Spring Break
Eternal Sonata Not Music To Gamers Ears
John Bailey
Issue date: 9/25/07 Section: Focus
To my knowledge, there have been few video games featuring prominent musicians as protagonists and there have been none featuring Frederic Chopin, genius composer and piano virtuoso of the Romantic period. "Eternal Sonata," developed by Tri-Crescendo for Xbox 360, takes place in the fevered brain of Chopin as he lies on his deathbed and the entire game world is made up of his dreams. Without irony, I can say that I had never been more excited about a game premise in my life.
"Sonata," unfortunately, doesn't quite deliver as promised. What it does deliver, for better or worse, is a brilliant, engaging battle system married with the formulaic throwback of a role-playing game. Immediately noticeable are the graphics. The game looks fantastic. Many developers seem focused on harnessing the power of next-gen systems to make the most realistic games possible. Tri-Crescendo takes a different route, using vibrant, cel-shaded graphics and a cheerful color palette to create a world that I never tire of looking at.
The character art is particularly notable, even for those averse to typical "big eyes-small mouth" manga styling. Crisp lines and smooth shading effects enhance creative takes on 19th-century outfits and Chopin in particular looks slick, sporting an adorable top hat and gentleman's coat. The environment graphics are a bit spottier: cities and castles scintillate dazzlingly across the screen, while the forest, swamps and mountains are nondescript. Also, the enemy designs, while interesting for a while, are endlessly recycled, and the combat visuals for the characters don't change in accordance with the weapon they have. These irrelevancies aside, though, Sonata is a treat to look at.
What a disappointment it is, then, that Sonata's beautiful world is filled with such bland, trite characters. The cast, which begins with an innocent flower girl and balloons rapidly into a mess of plucky urchins, iron-jawed rebels and infuriating twins, is far too large to be properly developed. Chopin himself is pivotal early on, but as the game continues, he fades into the shadow of a big, silly political pissing match. When the characters do take the foreground, they tend to do so with long-winded, inexplicable monologues, filled with wretched statements about 'the human condition': "Nowadays if you see anything glowing out there, it's usually just the fires of distrust burning in people's hearts." Everything from love and art to class struggle and economic theory is mangled in a similar meat-fisted way.
"Sonata," unfortunately, doesn't quite deliver as promised. What it does deliver, for better or worse, is a brilliant, engaging battle system married with the formulaic throwback of a role-playing game. Immediately noticeable are the graphics. The game looks fantastic. Many developers seem focused on harnessing the power of next-gen systems to make the most realistic games possible. Tri-Crescendo takes a different route, using vibrant, cel-shaded graphics and a cheerful color palette to create a world that I never tire of looking at.
The character art is particularly notable, even for those averse to typical "big eyes-small mouth" manga styling. Crisp lines and smooth shading effects enhance creative takes on 19th-century outfits and Chopin in particular looks slick, sporting an adorable top hat and gentleman's coat. The environment graphics are a bit spottier: cities and castles scintillate dazzlingly across the screen, while the forest, swamps and mountains are nondescript. Also, the enemy designs, while interesting for a while, are endlessly recycled, and the combat visuals for the characters don't change in accordance with the weapon they have. These irrelevancies aside, though, Sonata is a treat to look at.
What a disappointment it is, then, that Sonata's beautiful world is filled with such bland, trite characters. The cast, which begins with an innocent flower girl and balloons rapidly into a mess of plucky urchins, iron-jawed rebels and infuriating twins, is far too large to be properly developed. Chopin himself is pivotal early on, but as the game continues, he fades into the shadow of a big, silly political pissing match. When the characters do take the foreground, they tend to do so with long-winded, inexplicable monologues, filled with wretched statements about 'the human condition': "Nowadays if you see anything glowing out there, it's usually just the fires of distrust burning in people's hearts." Everything from love and art to class struggle and economic theory is mangled in a similar meat-fisted way.
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