Game Journal – Eternal Sonata (Entry 17)

At last, the colored-flame collecting minigame started to unravel, and I was able to make it to the spring.  There, a powerful boss awaited us, but it was no challenge for Viola and her long-ranged bow of power. (Allegretto and Falsetto helped too). 

After the battle, Viola feels sad that we’ve killed what may have been the guardian of the graves, and Allegretto agrees with her.  It’s a little odd, considering how many bosses (and in Tuba’s case, a human) we’ve fought and killed.  Fortunately, Falsetto informs us that the boss was a spirit, and so will return on its own after a while.  Oh good…?  We get the water and prepare to return to town.

The flame quest was a bit frustrating.  There were extra chests that called for you to have all the flames available but at one point it required a blue flame that I couldn’t seem to find anywhere.  I even tried running around the secret back passage after lighting the front and red and green flames.  No luck. 

I… didn’t even notice hidden chests like that.  Dangit.

The boss wiped the floor with me the first playthrough and then I just came in and destroyed this thing.  Allegretto was actually the money winner as Void Edge (with max echoes) was doing around 12000 points of damage.  HELLA TIGHT!  The dialogue after the boss was the strangest thing ever.  We just killed the water spirit…maybe?!  Oh well…it’ll come back.  Whatevs.  It felt so out of place considering the existential and philosophical discussions I’ve come to know in this game.

Jazz and Claves are what is (assumedly) the Andantino hideout, an extremely ramshackle building apparently in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees.  The inside of the place is covered in trash, with discarded bottles all over.  Do they leave it this way so no one suspects they use it?

Scott…I have three words for you….THE LOVE LOFT…

Ahahahaha – that’s totally the best explanation!

Jazz decides to tell Claves about his suspicions that Falsetto is a spy (don’t do it, man, you’ve been blinded by love!).  He bases this on Falsetto being combative towards Claves recently and hiding something from him, completely oblivious that it might be Falsetto’s feelings she’s hiding.  Remarkably, Claves decides to cover for Falsetto, coming up with plausible reasons why Falsetto is not a spy.  Jazz is put at ease, and no longer suspects Falsetto.  He decides to leave and go find Falsetto, since we’re taking too long.

Scott…Aeris covers for Tifa.  That’s how it rolls, yo.  Seriously though, this was a little strange.  Since we don’t know Claves well, I’m not sure what we were going for here….

Just as I was starting to doubt whether Claves actually was a spy, she says it out loud… and then is stabbed by Rondo, an agent of Waltz, since her identity as a spy can’t remain hidden much longer, and because she’s clearly gone native in not framing Falsetto.  Claves has a lengthy death speech, in which she reveals that she fell in love with Smooth Jazz and wanted to fight Falsetto fairly for him.  I feel bad for her, but we haven’t really had enough time with her in the game for this to have the emotional impact I think they were going for.  I’ll be sad to lose her healing powers, though!  Before she dies, she sends a messenger bird… to Baroque! (the nearby nation that Waltz is afraid of and building up the military to stop). The plot thickens…She calls this her one good deed in a life of deceit, a good deed she’ll need or the valkyries won’t come to pick her up.

The scene is a little odd because they don’t show any blood, so Claves is rolling around in pain and clutching her midsection for no obvious reason.  At one point, they give a closeup of her hands, which remain as clean as ever.  Was there intended to be blood at one point, and they took it out to get a lower age rating?

This was seriously so dramatic that I couldn’t stop laughing.  I felt so bad but seriously…Claves moves around like she’s Lady McBeth, lamenting her choices in life (that we have never seen nor heard of).  She even gets up to pull herself to the window so that she can send a carrier bird.  What the heck?!  Interactions with objects or other characters continues to look pretty terrible.  I am also convinced that this game wanted to have blood in it but had to take it out to keep the T for Teen rating.  I could have sworn T rated games have gotten away with worse though….

AERIS!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!  MY OTP!!!!

What was up with the flashbacks to like…10 seconds ago.  We could have used that for some Claves backstory!  We know nothing about this character and we are supposed to be concerned/sad for her death.  We don’t even really see Jazz and Claves in love so I can’t say I even feel for Smooth Jazz.

Oh goodness, I didn’t even mention the flashbacks.  I think they may have repeated every single scene we JUST WATCHED in her flashback.

In the interlude, we learn about the piece Fantasie-Impromptu.  Instead of focusing on how it was composed, we instead learn that Chopin never published it during his life, and intended for it to be destroyed (possibly because it was too close to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata).  His friend Julian opted to publish it 6 years after his death, however, which is the only reason we have it to listen to today.  An interesting little nugget of history. 

I love these things and this was one of the prettiest pieces yet.  It was fascinating to learn this little piece of history and get into the mind of the real Frederick Chopin.

As Chapter 4 opens, it’s snowing on Beat and Polka, as Beat tries to cheer her up concerning Allegretto.  This kicks off a flashback to how they were rescued, by Crescendo, the kind-of captain of a Baroque ship that was passing by.  Chopin and Salsa are here as well, thank goodness.  Crescendo looks more like some kind of royalty than a captain, but he seems like pretty nice guy.  Chopin cues on this, noting that he’s pretty young to be a captain.

Scott…that hot guy is the Prince and he is on the cover of the game.  I smell a party member.  Salsa continues to be the best character….ever….

Beat and Salsa continue sniping at each other, with Salsa feeling subdued with the loss of her magnificent hat.  Oh no!

I am so sad…about the loss of that hat….WHY GAME…WHY?!?!?