Mai Valentine
Moderator
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/809/809229p1.html
July 30, 2007 - Frederic Chopin, pianist and composer extraordinaire, is on his death bead; his frail body finally giving way to sickness. It appears to be the end, but this is where the story of Eternal Sonata begins. That's because this Japanese role-playing game from developer tri-Crescendo and publisher Namco Bandai takes place within a world of fantasy and music that Chopin has dreamt up in his final hours. It's a beautiful and lovingly crafted universe that is about to emerge from under the shadow Blue Dragon has cast over the Xbox 360 audience.
Here at IGN, we're big fans of the art style and attention to detail in Eternal Sonata. After roughly 10 hours of play, it appears that the story and combat have the goods to back it up. That's why we've put together more Eternal Sonata coverage than you can shake a stick at. If you aren't a fan of reading, take a look at the video preview below. Today also marks the first entry into the official Namco Bandai Eternal Sonata blog, so swing by and give it a read when you're done here. And for those that are just reading this preview for that one oh-so-precious bit of information, the answer is yes. You can switch the audio dub from English to Japanese at any time.
The combat, though, isn't as limited as the creature type. In fact, for a JRPG it has a surprising amount of depth to it. The turn-based/real-time hybrid is quite unique and builds from a basic setup to one that is more involved and active. It's all based around an action bar that resets for each character's turn. At the beginning of the game, the action gauge only drains as you are moving or attacking. By the time you get to where we are, it begins ticking the seconds down as soon as your turn begins and never lets up, giving you just a few seconds to move and attack. From there, it only gets tougher.
The basic actions are mapped to the face and shoulder buttons on the controller. Attacking, performing special moves, blocking, and using items requires just one button press from the face buttons while cycling through your equipped items is done with the shoulder buttons. Performing attacks is simple, but to succeed you'll need to work within the system. Each character has two attack types; a basic strike and a special move. Strings of the normal attack can be put together by just repeatedly tapping the attack button. Put a chain of enough together and you'll build up your echo meter which will amplify special attacks. The more powerful special moves can be done at will with no limit and do more damage than the normal attack, but they take more time and are best used with a semi-full to full echo meter.
Of course, things are not that easy. Depending upon whether you're standing in the light or shade, your character will perform a different special move. As you progress through the game, you'll be able to map more light and dark special moves to each character, giving you more options yet. This is just the beginning of what shadows do to the combat.
http://blogs.ign.com/EternalSonata/2007/07/30/61808/
This is pretty cool. It goes into some of the localization effort stuff. My favorite part was why they changed the name.
:lol
And finally, check out the graphics. I don't want to stretch the page so I'm linking to it instead of posting it, but man, this is so gorgeous.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/809/809212/eternal-sonata-20070730000852810.jpg
July 30, 2007 - Frederic Chopin, pianist and composer extraordinaire, is on his death bead; his frail body finally giving way to sickness. It appears to be the end, but this is where the story of Eternal Sonata begins. That's because this Japanese role-playing game from developer tri-Crescendo and publisher Namco Bandai takes place within a world of fantasy and music that Chopin has dreamt up in his final hours. It's a beautiful and lovingly crafted universe that is about to emerge from under the shadow Blue Dragon has cast over the Xbox 360 audience.
Here at IGN, we're big fans of the art style and attention to detail in Eternal Sonata. After roughly 10 hours of play, it appears that the story and combat have the goods to back it up. That's why we've put together more Eternal Sonata coverage than you can shake a stick at. If you aren't a fan of reading, take a look at the video preview below. Today also marks the first entry into the official Namco Bandai Eternal Sonata blog, so swing by and give it a read when you're done here. And for those that are just reading this preview for that one oh-so-precious bit of information, the answer is yes. You can switch the audio dub from English to Japanese at any time.
The combat, though, isn't as limited as the creature type. In fact, for a JRPG it has a surprising amount of depth to it. The turn-based/real-time hybrid is quite unique and builds from a basic setup to one that is more involved and active. It's all based around an action bar that resets for each character's turn. At the beginning of the game, the action gauge only drains as you are moving or attacking. By the time you get to where we are, it begins ticking the seconds down as soon as your turn begins and never lets up, giving you just a few seconds to move and attack. From there, it only gets tougher.
The basic actions are mapped to the face and shoulder buttons on the controller. Attacking, performing special moves, blocking, and using items requires just one button press from the face buttons while cycling through your equipped items is done with the shoulder buttons. Performing attacks is simple, but to succeed you'll need to work within the system. Each character has two attack types; a basic strike and a special move. Strings of the normal attack can be put together by just repeatedly tapping the attack button. Put a chain of enough together and you'll build up your echo meter which will amplify special attacks. The more powerful special moves can be done at will with no limit and do more damage than the normal attack, but they take more time and are best used with a semi-full to full echo meter.
Of course, things are not that easy. Depending upon whether you're standing in the light or shade, your character will perform a different special move. As you progress through the game, you'll be able to map more light and dark special moves to each character, giving you more options yet. This is just the beginning of what shadows do to the combat.
http://blogs.ign.com/EternalSonata/2007/07/30/61808/
This is pretty cool. It goes into some of the localization effort stuff. My favorite part was why they changed the name.
:lol
And finally, check out the graphics. I don't want to stretch the page so I'm linking to it instead of posting it, but man, this is so gorgeous.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/809/809212/eternal-sonata-20070730000852810.jpg
There are five different ones, and I'm not sure how you specify which one you want, but I think that's pretty cool. Here's a pic of them.