FateBreaker
Member
Hey, all. I beat Eternal Sonata a while ago, and I wasn't...well, I wasn't really a fan of it. But, because of the new ES PS3 shots (which look alright) and the incredibly polished look to it, I decided that I would force myself to do something unspeakable:
Replay Eternal Sonata.
Here's a quick reason why the game sucks:
Now, here's the LONG version:
Opnions seem to be so polar-opposite with this game. It's either you like it or hate it. Some of my RPG buds were calling me out - that I rushed through it, and I didn't "appreciate" the game. Yeah, I rushed through it, mainly because a) it's so bleh and b) THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO GO THROUGH IT.
So because I love GAF I decided to warn GAFfers why this game sucks and you should not ever buy it or rent it. This is also a friendly warning for PS3 owners. I played through the whole thing twice, and have 1000/1000 achievements, so I believe my opinion is valid. OK, so let's start the game out fresh:
Right now it has an "A"
It has an incredible art direction as we all know. Going through the game a second time, I'm still in awe over the amount of detail that is poured into each section. It's truly remarkable. Stunning. It even makes Baten Kaitos's art look primitive, and that's saying a lot because I LOVE Baten Kaitos in so many ways (Dragona, you hear? I am NOT apart of the problem.)
While some may disagree, I also have to commend this game's soundtrack: This is arguably Motoi Sakuraba's best effort...ever. Most pieces are beautiful, catchy, or downright refreshing to listen to. Honestly, it barely even sounds like a Sakuraba soundtrack, outside a few rythmic styles. There are also a ton of tracks.
OK, so, still an "A"! woohoo!
But these are things that any gamer can tell me. Just watch a few videos and you can tell me it LOOKS amazing and SOUNDS wonderful. But, the environments are actually incredibly limited. Most towns consist of one of two blocks with two or three houses. The dungeons/areas are, in particular, linear. Linear isn't even the word. The entire game you're just running on a path, a straight-line path, which occasionally splits to show a chest. And that's it. Even the breathtaking fields that appear so expansive in the videos are nothing more than a yellow-brick-road-style of traveling that is one way or...well, one way. period. In a lot of cases, you can't even go back to where you stepped a few minutes ago. What makes the whole thing even more irritating is because the game knows that you're passing by enemies because the battles are so boring (I'll get to that in a bit), it places enemies on the path, forcing you to fight. There's one dungeon (
) where it's a straight line for half the dungeon, and every five steps you take there's an enemy. This lasts for like 10 enemies. How fun!
But that's not all. Near the end of the game, you can't even go back and do what you did. Did you like that hill? WAS IT PRETTY? Too fucking bad. Oh, did you think that swamp area had awesome music (which it did), do you want to go through the game just to leave it on and hear the awesome music? Yeah, whatever. Look, here's the nearly unexplainable, abrupt final set of dungeons - just finish it. (Again, we'll get to this later.) So, okay, this is stupid. There is only ONE sidequest--or so you think. Yeah, actually, you have to REPLAY the game, the entire game, to access a portal that sends you back to SOME locations. (Don't worry, it's not everywhere, so you'll still need to go through plenty of battles!) This sucks. But you know what sucks even more? Enemies HP (and possibly some other stuff) is 1.5 times higher than before! So, like, guess what? Battles just take longer! LOLZ! Keep in mind that if you're an achievement whore, the most you can get on the first playthrough is 340.
To top it off, the secret super duper dungeon has the most retarded design in an RPG ever. I can't even explain it. It's so bad. Gah.
OK, so it's been dropped down to a B. That's still okay, right?
Yeah, well, the battle system sucks, too. Actually, it REALLY sucks. In the beginning it seems really cool. You have a party level, and that advances over time, possibly icnreasing the battle system experience. After about 20 battles, you notice that every single damn battle has the same damn strategy every damn time: you hit A as fast you can, you hit Y at the end (which is your super-duper move), and you sometimes hit x to pour out a healing item. That's it. This is no joke. Every enemy and every boss, this exact thing. So, once the game notices that it has a shitty battle engine, it decides to give you Party Level 2 or something. This adds "echoes," which basically just says the more you hit A and wait to hit your super-duper attack, the more damage--more or less.
OK, alright, this seems repetitive, but at least the battle system constantly evolves? Yeah, no, not really. There are more party levels, but the changes are so little that they're eiher unnoticable or stupid, purposefully making things harder for no reason.
And then there's the items. One of the characters has kind of a cool technique: he can take pictures. This is cool, in theory, but totally wronged in this game. I guarantee that if you take 10 pictures of ANYTHING--a rat's behind, your character picking her nose, etc--you will have enough money to last the entire game. See, the game gives a ridiculous amount of cash for this pictures, and while they do judge you, you can nearly buy all new armor, accesories, swords/etc, and 99x of items for just 10 or so pictures. And that's it. There is one side quest near the end (which is, of course, on your second playthrough) that has you take a reasonable picture of 20 enemies in the game, but that's it. Speaking of enemies..................
This game has the most limited amount of enemies I have ever seen in an RPG. I counted. There are about 20 differently designed enemies (excluding bosses), more or less, and the others are either different colored or have a little tiny thing added or misplaced to them to make them "different." Essentially, it's the same creature with the EXACT same attacks. Same attacks. Same attacks. In fact, each character has ...usually two attacks. Bosses have a little more. (And, by the way, repeat boss designs happen more than once, too!)
The game tries to get a little creative and adds a dark and light section to all areas. This, again, in theory, is cool. Too bad it actually sucks. See, when an enemy goes in the shade, let's say, they (a lot of them) are transformed into a different monster. Cool, I guess? But the monster is NOT unique. That exact monster is probably wondering around somewhere up above, blocking your path. There are some dungeons where there is, literally, only one enemy through the entire dungeon, if you can their transformation as the same. (Actually, there are a few dungeons who have one enemy. period. but that's another story.) I'll give this idea one good point: with your character, it changes your special attack. Sometimes you can only have a character heal with his or her power when she's in the light, as opposed to the dark. That's cool...!
Then there are the piano pieces. This, from the previews, looked to be yet another creative, cool gimmick to the game. But--yeah really--it falls flat. All this really is is essentially randomly playing through your collected score pieces to random folks that, by the way, have a piece that you can't yet hear until you totally fail. It's a big guessing game, and one where you have to match notes up as much as possible--or the sound of the instrument. There are a total of 32 pieces, so this becomes really annoying.
The game is also unusually short. It took me a little under 20 hours.
OK so what the hell, this sucks. We're at a "C" now.
"But, Fate, I don't care! As long as it has a good story, I can handle it! Really!" OK, OK, I hear you. And let me assure you: the story is ES's most embarassing part.
Now, there has been a lot of talk that ES's story is either shitty, too ambiguous, or simply so amazing that we are unable to comprehend such magnificence! Let me make the record perfectly clear: the story is a joke, an insult, and such a mess...I don't even know where to begin. I'm sure you all know the premise, so I will just explain why this sucks. The game places you in a dream and the game leaves you wondering "what am I doing, why am I here, is this a dream or reality, blah blah blah". And this is all cool, except--
Finally, and the thing that really just kills any sensibility of the plot, is the ending:
D
The is just shy of failing, but Sakuraba did such a standout music score and the art is so wonderful that I can't give it an F.
*So, Eternal Sonata is like that deadbeat GF/BF/friend/etc that you have. You know that there is potential with him or her--you really do--and you try so, so hard to get them to highlight these qualities. But they just never do. They always just go back to the drugs, or become lazy and don't do anything with their life, and maybe every once in a while they say something that sounds really cool and profound, but all it is is nonsense. You keep trying to like it, and the more you try, the more you hate the game, and the more you hate Tri-Crescendo. I seriously doubt that their PS3 port will fix this game to a C - range, so please do not pick this up if it comes out here. It's bad. Superbad (and not the cool "superbad" like the superbad movie. Super. Bad.) It's just such a shame, because this game looks wonderful, and, for some reason, the critics like it.
But they're wrong.
Thanks for listening! Thanks for letting me rant! I'm just trying to save anyone who has not played it yet Anyone who agrees or disagrees, I'd love to hear from.
Replay Eternal Sonata.
Here's a quick reason why the game sucks:
Rahxephon91 said:The game is really bad. Stupid characters and retarded story.
Here's a perfect example of the game's crappy story, writing, and cutscene direction.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ff-kea8HrIU
If you don't see whats wrong with this please don't play video games anymore.
Also the battle system gets boring really quick. Theres nothing to it.
Now, here's the LONG version:
Opnions seem to be so polar-opposite with this game. It's either you like it or hate it. Some of my RPG buds were calling me out - that I rushed through it, and I didn't "appreciate" the game. Yeah, I rushed through it, mainly because a) it's so bleh and b) THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO GO THROUGH IT.
So because I love GAF I decided to warn GAFfers why this game sucks and you should not ever buy it or rent it. This is also a friendly warning for PS3 owners. I played through the whole thing twice, and have 1000/1000 achievements, so I believe my opinion is valid. OK, so let's start the game out fresh:
Right now it has an "A"
It has an incredible art direction as we all know. Going through the game a second time, I'm still in awe over the amount of detail that is poured into each section. It's truly remarkable. Stunning. It even makes Baten Kaitos's art look primitive, and that's saying a lot because I LOVE Baten Kaitos in so many ways (Dragona, you hear? I am NOT apart of the problem.)
While some may disagree, I also have to commend this game's soundtrack: This is arguably Motoi Sakuraba's best effort...ever. Most pieces are beautiful, catchy, or downright refreshing to listen to. Honestly, it barely even sounds like a Sakuraba soundtrack, outside a few rythmic styles. There are also a ton of tracks.
OK, so, still an "A"! woohoo!
But these are things that any gamer can tell me. Just watch a few videos and you can tell me it LOOKS amazing and SOUNDS wonderful. But, the environments are actually incredibly limited. Most towns consist of one of two blocks with two or three houses. The dungeons/areas are, in particular, linear. Linear isn't even the word. The entire game you're just running on a path, a straight-line path, which occasionally splits to show a chest. And that's it. Even the breathtaking fields that appear so expansive in the videos are nothing more than a yellow-brick-road-style of traveling that is one way or...well, one way. period. In a lot of cases, you can't even go back to where you stepped a few minutes ago. What makes the whole thing even more irritating is because the game knows that you're passing by enemies because the battles are so boring (I'll get to that in a bit), it places enemies on the path, forcing you to fight. There's one dungeon (
the back of the church
But that's not all. Near the end of the game, you can't even go back and do what you did. Did you like that hill? WAS IT PRETTY? Too fucking bad. Oh, did you think that swamp area had awesome music (which it did), do you want to go through the game just to leave it on and hear the awesome music? Yeah, whatever. Look, here's the nearly unexplainable, abrupt final set of dungeons - just finish it. (Again, we'll get to this later.) So, okay, this is stupid. There is only ONE sidequest--or so you think. Yeah, actually, you have to REPLAY the game, the entire game, to access a portal that sends you back to SOME locations. (Don't worry, it's not everywhere, so you'll still need to go through plenty of battles!) This sucks. But you know what sucks even more? Enemies HP (and possibly some other stuff) is 1.5 times higher than before! So, like, guess what? Battles just take longer! LOLZ! Keep in mind that if you're an achievement whore, the most you can get on the first playthrough is 340.
To top it off, the secret super duper dungeon has the most retarded design in an RPG ever. I can't even explain it. It's so bad. Gah.
OK, so it's been dropped down to a B. That's still okay, right?
Yeah, well, the battle system sucks, too. Actually, it REALLY sucks. In the beginning it seems really cool. You have a party level, and that advances over time, possibly icnreasing the battle system experience. After about 20 battles, you notice that every single damn battle has the same damn strategy every damn time: you hit A as fast you can, you hit Y at the end (which is your super-duper move), and you sometimes hit x to pour out a healing item. That's it. This is no joke. Every enemy and every boss, this exact thing. So, once the game notices that it has a shitty battle engine, it decides to give you Party Level 2 or something. This adds "echoes," which basically just says the more you hit A and wait to hit your super-duper attack, the more damage--more or less.
OK, alright, this seems repetitive, but at least the battle system constantly evolves? Yeah, no, not really. There are more party levels, but the changes are so little that they're eiher unnoticable or stupid, purposefully making things harder for no reason.
And then there's the items. One of the characters has kind of a cool technique: he can take pictures. This is cool, in theory, but totally wronged in this game. I guarantee that if you take 10 pictures of ANYTHING--a rat's behind, your character picking her nose, etc--you will have enough money to last the entire game. See, the game gives a ridiculous amount of cash for this pictures, and while they do judge you, you can nearly buy all new armor, accesories, swords/etc, and 99x of items for just 10 or so pictures. And that's it. There is one side quest near the end (which is, of course, on your second playthrough) that has you take a reasonable picture of 20 enemies in the game, but that's it. Speaking of enemies..................
This game has the most limited amount of enemies I have ever seen in an RPG. I counted. There are about 20 differently designed enemies (excluding bosses), more or less, and the others are either different colored or have a little tiny thing added or misplaced to them to make them "different." Essentially, it's the same creature with the EXACT same attacks. Same attacks. Same attacks. In fact, each character has ...usually two attacks. Bosses have a little more. (And, by the way, repeat boss designs happen more than once, too!)
The game tries to get a little creative and adds a dark and light section to all areas. This, again, in theory, is cool. Too bad it actually sucks. See, when an enemy goes in the shade, let's say, they (a lot of them) are transformed into a different monster. Cool, I guess? But the monster is NOT unique. That exact monster is probably wondering around somewhere up above, blocking your path. There are some dungeons where there is, literally, only one enemy through the entire dungeon, if you can their transformation as the same. (Actually, there are a few dungeons who have one enemy. period. but that's another story.) I'll give this idea one good point: with your character, it changes your special attack. Sometimes you can only have a character heal with his or her power when she's in the light, as opposed to the dark. That's cool...!
Then there are the piano pieces. This, from the previews, looked to be yet another creative, cool gimmick to the game. But--yeah really--it falls flat. All this really is is essentially randomly playing through your collected score pieces to random folks that, by the way, have a piece that you can't yet hear until you totally fail. It's a big guessing game, and one where you have to match notes up as much as possible--or the sound of the instrument. There are a total of 32 pieces, so this becomes really annoying.
The game is also unusually short. It took me a little under 20 hours.
OK so what the hell, this sucks. We're at a "C" now.
"But, Fate, I don't care! As long as it has a good story, I can handle it! Really!" OK, OK, I hear you. And let me assure you: the story is ES's most embarassing part.
Now, there has been a lot of talk that ES's story is either shitty, too ambiguous, or simply so amazing that we are unable to comprehend such magnificence! Let me make the record perfectly clear: the story is a joke, an insult, and such a mess...I don't even know where to begin. I'm sure you all know the premise, so I will just explain why this sucks. The game places you in a dream and the game leaves you wondering "what am I doing, why am I here, is this a dream or reality, blah blah blah". And this is all cool, except--
the game never really answers this! You really have to fill in the gaps. For most of the game you're trying to resolve this inevitably haywire conflict that's not going anywhere. That's about 80% of the story. The other amount of it is simply trying to understand what the hell Frederic is doing, and hearing about scenes that are so boring and so made for five year olds that...I was tempted to skip nearly every one. Now, I'm a rabid RPGer, and I'm not the guy that skips scenes. BUT ES's scenes are so ungodly borign, awful, and nearly pointless, that's what happens. The characters throughout the game are especially lame, with only Polka, Frederic, and maybe Jazz having personality. Even Allegretto, the main dude, is nothing more than a guy who plays the lead man role thing. But his intentions and dreams and determination are so unbelievable. Even the enemies are stupid. I mean, the ultimate evil dude doesn't even look evil. (He also has a terrible corny voice, but that's another story.)
it's unbelievably bad. it makes you feel like the entire game had no point other than to be like a grandma, slap my hand, and tell me that bad things are bad and bad peopel are bad and good people are good and life is great and I should appreciate life because life is good and not bad because it's good and not bad. Seriously, the whole lesson is as redundant and retardedly said as that very sentence. Now, this COULD have had potential--the whole dream thing and life versus reality thing, I mean--but most of the plot is this arbitrary let's-talk-to-these-conflicting-kings quest that the subtle mystery to the game is REALLY ABRUPTLY forced down your throat near the end of the game. It makes no damn sense. Now, I know someone has posted on GAF trying to make sense of the plot, and I dont' buy it. BUT, if that's the case, then that's stupid. Polka representing a character of Chopin's in real life, for example, should have been SPECIFICALLY shown and revealed, and why this is important.
D
The is just shy of failing, but Sakuraba did such a standout music score and the art is so wonderful that I can't give it an F.
*So, Eternal Sonata is like that deadbeat GF/BF/friend/etc that you have. You know that there is potential with him or her--you really do--and you try so, so hard to get them to highlight these qualities. But they just never do. They always just go back to the drugs, or become lazy and don't do anything with their life, and maybe every once in a while they say something that sounds really cool and profound, but all it is is nonsense. You keep trying to like it, and the more you try, the more you hate the game, and the more you hate Tri-Crescendo. I seriously doubt that their PS3 port will fix this game to a C - range, so please do not pick this up if it comes out here. It's bad. Superbad (and not the cool "superbad" like the superbad movie. Super. Bad.) It's just such a shame, because this game looks wonderful, and, for some reason, the critics like it.
But they're wrong.
Thanks for listening! Thanks for letting me rant! I'm just trying to save anyone who has not played it yet Anyone who agrees or disagrees, I'd love to hear from.