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Preview

Eternal Sonata

Format Xbox 360

Developer Unknown

Publisher Microsoft

Genre Role Playing

2-Apr-2007 TB, tubas and turnips... what the hell's going on?

3 Comments

We were very, very happy when we first heard of Microsoft's plans to woo the huge Japanese market, opening up 360 development to native game creators, because there's a certain kind of "Woah, where the hell did THAT idea come from?!" quality to many of the Japanese titles that you just don't get anywhere else. Already we've had the lush and half-bonkers Blue Dragon, and now we've got the sweet-looking and stark raving Eternal Sonata, n�e Trusty Bell. In fact, readers who expect nothing more from their 360 game's backstory than 'aliens invade and subsequently get their faces blown off' should turn away now.

Musical youth
On 17 October 1849 Polish composer Fr�d�ric Chopin breathed his last, succumbing to tuberculosis at the age of 39. Of course we all know that, but what we didn't know until now was that in his last hours he dreamt of a fantastical land in which he teamed up with a gang of poor children who all have incurable diseases, and they set out to fight injustice (and strange turnip-like monsters) in a series of frenetic turn-based battles. It goes without saying that there's a lot more to it than that, but we figured that was about as much as we can all cope with for the immediate.

The idea is... unexpected. It's a fantastically cerebral and moral social allegory, spliced with the kind of gorgeously detailed exploration and combat that Japan does so well. It will be a hard sell to Western gamers we rather suspect, but, once you make the effort to look past the twee pastel-coloured, cel-shaded design, you'll see a tremendous adventure waiting to be unleashed here.

Mastering the combos (weapons range from swords to... clarinets) for triumph against attackers and bizarre tentacled bosses looks like a tasty challenge, and if the puzzles and narrative that unfold are anything like as mind-twistingly eccentric as the basic premise, there are a lot of surprises in store for us here.

Jem Roberts