Upon the Echelons: A new favorite?!

What’s it been, two months? Sorry, I am lazy… very lazy. That’s it, no insane stories, no excuses, I was just lazy, sue me.

However, in my absence I have come across what may just be my new favorite video game, a little known JRPG by the name of Eternal Sonata.

What could possibly make this game to great as to not only challenge the Persona series for its exclusive spots in my top 3 favorite games, but to change my entire perception of how JRPG combat should work? Let me tell you.

First, the greatest thing about this game is the combat system. It works as a hybrid turn-based/real-time system similar to Valkyria Chronicles. In the beginning your characters have 5 seconds of Paused Active Time and Unlimited Tactical time, meaning so long as you do nothing your 5 seconds of Active Time will not deplete, but every action you take causes the bar to start counting down and once it reaches 0 your turn is over. As the game progresses you unlock Party Levels which begin to add restrictions in order to make battles more challenging and strategic. For example, at Party Level 2 your Active Time becomes Real-Time, once you take your first action the bar will count down regardless of if you stop, these restrictions continue to increase in intensity all the way to the end. However, to counteract this they also have bonuses from the Party Levels, such as 1.5x movement speed for party members, retaining “echoes” between battles, and the ability to chain multiple characters’ special abilities. Encounters take the visible enemy approach where you are able to see the encounters on the map as monsters and only touching them results in a battle, allowing you to skip groups of difficult enemies in favor of weaker ones, as well as lowering the ultimate attrition rate on your party’s healing items. Realistically, this game does everything about combat right, in fact, this game has spawned my new favorite combat system ever implemented into a game, the only thing I could possibly complain about is guarding, seeing as it’s the only way to significantly reduce damage taken Defense an almost worthless stat. Oh… and it’s 3 player co-operative, me and my two friends played through the entire game co-operatively, how awesome is that?

Now we get to the story of the game. I won’t go into detail explaining the story beyond it centering on 19^th century Pianist and Composer Frederic Francois Chopin and his dreams as he is dying of Tuberculosis.  Don’t worry, you don’t need to know anything about Chopin or music at all, there’s really only one dungeon that even mentions music in its puzzles and that is just a simple memorization puzzle. Throughout the story you will get bits of Chopin’s biography set to some of his music, giving the player insight into the portion of his life that influenced the world’s events in that chapter. It’s actually an extremely interesting portion of the game, not just to learn history or discover how the world is being shaped, but because of the music playing, doubtless you know something Chopin has written whether you know it or not, and simply discovering that he wrote it and what inspired him to write it is a truly unique experience. Also, do not be fooled by the seemingly saccharine cover, the game is mature in its story development, delving into morality, economics, politics, human society, philosophy, xenophobia, and existentialism. It is NOT an overly cheery JRPG with a “destroy the big baddy” plot.

But what about the characters? Surely a JRPG is just a crippled mass without a good cast. You’ve no worry in Eternal Sonata. Every character, except Beat the worthless runt, is colorful and deep with an at least average voice actor, plenty of character and the correct level of intensity. The cast is also varied, clocking in at 12 total playable characters (in the PS3 version) or 10 playable characters (in the 360 version).

If you are even a moderate fan of JRPGs I urge you to purchase this game immediately, it is superb, absolutely superb. I can personally guarantee that if you enjoy JRPGs this game will not disappoint you, especially if you can rope 2 others to play alongside you.

Upon The Echelons: Persona 4

Welcome to, yet another, new segment entitled: Upon The Echelons. Upon The Echelons will be my only entirely positive segment, and is more to spread the word about games that are absolutely breath-taking, yet have an embarrassingly small following.

Today's subject, hands down, my favorite RPG, possibly even my favorite video game of all time: Persona 4.

The Cover Art of the greatest RPG ever made

Well that's a tall claim you say, "greatest RPG ever made" that can surely only be a matter of opinion right? Absolutely not. To entirely understand what puts Persona, as a series, higher than most other RPGs right off the bat is the system. You are playing a role. You have control over what your character says and how he spends his time, within reasonable constraints of course. That's not to say it's horrifically open, like Oblivion. There is structure, the Persona series, 3&4 actually, perfectly balances the freedom and structure to make you actually able to play the role of a high school student. You are able to join clubs, make friends from said clubs, get a part time job, hang out with your friends, get a girlfriend, and many other things that I will explain later.

The main cast, oh come on this isn't a spoiler they're on the cover!

Where Persona 4 really shines is in the combat system. It works off a traditional turn-based battle system wherein every character gets one turn then every enemy gets one turn. However, as per every RPG ever made ever, enemies have a certain weakness, whether it be fire or ice or physical attacks etc, and whenever an enemy, or even one of your own characters is hit with an element they are weak to, it grants the opponent one half of a turn, meaning that they get one more action, but that action cannot grant another half-turn for weaknesses. Each character does battle using a manifestation of their true-self, or a Persona. Each character is stuck with their Persona as it is technically them, however, the main character, which you are able to name, but is canonically named Seta, has the gift of the Wild Card, allowing him to capture "Shadows" and turn them into Personas by defeating them in combat.

The story, while a bit basic on the surface is actually a very deep and involving one. The cast investigates a rash of bizarre murders which always end in the corpse of the victim being hung, upside down, from an almost inaccessible tall object, such as a television antenna or power lines.

The cast of characters is varied and interesting. No two characters are the same, yet they all work with such synergy that it's truly astounding. They are able to balance serious lines of dialogue, dramatic scenes, and humorous quips. The voice actors do a good job as well, conveying the personality of these characters with great talent.

Now we come to the best, absolutely BEST part of Persona 4, the music. Composer Shoji Meguro is an absolute GOD on par with such legends as Nobuo Uematsu. Every song fits perfectly with the scene, the battle music is fast paced, upbeat, and intense, boss battles feel that much more epic with "I'll Face Myself" blasting in the background, humorous scenes are relaxing and tranquil. Everything about this game's soundtrack is simply FANTASTIC. Oh and the best part, the game comes with a copy of the full soundtrack. Yep, 24 songs straight from the game, for free.

Persona 4 earns it's perfect 10/10 from me. There is absolutely nothing about this game I did not love. I've already played through it twice, and will be starting my third play through as soon as my friend is done with it. If you are an RPG fan and you haven't played this, shame on you! Get out there! Find it! Buy it! You won't regret it! If you aren't an RPG fan... why are you reading this blog? Oh yes... I forgot I don't do exclusively RPG entries... okay, if you aren't an RPG fan I can forgive it, but at least listen to the music, it's absolutely fantastic.

Cheers,

HappyPariah