If you set aside the fact that one of the characters in your party is convinced this whole world is his dream, the story is pretty standard RPG fare. You gradually build an oddball cast of characters who each have their own particular concerns, but all those concerns are caused by the same guy, a Count Waltz*. There's a couple of orphan thieves, a goat herder who's a whiz with a bow, a trio of rebels, and couple of priestesses/guardian types, and a young girl who can use magic. Which means she's dying, as only the deathly ill can use magic.
As more and more characters are added, the game will occasionally split them up, which I appreciate. One thing that tends to bother me with RPGs is when the game gives you more characters than they'll let you use in a fight. I understand the desire to provide variety and emphasize different traits. However, it always bugs me when I'm fighting some monster out to destroy the world, and only three of my 6 (or 8, or 10) characters actually get involved. The fate of the world is at stake! What are you doing standing around?! That's not a complaint exclusive to Eternal Sonata, Persona 3 and Baten Kaitos were guilty as well, but the sheer number of potential character makes it more glaring.
It all works smoothly (except the camera, which is fixed, so you can't tell where you are if you're behind a large enemy), and it's more dynamic and realistic than your standard RPG battle style. You know the type, where the characters always retreat to the place they started the turn from after their attack, and you can run right past one opponent to attack another with no hassles? Here, that carries a risk, because if an opponent attacks you from behind, you can't block it (this works in your favor as well). Combined with the sheer number of characters at your disposal, and their wide array of special attacks, it provides an entertainingly vast number of approaches. Load the party with characters who strike hard, fast to just batter the enemy. Team a bunch of healers and frustrate your opponent by constantly boosting each others health.
All of this is good because you're going to be fighting. A lot. I'm not sure if Eternal Sonata is more of a level grinder than other RPGs I've played, but it feels like it is. There were multiple occasions where I'd enter a dungeon and try to fight everything in it to gain levels**. Eventually, I'd get tired of fighting the same monsters over and over, and start skipping fights. Then I'd reach a boss and feel almost totally outclassed. So I'd try to fight everything in the next dungeon, except I'd get bored. . . You get the idea.
The problem is there isn't much gameplay to offer a break from the fighting. Persona 3 had the Social Links. Skies of Arcadia had discoveries to make, Moonfish to find, people on the Wanted List to bring in (which did involve fighting, but it was a least a break from the main story). The Baten Kaitos games had the quest to repair the Sky Map on the ceiling on the cathedral, or helping the old man track down his family tree. They're little things, but they help connect with the fictional world. Eternal Sonata has Score Pieces, where you play a piece of music as a duet with someone, and hopefully the two pieces mesh well. If so, you get a reward. It's not a bad idea, but the game doesn't allow much backtracking. If you find a Score Piece 20 hours in the game, you can't return to the town from the start to try it with that old man by the road. The game locks you onto that path and keeps pushing you forward.
Maybe that's why the game included the lengthy cut scenes, to provide a break from all the fighting. Thing is, they overdid it a bit. Sometimes, there'll be a cut scene, then the chapter ends, and before the next chapter starts, there'll be a brief discussion of Chopin's life around the time he created whatever piece of music they're highlighting for that chapter. Then another cut scene. In one case, it all added up to over 20 minutes of me sitting there watching the game, but doing nothing. You have the option to skip the cut scenes, but I always figured I'd miss some relevant plot point and then have no idea what to do when they handed control back to me. The end of the game was even worse about. Between a cut scene, some credits, more cut scenes, and then more credits, it was over half an hour before I was sure the game was over, and I hadn't done a thing. Not an ideal situation.
The story falls apart a bit at the end as well. I don't know why Waltz' chief adviser drinks the enhanced mineral powder, or why he tears a whole into what appears to be an afterlife once he has. Or why you'd chase after him in any event. You could argue it's a dream, and doesn't have to make sense, but things had progressed reasonably sensibly up to then. Even if I disagreed with a character's decision, I understood why they made their choice. It feels like the creators didn't think their final battle was big enough as it stood, and had to change things up to make it bigger, more monumental.
Eternal Sonata started off well, but between the level grinding, and the lack of any significant side quests to distract from it, I was thoroughly burned out by the time I finished. I can't say at this point whether I'd try a second playthrough or not.
* Every character in the game, save Frederic, is named for something musically related.
** One thing the game does I appreciate is it makes monsters visible, so you can try to avoid them if you don't want to fight. I vastly prefer that to the randomly generated fights in games like Dragon Quest 8.
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