Aramation Games

Eternal Sonata is not another generic RPG from Japan. It is set in the dream world of Chopin, the famous composer as he lies in his deathbed. The biggest strength of the game is the incredible visuals and audio afforded by the setting. Intermixed with the game’s original scores are very recognizable Chopin piano pieces: as a fan of Chopin and having played all of these masterpieces, it was a delight to hear them so intricately used in a video game.

Game mechanic mixes turn-based combat with real time battles. You control a party of 3 characters and on your turn, the timer kicks in and you need to make your moves such as move, use items, attack and use special attacks. When it’s the enemy’s turn, you need to block and later in the game, counterattack when you’re prompted to do so. This mechanic is interesting, but it gets pretty annoying very fast as you continue your grind. The difficulty sometimes spikes but it’s generally a pretty easy game. You won’t die too often and you won’t need to hog too many healing items.

The biggest downfall of the game is the storyline. Even though the dream world of Chopin afforded an interesting world, the characters in it are shallow, one dimensional and irritating. Worse, the story of a nation bent on war vs. a nation trying to avoid war at all costs is interesting but doesn’t lead to any resolution. In fact, the ending of the game has infuriated me as I was expecting something better to resolve the stories. Throughout the game, Chopin wonders if the dream world is real or if his real world is a fabrication. But by the end of the game, Chopin doesn’t reach the conclusion of that debate and the game finishes abruptly.

This pretty linear game could have definitely used another or two script revisions as the setting deserved better characters and more fleshed out storyline. As it stands, the game’s innovative combat system that relies on real-time reflexes and light/dark mechanic is the saving grace.

Rating: 55%

Think of Lost Odyssey as a traditional JRPG for Microsoft’s console, and you’ll understand perfectly that this isn’t a Mass Effect or even a Fable 2. Featuring turn-based battles, random encounters, an epic storyline that pits you against the forces of evil and plenty of leveling up, the creators of Blue Dragon have delivered a very competent RPG.

This is the story of Kaim, an immortal that has lived a thousand years already in this world. When Kaim survives a meteor crashing in the battlefield, he’s tasked to inspect the potential source of the problem: the Grand Staff, a device that seeks to amplify the magic energy in the world. The universe of Lost Odyssey is rich and well-detailed, featuring fully-fleshed characters, different continents and countries with diverging interests. As you progress through the main story, you’ll meet other immortals (and mortals) who will join your party, and slowly rediscover your memories.

As mentioned before, the game features random encounters and turn-based battles where you issue an order, wait for the enemy to go through, and then repeat the whole cycle. While the battle mechanics aren’t overly new and exciting, character progression is quite different from other RPGs on the market. As an immortal, you don’t learn new skills as you level up: instead you must learn a skill that a mortal character in your party already knows by linking to him/her. This system forces you to micromanage your party as the only way to improve your immortal characters is to make sure mortals are leveled up as well. The game favors a more even character development. There is also a ring system which grants special abilities on physical attack (such as stealing gold, inflicting status damages…) based on how well you time your attack.

The game isn’t perfect as there are few annoying design choices: you do gain access to the world map (and various ships) but they do not add much to the game as exploring is minimal. Most of the times, you’ll just select a destination from a drop-down list. Some dungeons feature annoying water spouts or falls: coupled with narrow pathways, you’ll easily be frustrated having to go through the same path over and over again.

In the end, if you’re looking for a traditional JRPG and don’t expect too much innovation, you will be happy with Lost Odyssey. Through the adventure that spans 4 disks (yes, 4), the main quest will easily take you over 35 hours. The storyline has some rough spots but overall it’s marked improvement over the previous effort Blue Dragon, with more adult themes and interesting characters.

Rating: 75%

Ape Quest is a RPG set in the universe of Ape Escape series that mixes in traditional RPG elements and mini-games in the vein of Ape Academy. Structuring a mini-game collection, bundled with all the RPG trappings, sounds like a perfect idea to be different from the other mini-game collections, but the execution ultimately fails Ape Quest.

You play as a monkey prince that accidentally unleashes monsters throughout the world, and must battle them to restore order. It is a traditional story that doesn’t benefit from Ape Escape universe as the humor is pretty dry. Without voice over of monkeys, it’s tough to appreciate any comedy trappings there are. One of the biggest problems I found was navigation: it is on rails! Unlike any RPG that is not grid-based, you must travel through determined paths which makes the whole RPG aspect pretty pointless: if you can’t go wherever you want and however you want to get there, what is the point of traveling?

Of course the point of traveling is so that you trigger random mini-games. Paths that are red mean you will encounter monsters and/or mini-games. Unfortunately mini-games are pretty average, and there isn’t anything new. Making things worse is the PSP controls which are imprecise whether you use the D-Pad or the analog nub, and unresponsive. You will struggle with the games, and will often see your character die because you couldn’t control your monkey properly to guide him to victory.

Coupled with the fact that you can’t play the mini-games separately (or train if you’d like) means your success in the RPG is entirely dependant on what kind of mini-games you get on the way to your next target. At least combat is more dependable as there are no control issues there. It is pretty straight-forward turn-based combat that relies on having better weapon, armor and more hit points than your opponent. Nothing groundbreaking, and nothing offensive.

In the end, playing the base game for free will tell you what kind of problems Ape Quest has. If you manage to play through the entire base game, you’ll discover a portal to other worlds that you can purchase and download to your PSP (for about $10 each expansion pack, or $20 for all 3). For $20, I suggest you get a better RPG or a better mini-game collection, and ignore Ape Quest.

Rating: 30%

Blue Dragon, produced by the creators of Final Fantasy series, is a typical JRPG featuring a diverse cast of lovable tykes in a plot to save the world through turn-based combat. Spanning 3 DVDs, this game is lengthy - marching through the game will easily take over 30 hours, close to 60 hours if you stop and do all the side quests - with plenty of battles and cut scenes. Beginning of the game suffers from the frequency of cut scenes as you move a few steps and trigger new cinematic: what’s the point of giving you control if you’ll take it away just a few seconds later?

The story starts with Shu, Kluke and Jiro who battle monsters they call Land Sharks that have been terrorizing their village for years. Then they discover this super-villain Nene who uses powerful magic and ancient machines in order to take over the world. Shu, Kluke and Jiro are soon joined by Marumaro and Zola as they follow Nene to prevent him from destroying the world. The plot is pretty simplistic and typical of the JRPG, but where this game shines is in the game mechanics.

It still features turn-based combat, but there is no random encounters. Instead, in the overworld map, you choose which enemies to fight. Fighting is done by your shadows and they can be of certain class. There’s the typical magic class and melee class. You can even mix and match skills by leveling up different shadows and combining their skill set. For example, you may wish to obtain black mage’s regenerate MP while walking skill for your white mage. There are also accessories to equip in order to give you beneficial stat boosts, or prevent status changing attacks.

Visuals are pretty good as long as you can stand all the overty cutesy characters. Playing through the game, you can’t help but notice how similar they are to Dragon Ball Z anime characters as they were designed by the same person. On a technical standpoint, the game does slow down in some battle sequences with many effects and enemies, but since this is a turn-based combat game, it doesn’t affect the game too much.

Sound effects and music are superb, especially the soundtrack contains many catchy tunes. The boss battle music which sounds very much like a 80’s heavy metal hair band song will grow on you but hearing the same song over and over did get annoying after a few hours in. If you’re looking for a traditional JRPG experience on your Xbox 360, you can’t go wrong with Blue Dragon even if it doesn’t do anything revolutionary.

Rating: 75%

In the world dominated by World of Warcraft, it may seem quaint to release a full-fledged single-player only RPG to the marketplace. But it is what BioWare does best, and this is clearly their best game so far. Known for the Knight of the Old Republic game which is widely regarded as one of the best Star Wars licensed games ever made, this intrepid Canadian developer crafted a whole new world set in the future and gives you a galaxy to explore.

You play as Shepard, who can be customized as a human male or female, who is tasked to saving the world (as it is often the case in those RPGs) by tracking down a rogue agent who is working to bring doom to the universe. To do so, you must equip yourself, command your squad and fly to distant planets and explore them. Mass Effect’s narrative manages to impress without pulling any cheap punches or twists and turns that seem contrite. Instead Commander Sheppard and the humanity’s struggle to be accepted in the galaxy ruling council, to track down a rogue agent and to ensure an army of world destroyers do not enter its world seem as believable as it can be.

The world of Mass Effect is incredibly detailed, where almost every character you meet have speaking lines, planets are diverse and you can use your armored six-wheeled vehicle to explore them (and shoot down enemies). Most awe inspiring moment is you landing on the Moon, and watching the Earth rise above you. The game gives you unparalleled control over conversations. You are usually presented with few choices, some rely on your charm and others rely on your penchant for threats and violence. Depending on what you choose, the storyline develops different. For example, you may choose to threaten someone for reward after a mission done, or you can use your charm to get an even bigger reward. The choices are yours, and it will be hard to go back to just following the dialog tree developers force you on.

The game isn’t perfect: there is a lot of loading even if it’s cleverly disguised as elevator rides, some minor graphical glitches exist where sceneries and objects pop into view, and enemy AI isn’t too intelligent as their tactics usually involve running towards you and your shotgun. Inventory management is very complicated, made worse by the overabundance of weapons, ammos, armors and upgrades littered in the battlefield.

If you’re even remotely interested in sci-fi, or RPG, you must play this game. This is clearly one of the best reasons to get an Xbox 360 if you don’t own one already. Mass Effect does everything right and is rightfully the best Xbox 360 game of 2007.

Rating: 95%