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Frederic Francois Chopin was known as "The Poet of the Piano" and composed numerous mesmerizing pieces for piano. I had the opportunity to play many of his works when growing up; and studied his life during the Romantic period of my music history class. Chopin's music is very much like poetry, difficult to master but pleasant to the ear. Developer tri-Crescendo took great care in ensuring that Eternal Sonata plays like a beautiful poem: heavy on the colors and details, Eternal Sonata is a visual splendor with an accompanying charming story.

The story takes place in the mind of Chopin, who lies on his deathbed with his sister and doctor watching dutifully over him. He has conjured up a breathtaking world and enters it, meeting a friendly cast of characters. There he first meets Polka, a young girl living in the village of Tenuto who can use magic. In Chopin's dream world, those who can use magic are fated to die young. Knowing that she doesn't have much time left, Polka does what she can to help others.

Chopin eventually meets Allegretto and Beat, a lively pair from the city of Ritardando. They steal bread to feed to the poor, but knowing that this is not the solution to the problem, their goal is to seek out the Count in Forte Castle and ask him to stop the taxation. Polka and Chopin also have their reasons for seeking out the count, and together they set off.

Like a traditional role playing game, the characters fight battles to level. The fighting system is well done, keeping things fun and fast-paced. As you progress through the game, you'll earn Party Levels, which changes the fighting system a little at a time. A simple example is the timer used to determine the allowed amount of time to decide actions. At the beginning of the game you'll have an infinite amount of time to think about what you want to do. But as you gain more interesting Party Levels - where you can counter or pull off chains - your timer will decrease.

Enemies are seen on screen when you travel through dungeons and between areas, so you can always avoid them. Approaching them from behind will be to your advantage, but as you're sneaking by if they see you they'll give chase and could attack you from behind, giving them the advantage. The game is turn based, and each character has an action bar. Once it runs out, your turn is over. On the battlefield you need to move your characters into position if you want to attack the enemy. Every action you take, including moving or attacking will deplete your bar so you need to plan ahead for your turn.

Each character has different special attacks depending upon whether you are standing in the light or dark. On the battlefield there are patches of sunlight and shade and standing in one or the other will change your special attacks. Beat will take photographs as his special move when he's standing in sunlight, but he has a Rapid Shooter attack as long as he stands in the shade. (As a side note, his photography skill is incredibly useful as you can sell his photos for a huge amount of profit making rather easy to buy the things that you need). Characters and monsters cast their own shadow so you need to watch where you stand.

Some enemies will also transform under the different light conditions, so it's something to watch out for. You can always attack normally for less damage and normal attacks will add to your Echo which is like a counter. Once your echo meter fills to 32, you can unleash one of your character's special attacks to do extra damage. This comes in handy during boss fights. When enemies attack your character, you may have the chance to guard but your timing has to be perfect or you won't guard the attack. This system keeps you on your toes. Even though it is turn-based, the action is in real-time so you have to pay close attention.

Unfortunately, the fixed camera angle made things very frustrating at times. During the battles you would only get different levels of zoom, making it often difficult to see every enemy, as well as find out whether you're close enough to actually attack. I like to zoom out so I know how many enemies are on screen, but then my characters are too small and I can't always tell if they've gotten close enough to attack.

Eternal Sonata's strength is its art direction. Every scene is like an artist's masterpiece. Even when you're crawling through the sewers, it still looks like a fairytale. The colors are strong and the characters are also nicely drawn.

The voice acting is solid, although some actors are easier to listen to than others. I found the voice actors for the children to be the least enjoyable. There is a lot of dialogue in Eternal Sonata and at times it can feel slow and tedious. The story is interesting, but you'll find that they'll wander off onto topics such as how humans can destroy the environment, or how people don't trust one another. Sometimes it can feel like a not-so-subtle lecture about the current state of events in the real world and as a warning - it starts off a bit sappy.

Spread throughout the game are snippets of Chopin's real life story, as well as his music performed by pianist Stanislav Bunin. This part of the game seems out of place, because you're basically getting a little history lesson with photographs of Europe.

Because the game is centered on Chopin, one of the greatest composers of the Romantic Era, you would think that his music would be featured more prominently. Even though you don't have the opportunity to listen exclusively to Chopin's music, Motoi Sakuraba also does an excellent job of creating an enchanting score for the game.

Eternal Sonata is an attractive game, with a good mix of characters and wonderful visuals. The names of the cities and characters are named after Italian music terms and other music terminology which is cute, except it'll go right over your head if you never studied music. It's not important to know them though; but if you do, it'll be amusing.

The game isn't exactly difficult, so if you're looking for a challenge you won't find it here. It is a good RPG for the younger generation, as there are children in the game and it does a good job of explaining things to the point where I think it is meant to be targeted at children. But it has a teen rating for the mild violence. Eternal Sonata is one of those RPGs that can be enjoyed for its various qualities, beyond the leveling and rush to the end. This game is highly recommended for those who are looking for a good RPG on the Xbox 360 that isn't extremely long.