Game Spotlight #26: Eternal Sonata (2007)
Fire up those PC port petitions, it's our first spotlight of the new year! JRPGs from the aughts have been a hot topic lately, so come along with Ash as she takes a look at a game certainly worthy of being the first console JRPG to be the focus of one of our spotlights. You won't want to let Eternal Sonata pass you by any longer than it likely already has.
It begins with a cold open, presumably flashing forward deep into the story, in a move rather unconventional for JRPGs especially of the era. A young girl declares her love for someone before diving off a cliff, coming to the realization only after her sacrifice that it is now all too late for anything she could do to matter. The sudden nature of this scene combined with its content is immediately impactful and sets the tone perfectly for Eternal Sonata, which is steeped deeply in tragedy from beginning to end. Flashing back from the sacrifice of the as of yet unnamed young girl to some of the earliest stages in her life, she listens to a monologue from her mother that speaks to why she might eventually come to do such a thing.
While this scene is pivotal in establishing the game's tone and setting expectations of the player, the second half of the scene establishes another important element of the experience in its whimsical aesthetic. Despite the seemingly inevitable tragedy that we witness during the opening minutes of the game, and indeed much of the tragedy that is to follow, the world of Eternal Sonata is wrapped in a visual identity reminiscent of a children's book with plenty of idyllic sights that often verges into a watercolor painting style in a way that both compliments and contrasts beautifully with the complex and tragic nature of the game's narrative. But there is yet one more surprise in store for players in the opening minutes of the game.
The year is 1849. France. October 16th, just before 11 PM to be exact. Real life Polish composer Frederic Chopin is looked over by a doctor and his loved ones. He is on his deathbed and no longer conscious, with the doctor noting that he looks peaceful as though he's having a wonderful dream. In another highly unconventional move, this JRPG unexpectedly follows a real historical figure and his inclusion is not merely a gimmick or fun footnote.
In the final moments of his life, as Chopin lay dying, he slips into a dream world that seems constructed from composites of figures and events within his life. Resolving to see the dream through to its conclusion and prove to the story's central characters that the world in which they find themselves is indeed merely a dream he's having, Chopin will intersect with multiple different characters and factions each with their own histories and ongoing stories, each with their own thoughts and emotions, calling into question whether or not this world is but one man's dream.
As previously mentioned Chopin's inclusion is no thin gimmick and the alleged dream world seems to be composed of people and events that mirror Chopin's own life and history, a point made clear through the game's seven (with an optional eighth bonus) chapters being punctuated by cutscenes consisting of real photos of relevant locations strung together that tell very well written and rather emotional stories of his life that correlate to the events happening in-game, each titled after a specific composition of Chopin's that plays during said scene to set the stage for the upcoming events.
Eternal Sonata tells its story wonderfully, and on so many different levels with so many moving parts that it's incredibly impressive and truly unlike much else in the medium, building towards a fantastic climax that is one of the most memorable in both the genre and medium. But while there's plenty of new and unfamiliar, there is plenty that you'll be at home with.
Perhaps speaking to its nature as an alleged dream of a dying man that is made up of familiar elements to him, Eternal Sonata as a gameplay experience takes the form of a fairly standard JRPG for the time with players traversing towns, talking to various NPCs and taking on plenty of monsters that reward you with all-valuable experience points to level your characters' stats up as they are inexorably pulled towards the game's conclusion. Players navigate fully 3D environments framed intentionally and artfully by specific camera angles that shift as players move about, not unlike the classics of the original Playstation.
Battles are not the random encounters seen in Final Fantasy titles, with enemies instead visible in the world who must make contact with the player to initiate combat with much like in Namco's Tales series. These battles also play out in a style reminiscent of Tales games, following a hybrid turn based and real time style, with combat heavily focusing on comboing basic attacks to build up strength multipliers for each playable character's skills. Rather than having a magic point system, these skills (of which more will be unlocked as the player advances) are able to be used freely until your turn is over.
The main resource juggled by the player is time, which will tick down at the start of your turn and allows you to fit whatever actions you can until turn time expires. There is a brilliant economy of action to the combat system that seems simple enough on its surface before becoming slowly more complex through the addition of 'party levels' that advance at key points in the game, slowly changing some of the basic rules of the mechanics.
Despite the familiar formula of JRPGs, Eternal Sonata offers plenty of new and original ideas within that familiarity. To start with, it's a rare example of a multiplayer JRPG, allowing more than one player to control the various party members. Light and darkness are key elements of the battle system, with each playable character having different abilities depending on whether they're standing in the sun or shade which makes positioning important.
Managing the position of enemies is vital as well, with many enemies also getting different abilities or even changing their form depending on their position in light or shade. Combined with manually guarding against enemy attacks with timed button presses, the seemingly simple gameplay of Eternal Sonata actually ends up feeling less like a Tales-lite and feels almost as cleverly composed as its story, emphasizing strategy just as much if not more so than its action. Finding ways to exploit the central turn-time mechanic in your favor and against your enemies is immensely satisfying and engaging, adding a wonderful layer on top of what is already a surprisingly deep combat system for how simple it feels at first.
As mentioned earlier, Chopin's alleged dream world is populated by a wide range of characters, many of which seem suspiciously composited from events and people in his life. The cast of playable characters is largely likable and when some characters bristle you can see where some of the personalities and traits are pulled from with regards to stages and elements of Chopin's life, making the party dynamics more interesting than they perhaps would otherwise be as an additional layer of meta storytelling. These characters and the vast majority of things and locations in the world follow the theming of largely having names related to music such as Allegretto and Serenade, capping off the very dedicated theming quite well.
The casting of the voiceover talent is incredibly strong especially in English, with plenty of iconic mainstays of the era like Erin Fitzgerald, Sam Riegel, Jamieson Price and Mona Marshall doing some really admirable work with the material. Underscoring the actors is Motoi Sakuraba's pitch-perfect soundtrack for the game, with renditions of Chopin compositions played by Russian pianist Stanislav Bunin which is the cherry on top of what is already a fantastically thorough theming.
Said material is surprisingly complex and subtle with lots of different layers and angles to its story, calling into question the nature of what is real and what is fantasy as well as the spectrum of reality, but Eternal Sonata is not necessarily subtle in its overall messaging. Quite the opposite in fact, and it is extremely explicit in communicating what its themes are to a degree that is surprising. This is a game that would easily be dismissed as 'woke' in its own time nevermind now, and while its earnest pleas with players came across to some as trite and blase at the time, the urgency with which it begs you to listen to it is all the more arresting in a time in which the mere existence of 'truth' and 'fact' seems to have become antiquated and cruelty reigns.
Much has been made of the supposed death and revival of JRPGs as a genre, and we're likely to write a special feature on that some time. The resurrection of mainstream interest in JRPGs heralded by Expedition 33's recent success has made people more interested in looking back at the genre and its dark ages in the aughts, which is something that has been brought on thanks to the developers of that game practically begging anyone who will listen to explore games that influenced it such as Mistwalker's sleeper hit Lost Odyssey. It is my hope that Eternal Sonata will eventually get its much-deserved time in the sun and serve as an inspiration point for people looking to make interesting, gripping narratives and gameplay experiences, or at least be experienced by more people who likely missed it.
True to the nature of a fleeting dream however, Eternal Sonata is relatively poorly preserved. It was ported to PS3 in 2008 (a port which, like many Tales titles, received additional content and playable characters), but otherwise has not seen another port in the almost 20 years since its release. It was added to Sony's Playstation Plus catalogue of streaming titles, which play okay enough but is certainly not ideal in part because paying for a monthly subscription service only to stream a title rather than downloading it can be a costly, iffy experience. As an aside, streaming PS3 titles do not allow capture, making acquiring content from the game somewhat difficult which is the reason why all of the pictures in this article are from the first two hours of the game, with that content having been sourced through emulation.
Speaking of, another unfortunate factor in the game's modern accessibility is the relative inability to emulate the game. With Xbox 360 emulation in a fairly early stage and PS3 emulation spotty at best, Eternal Sonata's playability outside of Playstation Plus streaming is in a sorry state. While technically possible, emulating the PS3 version does not make for a particularly playable experience and capturing content from it is even more of a nightmare due to frequent crashes and missing graphics that distort transparency effects, and sometimes objects and terrain will not only disappear depending on the angle at which you view them but whole hillsides can be replaced by empty black textures.
It is also prone to crashing persistently, especially during the loading transitions out of battles, so we'd unfortunately advise you not experience the game in this way.
Until the unlikely PC port of this game, which can present its own issues as in the case of games like Final Fantasy Type-0's HD remaster absolutely decimating the art style in favor of bland retextures that look like stock assets, playing Eternal Sonata through Sony's subscription service is likely the best way you'll have to experience it.
Developer Tri-Crescendo, known for their work on Baten Kaitos, created an absolute masterpiece befitting of the historical figure from which it draws so much faithful inspiration. In some ways it is trapped in the shadow of heavier hitters of the genre such as Final Fantasy VII and various Tales games, but some of the unwillingness to step out of those shadows feels like an intentional intentional response to some of those familiar ideas and also help the patchwork of familiarity upon which so much of the game is built and lovingly subverts. Eternal Sonata uses the tragedy of Chopin's life to paint a powerful tragedy of its own, with the game's final scenes being a heart wrenching (if naive) plea that feels all the more urgent in our present time of cruelty and backslide into authoritarianism around the world.
Despite its moderately warm reception, the game did not sell particularly well and it has not had much of a lasting impact in the gaming world at large which is perhaps the biggest tragedy of all. Eternal Sonata was well worth high critical praise and attention in its release window, and it is well worth your time and attention today. The gameplay is consistently fun with plenty of characters and elements to tinker with, and you can even play it with another person. Its visual beauty between the unique character designs and the in-game graphics is nearly unparalleled almost two decades after its release and holds up extremely well to this day, bolstered by fantastic writing, acting and scoring.
These spotlights are as much recommendations as they are reviews, and you can trust us to remain intentionally vague and coy with key plot details and story elements so that you may experience the games we spotlight for yourself without much in the way of spoilers. If you are interested in experiencing some of the underrated games of the aughts that helped keep JRPGs going during their time out of vogue upon which Expedition 33 draws so much inspiration, if you're interested in an unconventional JRPG that looks to 19th century Europe for its flavor, or you're looking for a great JRPG you probably haven't played yet then you're in luck - Eternal Sonata is all of those things.
A gem hidden among the stones, Eternal Sonata is undoubtedly stardust.
-Ash
