The Let's Play Archive

Eternal Sonata

by Instant Grat, Hbomberguy

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Original Thread: Frederic_Chopin%27s_Anime_Nightmare.pptx [Eternal Sonata VLP]

 

Introduction



"A pleasant surprise, full of joy and old-fashioned romance, and set in a gorgeous, fully realized fantasy world"
- Kevin VanOrd, Gamespot.com

"An excellent title with solid game play, good character development, and a solid - if short - story full of societal criticism and in-depth analysis of modern issues [...] which makes powerful statements about the society in which we live"
- Johansen Quijano-Cruz, Eludamos Journal for Computer Game Culture

"Blast some piss onto this video game, out of my dick"
- Instant Grat, Eternal Sonata Session 4 Part 3, Recording notes

Eternal Sonata is a video game in which famous mid-1800s French Polish composer Freddy Frank Choppin spends his last night alive having fever dreams about fucked up anime people who are upset about taxes on bread.

It features such things as:
It was made by Tri-Crescendo, the people who made music for Valkyrie Profile and Baten Kaitos before they decided to split and make their own company. Tri-Crescendo were also responsible for Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon, which the Pork Lift and wateyad LP dream team have covered over here.

We (the people whose voices are available for you to listen to in the videos below) are Instant "Cool Guy" Grat, and Harris "Hellraiser" Bomberguy. We spent about 24 hours over a period of 5 days playing this video game, and we recorded it for you so that you can watch it if that sounds like a good time to you. Here is a video that Hbomb made me record to get you in the mood:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFBBmWpzh2o

Still here? Excellent! Let's just dive right in:




1. Go to hell, my terrible child (Polsy)
2. Don't eat the bread (Polsy)
3. Death & taxes (Polsy)
4. Choppin' (Polsy)
5. Hogfight (Polsy)
6. WAH HA HA! (Polsy)
7. George (Polsy)
8. Flash (Polsy)


9. Protein (Polsy)
10. A+ anime hair, IMO (Polsy)
11. Not a good dungeon (Polsy)
12. A good time (Polsy)
13. Kill Phil (Polsy)
14. Oh, we're back (Polsy)
15. Salsa "Yeehaw" Jackson (Polsy)
16. Eat the rich (Polsy)
17. Chapter Tu(ba) (Polsy)


18. Kaffe (Polsy)
19. Farron Gutterblight (Polsy)
20. Schmediting (Polsy)
21. Light the Candle (Polsy)
22. OP (Polsy)


23. Pirate Bay (Polsy)
24. Shipping (Polsy)
25. VINDICATION (Polsy)
26. Danceless (Polsy)
27. Freeze (Polsy)
28. Fuck you, mom (Polsy)
29. Briefly (Polsy)
29.5. LIVE STREAMING EXTRAVAGANZA (Polsy)
30. instant grat failure reel (Polsy)


31. Dawn of the 4th Day (Polsy)
32. Sean^3 (Polsy)
33. Half an hour of cutscenes (Polsy)
34. Are you fucking kidding (Polsy)
35. Ice to stab you (Polsy)
35.5 LIVE!!! AGAIN!!! (Polsy)


36. A stupid plan (Polsy)
37. Two idiots (Polsy)
38. Bitch Death Hell (Polsy)


39. Foresight / Afterlife (Polsy)
40. Nocturne op.9 No.2 (Polsy)
41. Chuunibyou (Polsy)
42. Garlic Dad (Polsy)
43. Podblast from the Podpast (Polsy)


44. Life is a flat circle (Polsy)


as drawn and written by Hbomb

POLKA



Polka is dying of an unknown terminal disease. The disease is unknown either because we're not told what it is or I wasn't paying attention. Either way, this also means she has magical powers.

One of these powers is to use an umbrella as a weapon and get away with it. Others are glowing orange, and diving off a cliff. An amazing array of skills.

Polka is very briefly passed off as the main character before being completely subordinated by some guy with a top hat, and another guy with a shoulder pad made of feathers for some reason. It's a metaphor for our society and how it does that to women.

ALLEGRETTO



Allegretto is an incredibly pretty teenage boy-man who appears to run a small team of sewer-dwelling, yet remarkably well-dressed, equipped and camera-owning, orphan thieves. He's got a weird feather wing thing, presumably because he wanted to cosplay Sephiroth.

Apart from a bit where he briefly rants in detail about the systemic problems with Capitalism, he mostly has very little to say except textbook 'you're mean!' or 'wow, that was good music playing, Frederic' (spoilers, music man plays music) stuff you get with anime protagonists. He makes up for it by being written as comically dumb, so lots of his interactions with NPCs and dialogue about him is pretty funny.

Characters keep claiming there's romantic tension between Allegretto and Polka but we never see any. Presumably all those scenes got cut in favor of sewer levels.

BEAT


Beat is Allegretto's little brother/pseudo-brother. Either way they're both homeless kids.

Beat's got a cool gun that doubles as a hammer, and also a camera. How he owns these incredibly expensive and (from what we see of the game) potentially one-of-a-kind items is currently unknown.

His plot purpose is mostly to be a dumb foil for Allegretto to talk down to, but as far as 'annoying kid' characters go, I kinda like him. He plays off quite well with other characters who turn up later. He strikes a good balance between 'slightly brash child who doesn't take things seriously' with 'relatively innocent person coming to terms with the depths of human suffering.' So like Hope from FF13 but if he was in a game with writers or a story.

FRÉDÉRIC FRANÇOIS CHOPIN

(bonus version with no lines)

Freddy Chopping is the main character, in a sense. He's dying, and the game is his dying dream. Or maybe it isn't? They sort of imply? I hope it isn't, because he's barely in it and mostly talks about how weird his dream is and plays really good piano offscreen while the real story happens.

Because his weapon is frequently referred to as a 'shaft', Freddo is fodder for numerous jokes that Grat is going to edit out

gratnote: you are seriously overestimating my willingness to spend time editing audio

VIOLA



Viola herds goats. This features in her design in the form of those weird bunched-up goat ear/horn shapes in her hair. Unfortunately the rest of her design got mixed up with an unrelated character who dances in a cage in a goat-themed nightclub.

Viola is upset that goats are being taxed - or something? More importantly, a life of defending goats from whatever the natural predator of a goat is, which I can only assume is God himself, has led to her becoming a murdermaster who can carry the whole party singlehandedly. Her character development is, she briefly wonders if it's okay to be single at age 26 (a spinster in Anime years), then decides it is and continues to gank fools for ever.

I like Viola because, apart from her design, she is almost completely untainted by the Anime Madness that has infected most of the story. She doesn't have to serve the bullshit plot very much so she's completely free to just do whatever

Her pet, Arco, is not in this picture because I forgot he exists at all. But that's how rad Viola is. She has a bullshit anime companion and they don't even turn up enough to imprint on your memory.

JAZZ



One morning, Jazz' best friend, a performance artist, got arrested for making weird pointless inventions and bothering people with their modern art pieces. In protest, Jazz took up his jailed friend's latest creations, the trumpet...sword (made to "highlight the performative nature of violence, or something, look, war is bad okay Jazz") and founded a revolution with two other people he knew from high school. Jazz is a tactical mastermind and a true thorn in the side of authority, despite the minor setback of literally one third of his group being spies.

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