Eternal Sonata

On the way to work today, I heard KDFC's DJ Hoyt Smith discussing "Eternal Sonata" after playing three Chopin waltzes. "Eternal Sonata" is an Xbox 360 game centered around Frederic Chopin's adventures in a dream world.

Here are some choice excerpts from the writeup on Wikipedia:

"After [Polka meets] Frederic (Chopin), who believes the world is his dream, the two decide to head to Forte City, where Count Waltz resides, and ask him to lower the tax on floral powder. On the way, however, they are assaulted by Fugue, a servant of Count Waltz, who nearly kills them and leaves them for dead. It happens that two other people, Allegretto and Beat, two young orphans from Ritardando, are also heading to Forte to ask the Count to remove the tax from bread, which they have been forced to steal to help feed other orphans who live in the sewers under the city."

All the characters and locations are named from musical terms. This line made me laugh:

"Meanwhile, Polka, Frederic, Beat and Salsa have found themselves saved by a Baroque ship, captained by Prince Crescendo, the leader of Baroque."

In terms of gameplay, a little musical talent will come in handy:

"The player may also find Score Pieces scattered about the world, which represent short musical phrases. Various NPCs (non-playable characters) in the game will offer to perform with the party, requiring the player to match a Score Piece to the phrase offered by the NPC, with the resulting composition being ranked. Distonal matches will result in no reward, but close or perfect matches will gain a bonus item from the NPC."

How fun! I don't have enough patience for this game, but I bet the soundtrack is awesome.