turn in a 3d battle field and could then execute actions like an action RPG for a certain amount of time. The game starts you off with a very easy battle system and it gets increasingly harder as the game progresses (to the point where buttons are randomized). This keeps the battles fresh since it keeps changing certain aspects of the game. Most times I didn't find them too tedious or monotonous since I feel it was one of the high points of the game. the battles also move along at a very quick pace which is great. The battles also added the option to guard or counter attack certain enemy attacks. This also kept you actively involved in the battle during the whole time. It did feel a little unbalanced though in that you almost always had to guard against attacks since if you didn't you would take huge amounts of damage. The addition of light and dark areas of the battlefield also added an interesting dynamic. Overall, I thought the game had a pretty good difficulty. It wasn't too hard by any means, but it wasn't easy in that you had to time your guards so that you didn't take too much damage. I only died a few times, and mostly during boss fights. These is a new game+ mode where things get twice as harder and a few additional treasures and such, but I didn't partake in this since I feel it would take too long for the small additional benefit. If I ever want to come back to this, I certainly can.
The graphics of the game were beautiful cell shaded models and environments. It looked great in HD. Some of the characters felt like they had hollow heads, but I get this feeling with a lot of recent games. The music and sounds of the game were really good. Besides for the solo performances, I can't say there were really any memorable scores, but there weren't really any grating songs either. This is good since the game is essentially music based and themed. Every character and most places are music names since this is Chopin's dream. I enjoyed this original take on things and am glad the music didn't detract from this, although it would have been good to have a few top notch songs. The voice acting in English was hit or miss. Some of the characters sounded great, while others felt pretty forced. It would have been nice for this to be a little more consistent.
The additions and fixes made to the PS3 version were pretty good. I enjoyed the extra costumes, changes in difficulty, extra scenes and dungeons. Although I didn't experience the changes in the new game+ mode, I feel that this version has to be much better than the 360 version.
Overall, a really good standard next gen RPG. I liked it a bunch and it was a welcome addition to my collection. It also introduced me to the possibility of other Bandai Namco RPGs like Tales (although vastly different).