Life and Leisure. Tech and Toys. » eternal sonata

Japanese RPGs on Xbox 360 – Quick Reviews

thaichaiguy — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:00:46 +0000

Disappointment. Poor execution of what could have been a great game. The battle system in Blue Dragon is not engaging and the graphics are choppy at times. Battling gets old very quickly. The story was slow and the character dialogue was stiff and didn’t do justice to the characters created by Akira Toriyama. Japanese voice track is available but this game failed on too many fronts to compete.

Above Average. The polished cell-shaded graphics of Eternal Sonata are what makes this game great. The characters are individually interesting and look great. The semi-active battle system is fresh but limited. The game is short compared to the others and the story gets strange towards the end in classic Japanese fashion. The addition of the piano interludes from Chopin are a new idea but don’t add or subtract from the game. Japanese voice track available!

Very Good. Another cell-shaded game, but Tales of Vesperia builds on cell-shaded technology. The world of Vesperia looks down right beautiful. The game is of adequate length and the active battle system is enjoyable. The story is engaging but the little skits get old. The characters are all very likeable especially Judith. Sadly the anime cut scenes don’t do this game justice, lacking the same level of polish. Cell-shaded cut scenes would have probably put this game in contention with some Final Fantasy games. Lack of Japanese voice track is a disappointment but character dialogue still held up well. Unlockable items and costumes will keep you coming back.

Below Average. One of the rare JRPGs where the battle system is better than the cutscenes and characters. The character dialogue is stiff and boring. The english lip syncing is terrible to go along with bad voice acting. This makes the characters themselves a bit boring. The pacing is thrown off by long dungeons and long cutscenes. We’re talking about 2-3 hour dungeons followed by 30min cutscenes with no save points in between. The active battle system is great and the leveling and custimization of your characters is also engaging. Lack of Japanese voice track is disappointing when you look at the poor job they did at lip syncing. Side quests will keep you coming back but this 3 disc epic is already long on its own. This game lacks polish and attention to detail.

Conclusion
Cell-shading and attention to detail when it comes to characters look like the way to go for this generation of Xbox 360 JRPGs. I know I left out a few games but these are just the games that I have played. I’m looking forward to Final Fantasy XIII being the best JRPG on Xbox 360 ever.

Eternal Sonata: Chapter 4, Grande Valse Brilliante

thaichaiguy — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 17:20:00 +0000

We finally get a recap of our second party of heroes and how they were rescued by a Baroque Ship. The first dungeon is pretty annoying. It’s a pirate ship where every floor and room looks almost identical. What makes it worse is that the enemies never change either. You’ll need to find the key to the boss room. This boss is the Captain of the ship and shes tough. This is the first time I had difficulty during a boss fight mostly due to the fact that my stronger players are in the separated party. Luckily Polka has some nice healing abilities that you can take advantage. The Captain will deal a lot of damage if you don’t time your defenses correctly so watch out and keep Polka out of the action so she can keep healing.

After this flash back you’ll have some downtime until your party ventures into the mountains. The mountains weren’t too bad but there are areas where you might want to back track to get every treasure chest. After the mountain you’ll have a chance to get your revenge against Fugue. The samurai word wielding boss is surprisingly not as difficult as the Pirate Captain we had to fight before. Use the same strategy here to take Fugue down.

The game is starting to become more involved with spies and backstabbing. We also get to understand the opposing country of Baroque a little more. The fighting system continues to change as you hit level 4. You’ll lose more tactical time during battles but you’ll gain counter attacks. The enemy’s attack are also becoming more difficult to block.

Eternal Sonata: Chapter 3, Fantaisie Impromptu

thaichaiguy — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 23:46:00 +0000

I haven’t had that much time to play during the work week but I got around to finishing up Chapter 2. So in the last chapter we got to see some dungeons for the first time. And we even got to battle a real human villain. The boss fight seemed a little two easy though. We also see all the characters come together to create a huge group. In fact its almost unmanageable, but you’ll be pleased to know your characters gain experience while sitting on the bench. Funny enough, Right when your characters form a large party they split apart again.

Also for the first time in the game you’ll suffer from status effects. In this case poison, but not from your enemies from the poisonous environment. I totally didn’t notice that paralyze, sleep, blind etc have been missing until now. Every Final Fantasy has them but this RPG uses it sparsely.

More on this chapter when I delve further into it…

Eternal Sonata: Chapter 2, Revolution

thaichaiguy — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:25:00 +0000

I just put in another 2 hours of playing. The story is developing well and we’re seeing more new characters, good and bad. We actually have a chance to choose our party members now and we got to see the real villains for the first time.

What surprises me most is that the battle system is constantly changing. Now we can build up echo points to make our special attacks stronger, and the newest member to the group Viola has a bow that you actually aim during battle.

I also reached the second musical interlude/slide-show which was reminiscent of the first one but boasted the popular “Revolution” song in the background. This one felt a little out of place since it kind of interrupted a conversation but it was still educational. I can see how some may not like these interludes but the HD pictures are gorgeous.

Eternal Sonata: Chapter 1, Raindrops

thaichaiguy — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 04:45:00 +0000

I ended up siding with Eternal Sonata over Blue Dragon. Even though I’ve been waiting for Blue Dragon since last year, after playing the Blue Dragon demo I just didn’t see what the hype was about anymore. I’ve been playing Eternal Sonata for the past 2 hours and so far I have no regrets. I played the demo before I made the purchase so I knew what I was getting before I bought it.

The first thing I did when the game booted up was changed the voice acting to the original Japanese audio. Maybe I should have given the English voice acting a chance but I wanted to play the game the way it was meant to be played. Some of the conversations still have the common silences found in JRPGs but at least its better than listening to the awkward English voice acting.

So far the gameplay has been engaging with the active battle sequences and the path has been pretty straight forward. I’ve been very curious in my exploration of forests and towns and you can tell there are places that you’ll revisit. These are easily marked by doors that are locked and caves that you can’t explore.

The story revolves around music so its no surprise that the music is top notch. The sound track isn’t one hundred percent Chopin’s but the music blends nicely.

Another piece of the game that you won’t find anywhere else is the musical interlude that play out like an educational slide show. At first I wondering what was going on but after sitting through the first one I’m actually looking forward to seeing and hearing the next one.

The story so far is still mysterious but the characters that are being built up are given a good basis to shine. Another reason why I started playing using the Japanese voice acting is because we get to hear more of Aya Hirano’s great acting, popular for playing Haruhi in “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya“. While the voice is definitely the same you won’t hear her commanding people around like in the anime.

Blue Dragon will have to wait for a video game drought… which won’t be until 2008.

This game deserves at least a 9 but IGN gave it an 8.3

Dilemma: Eternal Sonata vs Blue Dragon

thaichaiguy — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:09:00 +0000

I was following Blue Dragon pretty closely until I played the demo and ultimately felt like the gameplay was too repetitive. I really thought it’d be a big hit because of it’s sensational release in Japan but I guess it’s solely due to the character designs by Akira himself. Also known as the guy that made Dragon Ball. I think if the game had been released in the US closer to the time it was released in Japan I wouldn’t be having this problem.

Eternal Sonata on the other hand is also a well made RPG for the xbox 360 which turns out to be released within a month of the Blue Dragon release. I’ve played the demo and the battle system is active and in the end much more fun. The art style is different here but still very good.

The problem presents itself because I don’t want to buy both of these RPGs at the same moment. Of course I may end up owning both of them in the future but I’d rather just hold on to my money for now and play them separately. Some of you may already know that owning multiple new RPGs risks not finishing one of them or in the worst case not finishing any of them. Actually this is the case for any game but more so for RPGs because of the amount of time they consume.

I was happy to find out that both games offer the original Japanese voice acting along with the added English voice overs. Both games were rated around an 8.0 on IGN which doesn’t make anything easier. While I’m sure both games will satisfy me I’d like to know which one everyone else is buying so I’ll have something to talk about around the gamer watering holes.