Eternal Sonata

When I saw Eternal Sonata's battle system, I instantly disliked it. Each character having a limited time gauge for his turn, running around like idiots on the field of combat, seems like it removes all semblance of strategy from an RPG. But what I didn't realize until I played it, was that the time is not always ticking: until you move or take action, you can let your turn's time bar sit, and figure out your plan of attack. This actually works out to be a really fun combat scenario, as it strongly divorces real-time action from static planning, while retaining the best parts of both (tense pause-action strategy and button-mashing fun).

The game's premise, that it takes place in a dream world inside the deteriorating mind of Fredric Chopin, is something I liked since I'd first heard of the game. And the graphics are absolutely beautiful. As for the other RPG stuff, like insipid town NPCs, as far as the demo's shown me they are at least harmless. So next time I've got weeks to burn on a lengthy RPG, this might just do the trick.

Progress: Finished the demo