The game plays on Chopins death bed and while his last breath is about to fall his dreams start to shape into a vivid and beautiful world. Chopin thinks to have control over this world but soon he realises that he has no grip over it and fears that reality is fading and he'll never wake up.

Although things are centered around Chopin there's also another story. At the start of the game you meet the lovely but also terminally ill girl Polka. She sells Floral Powder but due to the high taxes on the healing potion as well as other necessary things the majority of the world lives in poverty. Only the cheap Mineral Powder from Count Waltz is tax free but Polka wants to pursuade the count to take it off the market. During her journey she meets many people who join her including Allegretto and Beat, two street children who want to get rid of the high taxes. Soon it becomes clear that there's more going on with the Mineral Powder than thought of at first and they'll quickly get dragged into intrigue and plot twists.

The story wasn't deep enough on the Xbox360 and left players confused. Of course the devs put some work in this and more cut-scenes were added along with new dungeons, side-quests and characters like Crescendo and Serenade. Next to these additions also the difficulty degree was raised with tougher enemies and less XP points. Still the game remains easily beatable.

The combat in Eternal Sonata is a combination of turn-based and real-time. Each player gets an opportunity on his turn and can do his actions. By pushing the cross you do a typical hack&slash move that can be formed into a real combo to build echoes. The triangle is for a special attack that depends on your character, whether or not you're in the light or shadow and the amount of echoes you have. The more combos the more echoes and the stronger the special attack. The most ingenious addition is the influence of your party level. At first you've got five seconds on your turn counter but as you progress your time to think gets shorter and the meter keeps running after your first move. Thanks to this system the RPG is accessible for beginners and still contains the typical depth that you can find in other RPGs.

Next to combat the game also offers a beautiful and wide environment. Although, so it seems. Once you start walking further all paths look quite tight and linear except for the occasional sideroad. Those expecting an open world like Dragon Quest will run into the (invisible) wall.

The game itself remains short, even after the addition of extra side-quests you can finish in about 30 hours. Not fed up with the game after that? Then you can start New Game+ with a number of items that were kept, some new ones that can be found and your last party level.