Overly Positive

Bandai - Guaranteeing bad cosplay for years

No, you can relax – Wiimusic or anything like it isn’t coming to the PS3 anytime soon. Although to be honest, I was, frankly, confused when I saw Eternal Sonata not only pop to the top of my GameQ from spot 3 to spot 1, but that it also had shipped, arrived, and been received by me in record time – 3 days, which for Gamefly is overachieving. Good for them. I’m sure that soon they’ll be aspiring to process my returns in a mere 2 weeks rather than 3. Ah, progress.

Anyway, I have no idea how this ended up in my queue. It certainly can’t be because I have some mindless, former obsession with Japanese animation, wide-eyed characters, and the universal notion that SHOUTING your attack makes it automatically 100 times more powerful, oh no. It also certainly can’t be because I have some kind of irrational weakness for cutesy games in between my murderous bloodlust to kill zombies and my ability to cackle endlessly as I blow up buildings with mini-nukes.

I can only attribute my momentary weakness to a fond memory of music. Yes, I was that band geek in high school, though no, band camp was hardly the American Pie experience that only modern raunch comedy can give you. I played pieces by Chopin, by Beethoven, by all those guys that somehow had some kind of debilitating flaw but yet became famous (hey, it still happens today – I’m looking at you, soon-to-be-former President Bush). So it was with a shrug that bore the dejection of someone that was supposed to get Resistance 2 that I put in the game.

Now, maybe I’m crazy, but I have to say the game has a certain charm to it. Sure, sitting through some mindless 7 minute anime-style cutscene that tries to set the stage might seem like it would put you to sleep, but if you’re going to be slogging through an RPG you need a good nap to start out anyway. How kind of them. And the names of the characters are certainly not predictable and not at all meant to just be arbitrarily given. Why, when I think of Polka, I always think of some teenage blonde haired girl who has a mean imbrella swing. And when I think of Beat, the very first image that pops into my mind is not one of percussion, but of some oddly dressed little boy who inexplicably knows how to fire a rifle better than a gangster from the old country. Hooray for perfect imagery.

Now normally, if you’re after a story that has some depth, you need to use some boring things like plot continuity, or character development, or any of those silly things. Why have that when you can randomly make giant rats and boars the size of horses bosses, and where you can somehow generate explosions by swinging your sword around in the air while shouting some flashy code word, like “Sun Slash” or “Phantom Wave”. If you can’t understand how great that makes musical appreciation then I really don’t know if I can do anything for you.

I’m sure eventually I’ll finish Eternal Sonata and send it on its merry way to be devoured by the US Post Office or that failing, some moody kid with a Pokemon fetish. But until then, such a happy little world can’t be denied me, especially since we all knew Chopin dreamt of giant pumpkins, pelicans with swords and shields, and guys with feathers for shoulderpads.