I can't believe i'm the only one who thinks this game is crap. Visuals are mediocre at best and the artistic design is so boring and generic it hurts. Towns and dungeons especially suffer from poor design, making you lose all the excitement about discovering new places (they all look pretty much the same). Only character design makes the cut. For a game based on a musical theme, music is surprisingly disappointing. The story and writing are so dull and clichéd it is ridiculous, and they will make you want to smash Polka's head against a wall in no time. There is absolutely NO customization for your character development except choosing the skills you want to bring to battle (wow) and your equipment. The battle system is boring, with little strategy involved: it basically consists in button-mashing most of the time and normal battles provide no excitement or challenge at all. Boss battles really do, but the biggest impact on the outcome of those will be pressing a button in time to defend against attacks, suddenly turning this JRPG in some kind of ridiculous rythm/reflexes minigame. The light and dark system makes very little impact on the battles, except when it comes to healing. The controls in battle are clunky, the camera is awful (often hiding where the f**k enemies are), and this combined will make absolutely no guarantee that the game does what you want it to do (especially if you want to play Viola, who loves to miss arrow shots for apparently no reason). The only positive feature I can think about is the inclusion of japanese voices (kudos for that). Being a JRPG fan, I was extremely disappointed by this game and i would recommend to avoid it unless you are that type of jrpg fan that plays every genre game even if it is crap. If that's the case, good luck.… Expand

This game is one of the best RPG's I've ever played. Great music, fun combat system, and interesting characters. It's also a good history lesson on Chopin. I hope they make another game like this one.

This is by far one of my favourite games to date. Its so beuatifuly told and inspiring that it made me cry at times. I loved this game from start to finish, and this is the way that games should be done.

Great RPG for the PS3. Fun and challenging at times. Playing second time around for more than 60 hours now.

I bought this game yesterday and I have to say that it's a really overall pretty game. I love the gameplay in it. And I find the concept to be a really cool as well. It's about time that there was a really good RPG to be released on the PS3. Hope there will be more to come.

This game is beautifully put together. It has a gripping story which also teaches you about one of music's most famous composers. The combat system is easy yet enjoyable and the voice overs are perfect. This game has stunning music as well.

A little too linear for some - and perhaps too steep a difficulty for others - but the stunning visuals, the brilliant soundtrack and fairly original take on the turn-based combat system makes this a must-buy for any JRPG fan. Even if you are not a JRPG aficionado, it's still worth a try: you might just like it.

FUN FUN FUN! The battle system is so goddamn fun! The graphics are gorgeous, the soundtrack is uber lovely and the characters are, for the most part, lame as all hell. It does have an ounce of originality but the bad writing does a good job of flushing that down the drain, leaving behind another typical (but fun) JRPG to love.

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I have had this game for quite a while now but had never gotten around to beating it. Well no more, just finished it last night and am now ready to review it. First off the thing I noticed most of all was the attention to the color palette. ES has one of the most colorful worlds I have seen in a PS3 game yet. Everything is done in such a way as to bring out the fullness of the colors used and it makes the game loot really pretty; see Baroque Castle being a prime example. The maps are, for the most part, well designed and give you a sense of progression throughout the game in terms of the complexity of the maps. One point where it lacks is the number of enemy models. Throughout much of the game you will be running into slightly modified version of enemies that you found in earlier parts of the game. Bosses are also recycled in some areas as well. The story is nearly solid. It is one of the few truly nearly plot hole free stories released in recent times. It centers around two main characters, Frederik and Polka. At the start of the game you take control of Polka, a 14 year old girl who can use magic, on her way back to her village called Tenuto. In this world people who can use magic are shunned because it seems to indicate that they are inflicted with a terminal illness that cannot be cured. Polka soon meets Frederik in the flower field next to Tenuto and this is where our story begins. To Frederik this world he is in is nothing but a creation in a dream he is having. He states this over several times throughout the game and is adamant that this is his dream. At some point in the game, however, it ceases to be just a dream and the world takes on a life of its own. There are two powers in this world, Baroque and Forte. Each have had wars over power in the past and such a struggle takes place throughout the game's time period. through the game we learn that Count Waltz is manipulating Forte's markets to favor the use of a substance called Mineral Powder. It is said to be able to cure almost any illness and also acts as a stimulant. However there is a major side effect to this powder that the monarchy knows full well about; it turns the users into mindless slaves who can use magic. This is, of course, Forte's goal; to turn its populace into mindless golems so that Waltz can invade and overthrow Prince Crescendo, the temporary ruler of Baroque. Waltz, however, is also seeking a way to increase the efficiency of the Mineral Powder. He has learned that when you use glowing Agogos, a type of life form, that Mineral Powder will instantly turn the taker into a extremely powerful monster. As he mines Mount Rock for Mineral Power he also sends his henchmen to seek out glowing Agogos and eventually Polka as well when it is revealed that she is the source of the glowing Agogos. The game leads up to the ending where you fight, major spoiler, Frederik. He has decided that since this world has become more of a reality to him then reality itself that he wants to test to see if this world is truly no longer just a dream, expecting it to vanish upon his own death. The ending for the game is very long, 45 minutes at least, and does take a bit of thought to put into perspective due to its ambiguity. Some people have said that at the end Polka dies and is reborn as a girl and then is magically transformed into her original self at the start of the game, however this is not the case. The world that Polka inhabits is cyclical, meaning that all of the events in the game have happened before. There are hints to this when Allegretto give Polka that stone that she throws away and also when they find the fortune teller. What we are seeing at the end is the cycle repeating after Polka's "death", or rather her intentions of sacrificing herself have caused the world to return to an earlier stage. What we see at the end of the game is Frederik using his life to break that cycle and to end Polka's eternal path of self sacrifice. The Polka we then see rise back over the cliff is not a different Polka but the same one that jumped over. Like I said it is very abstract and ambiguous and takes a fare amount of deductive reasoning to sort out properly. Overall this is a great game and definitely one of the better JRPG's on the PS3. I got around 60 hours out of it but I did not try to find everything nor did I go through the Church of Ezi. I give it a 9/10.… Expand