That Victorian/goth kid in the background is Chopin.

I want you to forget for a minute that Eternal Sonata is meant to be about the last days of the composer Fr?d?ric Chopin. Mentally block off the real-world story ties and look at the game for what it is. Specifically, Sonata feels very much like many other Japanese role-playing games, packed as it is with pathos, static characters and big battle effects meant to offset the stilted story. The playable presence of Chopin aside, there are distinguishing characteristics: notably, the beautiful visual design and music, the latter being a mix of Chopin's work with original compositions by Motoi Sakuraba.

Even with those perks, Eternal Sonata -- which now graces the PlayStation 3 after debuting to some acclaim last year on the RPG-starved Xbox 360 -- appears to have less ambition and gameplay than the average JRPG. Like too many titles in the genre, Sonata crams all its good ideas into the battle system, leaving players many barren, sterile pathways along which to trudge between fight scenes.

What's missing in all these screens, character names aside? Right: music.

But wait. We're not meant to see Sonata as sterile. Just look at how colorful it is! There's no question that every screen is packed with detail and tones drawn from a marvelous color palette. Characters are costumed in elaborate, multilayered outfits; every building looks as if it was created with no thought to function or budget; and even the flora and fauna exhibit more light sources than the average room in Dead Space. Hire Tim Burton as a designer with no practical constraints for a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and you might be close.

But barely any shred of that design has impact on the gameplay, and very little even resonates within the story. Levels are almost wholly non-interactive, and lack corners to explore. You'll progress in a fully linear fashion through pathways and dungeons, perhaps opening a chest here and throwing a switch there. "Linear" doesn't have to be a bad word, but telling a story about loss and creativity in a game world that the characters barely touch feels like a deep, serious mistake.

Pretty vacant.

For a 20- to 30-hour experience, the story feels much longer. While they aren't quite from the Hideo Kojima school of cut scenes, the story clips are drawn out and static -- replete with detail, just like the in-game areas, but no more lifelike. Characters are frequently immobile and impassive, even in some of the worst circumstances. This isn't adroit cinematic storytelling; it's more like a pre-viz meant as a template for the real action.

(This isn't the place for a meditation on the JRPG audience, but I always feel a twinge of despair when I imagine that the same fans of Eternal Sonata would never sit through the deliberately paced beauty of films like "Wild Strawberries" or the original "Solaris." If only Bergman and Tarkovsky had taken cool battle systems into account.)

There's no skimping on the classic JRPG color explosions.

Eternal Sonata foregoes many JRPG conventions; there are no attack points or mana counters. Combat is turn-based, in that each character on the field has their own window of opportunity for action. Character movement and attacks are constrained by a stopwatch called the Action Gauge, which continually ticks down. Early on, the Gauge will only tick while characters are moving or attacking, but that can change as they gain experience. (Ironically, more experienced characters might end up with no time to plan tactics without penalty, while beginners do.)

At first, combat is all about quickly running towards enemies, then spamming your chosen attack once in range and adding a time-consuming special move right as the Gauge is about to run down. So long as you begin an attack while there's time on the clock, it will run its full course even if your Gauge is empty.

The bar on the left is all you need to worry about during battle; with time left on it, you can still act.

Not that it's quite so simple. Successful hits will add a sliver of time back to the Action Gauge and also contribute Echoes to the party, which increase the power of special attacks. Because combat takes place in real time to a certain extent, there is an option, based purely on timing, to block incoming attacks.

The most unique aspect of combat is the light/shade dynamic. Essentially, characters have different attack options when standing in light and shadow. You'll want to immediately scan each arena for spots that will allow your preferred and most useful attacks to take effect, in order to gain some tactical advantage. It's a neat idea that adds something to an otherwise button-mashing combat system.

Now back to the core narrative conceit: that Fr?d?ric Chopin, dying of tuberculosis, imagines a rich fantasy world in which he lives out his last days. Why does he dream a JRPG fantasy? Chopin lived in the mid-19th century; popular fantasies of the time might have been sourced from traditional fairy tales and their offshoots, not the boilerplate character and town designs that litter so many role-players.

Note the character names: all music-related.

Though the characters and places are all named according to musical terms, the game's visual and playable elements rarely cohere into any exploration of Chopin's life and work. Yes, snippets of his music make their way into the story, but really? Asking me to match a snippet of a Chopin composition with that of a non-player character in order to earn some trinket is a pathetic means by which to honor the work of a man held (by the game) in such high regard.


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The premise, incidentally, made me flash back to "Signal to Noise," the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean in which a dying film director assembles his final film in his head during his last days. That worked, because the story was of a piece with the subject. Here I'm exploring Chopin's last days, sort of, through a girl and a couple of kids as they struggle against a power-hungry provincial lord. There isn't a shoehorn big or powerful enough to make the subject fit properly within that story.

I almost feel guilty for frying Eternal Sonata. We complain so often about the same old characters and situations in games, that choosing Chopin as protagonist should have been good for a few points. But not when the resulting game is as dry and lifeless as this one.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.