The First 10 Minutes: Eternal Sonata

• Manager
• Thursday, February 12, 2009 | 3:00 PM
• 17 comments

PS3

Atari and Namco Bandai released the Xbox 360 version of Eternal Sonata almost 14 months ago, and the Playstation 3 version will finally be available this week in Europe. The new package includes several enhancements of an already good game, so see inside for images, videos and some impressions.

It might be wise to first explain that the Playstation 3 version includes new quests, battles and additions to the story, including several new playable characters and costumes. Added is also new tunes from Frederic Chopin's classic portfolio. This version doesn't appear to have any technical flaws compared to its Xbox 360 counter-part, but the late release also gives it a higher price.

The story takes off with Frederic Chopin on his deathbed, drifting away in a dream in his final hours. This dream is what the player experience, walking in wonderful landscapes in its cel-shaded glory. Like many other J-RPG's you are limited to paths and corridors when traveling, making it impossible to run on the great fields shown in the background.

Enemies are spread out in the environment and it's sometimes possible to avoid battles by running away from them. The battles works in a pretty original way, where you have a gauge that will run out during the character's round. During a limited time you can perform several attacks on multiple enemies or use items and special attacks. When the round goes over to the enemy you can, similar to QTE's, try to time in a defending move.

The special attacks can be used unlimited times until the gauge is emptied and they alter, depending on if you're standing in the shadows or the sun. Certain characters can only use a healing power while in the sun, and an attack move while in the shadows. Moving in and out of the shadows takes use of the limited time, so it's important to use tactical skills well.The battles are filled with action since you can affect the outcome both when it's yours and the enemy's round.

It gets more and more complex the longer the story develops, having some surprises in the battles later on. I am really enjoying the game so far, the graphics and the artistic skills of the developer are really blowing me away. The sound and music is fitting the game very well, and it also offers the option use either Japanese or English dialogue. All in all, Eternal Sonata is not a ground-breaking game with revolutionary features, but I have found it to be very enjoyable.

Enjoy these videos, first showing The First 10 Minutes of the game, excluding parts of the intro since it's really long. The second one shows two other main characters and some battles occuring short after where the first video ends.

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The First 10 Minutes (PS3)

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Sewers gameplay (PS3)