The core idea behind Eternal Sonata is far, far darker than the actual game would lead you to believe. Chopin, noted composer/pianist, is slowly drawing his last breath, due to a losing bout with tuberculosis. While he sleeps, he dreams of a world far removed from his own, where he encounters a variety of characters that are placed into a conflict with fictitious leader.

The game itself doesn't revolve so much around Frederick Chopin as it does around the young girl named Polka that you encounter early on. Polka is a magic user, and because of this, she is destined to die young. She's also an outcast (people are afraid that whatever she has is contagious) and she's a bit poor. She attempts to sell medicine drawn from flowers, but is currently being outsold by Mineral Powder, an untaxed, inexpensive, cure-all that has taken her world by storm. She decides to set off on a trip to speak with Count Waltz, the ruler of her country, and attempt to convince him to lower the taxes on the medicine she sells, so she and her mother can make a living.

Ok, so maybe the story isn't all that great. Thankfully the game doesn't play like it reads. Eternal Sonata is an action RPG of sorts, which eschews the old school random encounter fights for something more along the lines of Chrono Cross or more recently, Persona 3. You encounter your enemies in the field, and once you run into them you'll begin a battle. There's a bit of strategy in how you approach your enemies. If you run into them from behind you'll get the guaranteed first hit, often resulting in two full turns before your enemy can fight back. However, if your enemy does the same to you, you'll suffer from the same consequence.

The meat of Eternal Sonata isn't just with its combat system, which I'll delve back into in a bit. The lush visuals that Tri Crescendo has created really breathe life into this dream world of Chopin's. Everything is bright and well detailed, the character designs are varied and imaginative, and everything just looks really damn good. Unfortunately, the path you're forced onto is pretty linear, so while you might be able to glance a large, rolling field, you won't be able to explore much of this. Don't expect a wide-open experience akin to Dragon Quest 8, the game forces you along a path for the most part, and you'll never be able to deviate from it.

However, some will find the linear style presented in Eternal Sonata a bit refreshing, especially when stacked against the much longer and drawn out RPG's that have released this year. I clocked in at 23 hours for my end time, and that's without doing the optional side dungeon (which you can encounter towards the end) or going in depth with the fetch quest for Score Pieces (musical numbers that you can use with NPC's to gain rare items). Outside of those few diversions, Eternal Sonata drives you along at a pretty brisk pace, and while the story isn't anything to write home about, it manages to keep your interest for the most part. Even if you have played the Xbox 360 version already, there are enough new quests and events that will help to better explain the storyline this time around.

The additions to the PS3 versions are subtle, but welcome nonetheless. You will notice the aforementioned new quests, battles, and events that take place that shed new light on the dramatic and evolving storylines. You can play as Crescendo or Serenade and change the costume to your liking. There is new music which adds more element and environmental keys to the storyline. So, if you decided to play this one through again if you are also an Xbox 360 owner, there are enough new and fresh additions that will help the game not feel entirely the same.

Eternal Sonata's combat system is pretty tough to compare to anything you've played before. Once you enter battle, your party (consisting of 2 or 3 characters) enters a small field where you'll typically encounter 2 or 3 enemies, made up of no more than two different types. Once the battle begins, you'll have a timer that counts down on the left hand side of the screen. Starting off in the game you'll have a tactical timer as well, which gives you a little bit of time before you actually move to plan your strategy. As you advance thru the game, you'll end up losing this timer, so you'll need to be quick when it comes to your reaction time. When your actual turn starts, you have 5 seconds (eventually that gets taken down to 4) to make your moves. Within this 5-second span you can do anything, such as move, attack, heal, use items, or use special moves.

When you successfully attack your opponent (and they don't block), you add split seconds onto your timer bar, but the amount given doesn't add up to much more than an additional second, maybe two. You can chain together basic combos, which all consist of mashing the attack button over and over again, but when you start to include your characters special moves, you'll find that you can definitely stretch your attacking time out a lot longer than the bar shows. Special moves themselves add a bit of strategy to the mix. Each character has a set of moves that consist of light and dark attacks. On the playing field, if your character is standing in a shadow, they'll perform the dark special attack when you press the button. If you're in the light, you'll end up performing the light one. Also, some enemies can completely change depending on if they're in light or dark areas. To top things off, certain special moves will allow you to knock back or knockdown an enemy, so there can be a bit of strategy involved by trying to force your enemy into a weaker form.

On top of all this, you can eventually gain the ability to block your opponents attack, taking far lesser damage than usual, and also the ability to counterattack (incredibly useful, because it will completely cancel your opponents turn). Also, you'll eventually be able to string together multiple special attacks, including those of nearby teammates.

While all of this might sound a bit overwhelming, it's all gradually introduced to you over time. Nothing is really hard to grasp, and the biggest disappointment with it all is how easy most of the battles end up being, so that you really don't need to use most of the tools at your disposal. The biggest challenges come from the boss fights, and outside of possibly being under leveled, you shouldn't have too much trouble with those either.

For a game that places a lot of emphasis on music, Eternal Sonata doesn't disappoint. Akira Yamaoka composes most of the tunes, whose credits you've probably seen in games like the Silent Hill series (Sound Director, Sound Producer, Composer/Arranger), the popular Beatmania series, and a few other well-known franchises. His music in Eternal Sonata is fantastic treat, with quite a few memorable tunes. Of course there's also the Chopin pieces that show up from time to time, but those are mostly in cut scenes that explain a bit of Chopin's life to the player in between chapters. The English dub leaves a bit to be desired, but thankfully you can switch over to the Japanese voice track if you want. A warning on this though: Before you fight the final boss, be sure to switch back over to the English track. For whatever reason, a large section of the ending dialogue isn't subtitled when listening to the Japanese track, and you'll miss a lot of the ending because of this. A really lame oversight, and its something you should definitely be aware of.

Overall I came away from Eternal Sonata feeling pretty impressed. In the beginning, the lengthy and frequent cut scenes really started to grate on my nerves, but after the 6 hour I started to really take an interest in certain characters, and the game felt like it just took off from there. It's not a perfect RPG, and I've played better titles this year, but it's a solid effort on the PS3 considering the lack of Japanese RPG's to date on the console. The visuals are fantastic, and music matches that, but while the combat feels pretty fresh and new at first it can become pretty repetitive as you advance towards the ending. It's definitely a mixed bag, but I'd suggest that you at least check it out and give it a shot.