Have you ever noticed that when you get really excited about a forthcoming release, you’re often let down by the finished article? It’s inevitable really; after all, what can stand up to the unfeasibly high standards that the hype-machine has sewn inside your own head? There’s a fine balance between hype and expectation. Much like film, many games arrive carrying the weight of our excited whispers on the wind of their omnipresent marketing campaigns, before gathering momentum to gale-force shouts of ‘gimme, gimme!’ shortly prior to their release. But, just as night follows day, most of these will inevitably dissipate into mere breezes of averageness, setting aloft nothing more than our own muted disappointment.

Sometimes, though, a game that we’ve spent months shrugging our shoulders at, startles us – its technicolour greatness dazzling like a horny, sequined peacock on a sunny day. Eternal Sonata is such a rarity.

Before we compare the game to any other, we must first point out the incredible amount of ground shared by Eternal Sonata and actual anime film. From the outset, everything about the game roars high-production values. Every detail, from the character modelling to the little tinkling sound that accompanies a tear falling from the cheek of our melancholy heroine will, to avid fans of the genre, be immediately familiar. The animation and character evident in the game is, in fact, so unrelentingly elegant that you’re going to spend at least half of your time performing comedy double takes to remind yourself that what you’re looking at is a game and not a product of any of Japan’s top anime studios. This includes, as is rightfully expected, all of the best anime cheese that goes with it. From the dialogue, which, like a mature brie, always seems to know how to take a metaphor too far, to the complete cast of characters, none of whom are a day over 16 years old. It can all seem just plain odd to those not familiar with the art, but to anyone who has taken more than a passing interest in anime over the years, stylistically, it all fits.

RPGs rely heavily on the strength of their central characters, and no more so than in those from Japan, which in turn rely heavily on their cutscenes. This is an area in which it’s immediately clear that you’re not going to be disappointed (see Character Reference boxout). Each character is brilliantly realised, not only in a visual and stylistic context, but also because each possesses a suitably different personality – an area in which many in this genre fall flat. While not making an impression immediately, once you get to know the characters, you’ll find them bursting with life.

The game is set inside the head of legendary composer Frederic Chopin as he lies dying from pulmonary tuberculosis. It sounds as mad as a bag of spiders, we know, but it works. In fact, as you make your way deeper, it becomes increasingly apparent that this overriding plot hook is a masterstroke. Through a combination of introductory tutorials and cinematics, the scene is set. Chopin, who himself features inside his own fantasy world as one of your main playable characters, is quickly introduced to Polka, a young girl with the ability to use healing magic. Her magical acumen apparently means that she, like Chopin, is on her way out. Proving more a stigma than a gift, she’s almost universally treated like a leper – people apparently believing that magic is an incurable disease, and that it’s contagious. As well as introducing us in detail to the two worlds in which the game is set – the fantasy world and the real world in which Mr Chopin lies close to death – the game switches between them whenever it feels you need a reminder that everything isn’t as it appears to be.

Alongside Polka and Frederic, you are also introduced to Allegretto and Beat early on in the game. Like a pair of Japanese Robin Hoods, they steal food daily and deliver it to hungry sewer-dwellers. The pair inevitably meet up with Polka and Frederic and head off for adventure, fame, fortune and perhaps to discover a little about the very nature of themselves, the nature of the human soul, their world and their friendships. Sound familiar? To fit the cookie-cutter template for generic Japanese RPG storylines, all it really needs then is an evil nemesis accompanied by his own cast of nefarious ne’er-do-wells. Enter the detestable (and also teenage) Count Waltz, accompanied by Fugue, his sadistic, monocle-wearing sidekick.

The fact that the plot, not counting the odd transitions between the real world and the fantasy one, is pretty generic, makes no odds. So strong is the cast of characters, environments, cinematics and evolving story arcs, that you won’t care. Within the first couple of hours you’ll have worked out pretty much exactly where and how it’s all going to end… and you’ll be desperate to see it played out regardless.

Like the latest outing of Final Fantasy, Blue Dragon and others, random battles are a thing of the past. In most cases at least, you’ll be able to choose whether or not you wish to fight a given creature or creatures, bearing in mind of course that avoiding battles will mean you’ll be too weak to take on the obligatory boss encounter. Generally, fighting everything you see will be the best policy, at least until the amount of Experience Points (XP) gained from the creatures in a given area becomes too small to fuss about.

The battle system itself is deep and immensely satisfying. Each character’s turn is measured in a blue bar that runs down the left-hand side of the screen. The time spent thinking about what you’re going to do with your move is called ‘tactical time’. Initially, this will be infinite and your turn bar will not count down unless you’re actually doing something, whether that be moving around the battlefield, or knocking ten bells out of your enemies. The battle area is free roaming, allowing you to take up different tactical positions around it depending on your chosen strategy. This means you’ll need to think about where you need to be at the beginning, during (the ‘hitting stuff’ phase of your move) and after. But, like a giant strategy-onion, there are many layers on offer here. Light and shadow play a huge part in the mechanics, with battlefields made up of patches of each – one or the other is more prevalent, depending on where you are. For example, if you’re wading through the long grass of a sunny plain, the play area is going to be made up of far less shadow than when you’re neck-deep in the stagnant gloom of an oubliette. All of your characters feature special attacks, with two available to him or her at any given time – one if they’re standing in the light and one when they’re shrouded in shadow. Generally speaking, the shadow attacks are more potent from a damage point of view, but then, when standing in shadow, so are many of the creatures. This means that if you launch a shadow combo at your enemy, unless you somehow find the time to move back into the light, the mob will also be launching stronger attacks right back at you. Also, healing spells may only be launched from light areas and have limited range, so moving your characters to different parts of the battlefield in order to defeat your quarry is a highly strategic business that is both brilliant and involving.

But light and dark aren’t usually static. Battlefields will often be shrouded in moving patchworks that shift steadily across the play area as the sun pierces through the clouds. What’s more, some creatures are so large that they enable you to use their own shadows against them. As if that wasn’t deep enough, the rules of the battlefield actually evolve throughout the game with what’s called your ‘Party Level’. As you progress, this will increase and introduce new battle rules, such as allowing for less tactical time during your turn – doing a fantastic job of preventing repetitive creature-mashing from decaying to the point of boredom.

Visually, the game pretty much never ceases to amaze. Even after dozens of hours, you’ll still feel lovingly wrapped in the game’s warm visual fuzz – your lovesick eyes dangling pathetically from your skull on slinky springs. The game engine and, in particular, the cel-shaded rotoscoping effect is simply stunning but, more than that, we can’t remember the last time we played a game where we mustered such a degree of anticipation simply to bear witness to yet another of the game’s stunning environments or to listen to more of its brilliant score.

The Xbox 360 has long needed an anime RPG of this quality and, to be perfectly frank, we never expected to get that from Eternal Sonata. The fact that it has exceeded our expectations to such a degree is a welcome surprise. This is by far the best game of its kind on 360 and, dare we say it, probably (that’s a Carlsberg ‘probably’) on any format in the world.

Dan Howdle