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Eternal Sonata PS3 Version, Extras Confirmed
Just last week the unique RPG Eternal Sonata was confirmed for a PlayStation 3 launch. IGN is now reporting that even though PS3 roleplaying fans will have to wait until next year for the game, they're going to get numerous extras as a consolation prize. "New events are being added, to help give players a deeper understanding of the storyline. The game will also feature new playable characters. Crescendo and Serenade, who played a major role in the 360 version's storyline but were not playable, will now be able to take part in battle. Crescendo makes use of a mace and shield. Serenade is all about her heart-shaped staff ... Bandai Namco is also working a costume system that will allow you to freely change your characters' costumes. Accompanying this is an increase in costume variations."
See, all that extra capacity does have a use right now. No more waiting required.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
With Xbox live, I am sure the developers could make a nice chunk of change if the made the extras available on XBL for $10 or so. Unless, of course, they are already being paid off by Sony to have the extras "Exclusive" Although maybe it would take too much effort to make the patch for the XBOX to make it worth it...
I really hate JRPGs. I find them too linear and lacking in the "RPG" part. When I play a JRPG, it feels like it's just a movie with some interactive (but meaningless in the scope of the game) elements. Like someone developed a story and said "okay, let's throw in a few random fights and some minor and meaningless generic character stats stuff to break things up and stuff them between the scenes".
:)
I'll probably buy Eternal Sonata, because it does seem to have a unique story and I'm sure it will be beautiful on my 1080p. I'll just wait until I hear more on which platform I should buy it for and . . . until I can buy it used for half price.
I was really bummed out at first when I saw that this was only on the 360 because I really wanted to play this, but am not going to buy a Microsoft system for any reason. This is great that they are porting it. I love Chopin. He is my favorite classical composer by far, and has been for years. Anything to make an awakening and remember good ole classical music is a good thing. I even wrote a journal about it. I recently just downloaded his complete works from Bittorrent and am finding some little treasures I didn't know existed. Chopin is such an amazing composer. It is seriously such a tragedy that he died at 39 years old.
On another note, the game got some really good reviews, so anything to add to the PS3's sad library right now will make me really happy.
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
I played the demo of Sonata when it dropped to X-Box Live Marketplace and was just blown away by the music. The big sell point on the game for me however was a little feature tucked away in the settings menus that allowed you to assign other controllers to the other party members for combat, making the game coop. So once I get off work I will swing by my local game shop, grab a copy and then invite a couple friends over to play through it. Congrats to the PS3 for getting this title added to their library but I am really surprised that the Wii doesn't have it.
"To face death, that's nothing much. But to feel really stupid when you die, well, that would be insufferable."
As long as they actually use it for content rather than "just because we can". A good example is Heavenly Sword. They said they FILLED the DISC and even stated there was 10 gigs of Audio on the disc, yet there is MUCH LESS content, than Oblivion (which fits on a DVD9).
Howard notes: "Drive speed matters more to me [than capacity], and Blu-ray is slower", with EGM revealing that "the PS3 Oblivion team compensated for the slower drive by duplicating data across the Blu-ray disc, making it faster to find and load."
Source: http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2007/01/ps3_oblivion_seeing_double_to.php
Obviously this isn't an ideal situation as you'd rather have both fast seek times and lots of space, but I also agree with you that developers shouldn't just fill up their discs for stupid reasons like copy protections or just to say "hey it's full!"
Of course they can fill up their discs with crap all they want, just don't brag about it and make it sound like the game wouldn't work on platform X because of that reason.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
The PS3 version is shipping with extra content because Sony won't allow them to ship otherwise. Games that ship simultaneously are given more leeway; but if the 360 version ships first, the game must contain features that set the ps3 version apart. It doesn't take much thought to see why this is a very smart tactic. I don't know of any examples of PS3 SKUs shipping first off the top of my head, but you'll see Microsoft doing the same thing.
If a game fits on DVD, you can be sure that a game + 5% added assets can also be made to fit on DVD. And note that amount of content/gameplay != amount of assets; if I add a ton of new content, it may reuse lots of existing assets (as in the case of making a character playable). If I had to guess, the bulk of new assets will be new audio.
The real question is how many from that list will remain exclusive. Already you can play some of them (like Bioshock) on a PC. But some of those titles (again Bioshock) will probably end up on other platforms, like the PS3... yes you might be playing some titles in a year or two, but really if you have enough other games to go through in the meantime it's not such a hardship. I still myself have not played through Half Life 2, waiting for the Orange Box now.
If you want to buy a PS3 they have exclusives of their own that look really good and unique, like Ratchet & Clank and Little Big Planet. Or even Haze, if you prefer FPS shooters... so it's not like taking an anti-360 stance will lock you out of as many games as it would seem.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... in the 360's Japanese coffin. Don't get me wrong, I love my 360, but clearly MS needed something big to bring some attention to itself in the Japanese marketplace. Eternal Sonata is a solid game (based on the demo I played), and certainly would've sold a few boxes in Japan. But losing this exclusive is just one more nail in the already-shut coffin that is the Xbox in Japan...
So in other words, this is just another XBox 360 port, like Ninja Gaidain or many others, that have souped up graphics and a few new extras for the PS3 port?
I'm not. Well, I dislike Microsoft, but I could get over that. And I want to get over it, because the 360 has a nice collection of games. However, there are two reasons why I won't buy one:
Why? People constantly say that we "consumers" should vote with our wallets. If we want our world to improve, it's obvious that we should support positive action, as well as good products. Frankly, games are a luxury. I don't need them to survive. How is it silly to base your purchases, especially of a non-essential item like a console, on how a company behaves, as well as on the product itself?