Eternal Sonata / NamcoBandai / Xbox360

Finished my first play-through of Eternal Sonata and, apart from the plot going slightly fruity towards the end, enjoyed it immensely. Probably the best feature is the way the battle system changes slightly as your party levels up — by the end you have access to fantastic multi-character chain combos which deal massive damage.

Some of the optional sections are impressive too — before the final tower, there is a (literally) massive dungeon that yields a good sized chunk of achievement points if you can slog it out. This sidequest also unlocks the final level of the battle system, which gives you the power to take down the HP heavy opponents in front of you.

In order to completely finish off the game, a second playing is required via the New Game+/Load cleared data. This allows you to find certain collectibles that are unavailable the first time through. Loading your cleared data allows you to keep your Party Level and collectibles but precious little else. Going back to low level characters with only a couple special moves is a real shock to the system after finishing the game with your powered-up group.

Still, a fantastic RPG for the a system which isn’t exactly drowning in Japanese-style RPGs.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 14:37 and is filed under Video Games.