Eternal Sonata had a lot of promise. Not only was it a much-needed RPG on the Xbox 360, but it looked like it was going to break the J-RPG mold by blending action-RPG elements with a turn-based RPG framework and incorporating a novel plotline. As opposed to the standard “evil guy X is going to destroy large geographic area Y and ragtag group of good guys Z has to save it,” the game takes the unlikely and very rarely traveled route of historical fantasy—it’s set in a music-based fantasy world existing in the mind of Frederic Francois Chopin as he lays on his deathbed in the final throes of his long battle with tuberculosis.

Unfortunately, Eternal Sonata, like my sexual performance, fails to deliver in a great many ways.

I will say that the game is one of the most aesthetically stunning I’ve seen in quite a while, and it was a much appreciated break from the sea of brown/gray games flooding the market. Also, fitting the theme of the game, the music is very well composed and flows nicely.  Sadly, that is where the positives end and the negatives begin starting with the seemingly novel story concept which ended up being nothing more than the most soulless, one-dimentional JRPG storyline and characters with clarinets and souzaphones taped onto it.  When the storyline wasn't being generic as all hell it was being so embarassingly preachy I was amazed it didn't come with pamphlets for Greenpeace and Amnesty International packed into the box.

The cutscenes were probably the game's biggest annoyance, though.  There's more cutscene than game.  Win a battle?  Have a cutscene.  Take a step? Have a cutscene.  Defeat a boss?  Please, have this 10 minute long cutscene of somebody droning on about Chopin's life.

There was so much promise in Eternal Sonata - an RPG based on historical fiction, kind of a revisionist biography that promised to break JRPG conventions.  Sadly it's just another mediocre RPG that does nothing to conventions but soullessly adhere to them. (.57)