History YMMV / EternalSonata

* NarmCharm - Many agree that the second-to-last cutscene was surprisingly well done and ''incredibly'' effective. Sometimes the game's narmness loops around to oddly awesome, including the scene when Fugue [[spoiler: meets his end. He is eaten by a ''glowing powderpuff'']]. It's surprisingly satisfying.

* ClicheStorm
* CrowningMusicOfAwesome - As might be expected in a game revolving around music, there are many possible choices, but some of the stand-out themes are: The mediocrity sought out by everyone, A flicker which divides light and darkness, Leap the precipice, I bet my belief, and The boundary between snow and ice. Sakuraba really outdid himself for this game. And then, of course, there are the Chopin pieces themselves, which were performed by professional pianist Stanislav Bunin. "Heaven's Mirror" also qualifies for many fans. There's also "Rebuilding Ourselves," [[spoiler:the final battle theme for the battle against Chopin that is a battle-theme remix with ominous chanting of his "Revolutionary Etude." That's right - you are fighting Chopin in a battle set to his own music!]]
* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming - [[spoiler:In the ending, [[TheMessiah Polka throws herself off a cliff and into the ocean to spread the light of her Astra]] and is sent back to her mother [[StableTimeLoop to repeat the process over again.]] Chopin, essentially being the master of the dream world, decides that it isn't right that a fourteen year-old girl should have to die, ends the cycle, and gives Polka the chance to live her life; all this resulting in a potential TearJerker.]]
* DesignatedHero - Allegretto is the onscreen avatar, despite Frederic ostensibly being the main character.
* DesignatedVillain - Legato, who seems to be [[OnlySaneMan an actually reasonable person]] whose only real crime was [[PunchClockVillain serving Count Waltz]]. [[spoiler: Even after going OneWingedAngel he still remains a DesignatedVillain, as all he does is run away to a distant tower in a desert on the moon where he can't really harm anyone.]] The {{PS3}} version makes it even clearer that Legato is just serving Waltz, who is the real villain.
* EnsembleDarkhorse - Captain Dolce, leader of the TerribleTrio GoldfishPoopGang, has gained some popularity over on the GameFAQS forums. [[HelloNurse Guess why...]] Well, for that reason, and also her sexy, seductive voice. ("Oh, you've been naughty, haven't you?")
* EvilIsSexy: Captain Dolce and Rondo, all the way.
* FanPreferredCouple - Chopin and Polka have better chemistry than the OfficialCouple...despite the fact A) she's analogous to his real-life dead little sister, and B) he's twenty-five years older. A lot of this depends on what version you're playing, though. The PlayStation3 UpdatedRerelease goes a long way to improve the chemistry between Allegretto and Polka by adding a number of new interactions between them and compleltely altering others. One of the most notable is that in the XBox360 release, Allegretto does not so much as mention Polka when Beat and Frederic first return to Ritardando. In the [=PS3=] version, however, he most certainly does ask after her and then starts to head off to Tenuto to go after her before grudgingly agreeing to stay and give Frederic a tour of the town. Later, when he actually does slip away on his own, in the [=PS3=] version he shows great concern for Polka's health, as well as frustration at the idea that she doesn't want to do things for herself. In the XBox scene, he doesn't express any concern about her illness and instead of the sequence being about his feelings for Polka, it's just a lot of moralizing about the suspicious nature of human beings.
* FridgeBrilliance: Breaking the OneSteveLimit and having two characters named "Bass," given that bass has two different meanings in music - the instrument and the type of singing voice. In fact, when you stop to think about it, it makes perfect sense because you have Tenor, Falsetto, and Bass all in Andantino, and all vocal types. Meanwhile, you have Dolce's pirate lieutenants Guitar and Bass, both instruments.

** Before that, selling photographs can net you ungodly sums of money early on, making a mockery of the cost of curatives and equipment for 99% of the game.

*** The Werewolf Choker accessory is also a Game Breaker itself, if you give it to fast characters like Falsetto, it just destroys most bosses in a matter of minutes.

* IdiotPlot: Prince Crescendo, Count Waltz (see WhatAnIdiot, below), Chopin ([[spoiler:his rationale for attempting to [[KillEmAll murder all the party members]]]]), the entire population of the world (see FridgeLogic, above).

* MemeticSexGoddess: Captain Dolce, so much that she has been renamed "Captain Sexy" by the fandom. Viola, also.
* {{Moe}} - Polka.
* MoeMoe - Salsa and March.
* {{Narm}} - For the love of god Claves, [[spoiler: just shut up and die already!]]
* NarmCharm - Many agree that the second-to-last cutscene was surprisingly well done and ''incredibly'' effective. Sometimes the game's narmness somehow loops around to be oddly awesome, including the scene when Fugue [[spoiler: meets his end. He gets eaten. By a ''glowing powderpuff'']]. And it's surprisingly satisfying.

* PuritySue: Deconstructed with Polka. Polka knows she doesn't have long to live, and so only keeps up her [[ThePollyanna Pollyanna]] act because she doesn't want to drag the party down. When it's just her and her mother, though, [[TearJerker the waterworks come on]].

* ThatOneBoss: Count Waltz definitely counts for this: Crazy fast, crazy strong, and positively brutal specials, if you don't block. Volcano Concussio can KO even [[MightyGlacier Jazz]]. [[spoiler: This is also when you have to fight Legato at the same time, who's been turned into a dragon thanks to the mineral powder.]]
** Tuba, mainly because the first time you fight him, Beat (if he's in the party) gets forced out. The second time, Beat is forced in. Either way, it can seriously screw up your formation from the start, [[OhCrap and if you haven't been levelling Beat for that second fight...]]
** Captain Dolce counts for this in your first fight with her due to the fact that the characters you have to fight her with are completely under-leveled and you don't have access to any good healing at the time. She also has strong and quick attacks, and has two minions who are both powerful and will revive each other if one is knocked out, meaning you have to kill both them quickly, all while holding off Captain Dolce.
** Also Fugue, who's capable of inflicting Stop? Check. Fast? Check. Gets two turns in a row? Check. Capable of killing [[FragileSpeedster Salsa]] in a single round if you're unlucky? You bet your ass!
** And Rondo, due to the fact that she's VERY difficult to guard against, due to her speed. And she can inflict [[StandardStatusEffects status]], damn her. Plus [[spoiler: Falsetto]] gets forced into the third slot of your party moments before the fight, which can screw up your formation, [[OhCrap and if your healer gets kicked out...]]

* ToyShip - Beat and Salsa.
* TierInducedScrappy: Arguably Polka and Jazz. Polka is a healer in a game where healing items are far superior to actual healing spells, and cheap to boot. She has terrible damage output in a game where killing the opponent before it gets to move is the key to everything. Jazz suffers from terrible speed(Salsa will occasionally go THRICE before him), relies on team effort for real damage output(since his own echo-building is average), and is actually quite underlevelled on rejoining. Jazz simply never has a reason to be used- he's inferior to Allegretto, Viola and Falsetto when he first appears, and he's inferior to more or less the entire team upon rejoining, and that's before getting into the fact that he is underlevelled. He was made worse in the PS3 version.
* WhatAnIdiot - Prince Crescendo's plan to [[spoiler:surrender himself to CardCarryingVillain Count Waltz]] would, rather than ending the war peacefully, [[spoiler:have allowed Forte to invade a weakened and confused Baroque]]. Everyone else seems to understand this, and tells him so. Although that's nothing compared to what happens next: Count Waltz, [[spoiler:rather than ordering his men to fire and kill the heroes, instead decides to take them all on himself for 'fun', accompanied only by a dragon that's extremely easy to defeat. He is then brutally killed. Unless you're playing the [~PS3~] version, in which case he survives.]]
** [[spoiler: And for some reason the entire dragon ARMY that accompanied him is gone afterwards, without any explanation!]]
** And then [[spoiler:Waltz's advisor]] decides to drink the [[spoiler:super mineral powder]] and turn himself into a giant monster for no apparent reason, even though he knows ''it will eventually kill him'' even if the heroes didn't. [[spoiler:Unless you're playing the [~PS3~] version, in which case, it is Count Waltz who orders him to drink it.]]
** [[spoiler:In fact, this whole fiasco is averted in the PS3 version- Waltz survives the fight as every other major villain, orders a reluctant Legato to drink the poison, then orders him to kill the dragons to try his new powers, and finally, they run away because Polka's astra stops their lethal strike against the group. Everything is explained, everything makes sense, and it allows for a harder pre-final boss battle and a kickass BreakingSpeech from Waltz explaining his motivations.]]

** Some of that is possibly reflecting what Chopin himself would have thought about. Particularly, conflict and good people needlessly suffering. His little sister died of tuberculosis at the age of fourteen and quite a lot of conflict occured in Poland during Chopin's lifetime.

** Polka. If you like her, then, by the end of the game, you'll wish that you could give her a hug.
** Beat also counts considering he gets insulted by Allegretto, knocked around by Tuba, and constantly pestered by Salsa. At least Allegretto and Salsa still care about Beat.

* NarmCharm - Many agree that the second-to-last cutscene was surprisingly well done and ''incredibly'' effective. And sometimes the game's narmness somehow loops around to be oddly awesome, including the scene when Fugue [[spoiler: meets his end. He gets eaten. By a ''glowing powderpuff'']]. And it's surprisingly satisfying.

* TierInducedScrappy: Arguably Polka and Jazz. Polka is a healer in a game where healing items are far superior to actual healing spells, and cheap to boot. She has terrible damage output in a game where killing the opponent before it gets to move is the key to everything. Jazz suffers from terrible speed(Salsa will occasionally go THRICE before him), relies on team effort for real damage output(since his own echo-building is average), and is actually quite underlevelled on rejoining. Jazz simply never has a reason to be used- he's inferior to Allegretto, Viola and Falsetto when he first appears, and he's inferior to more or less the entire team upon rejoining, and that's before even getting into the fact that he is underlevelled. Note that this is the case in the 360 version, and that Jazz was actually made worse in the PS3 version.

** [[spoiler:In fact, this whole fiasco is averted in the PS3 version- Waltz survives the fight as every other major villain, orders a reluctant Legato to drink the poison, then orders him to kill the dragons to try his new powers, and finally, they run away because Polka's astra stops their lethal strike against the group. Everything is explained, everything makes sense, and it allows for a harder pre-final boss battle and a kickass HannibalLecture from Waltz explaining his motivations.]]
* TheWoobie - Polka. If you end up liking Polka, then, by the end of the game, you'll likely wish that you could give her a hug.
** Beat also counts considering he gets occasionally insulted by Allegretto, knocked around by Tuba, and constantly pestered by Salsa. At least Allegretto and Salsa still care about Beat though.

* GameBreaker - Harmony Chains at Party Level 6 can be exploited to greatly reduce almost all difficulty you may encounter after that point. Level up Polka to 48 (40 in the PlayStation 3 version) so that she learns Blossom Shower and, for her sake, since she is admittedly squishy, keep her as far away from the action as possible and in sunlight. Once you're able to consistently pull off a 5 or 6 Harmony Chain, Polka can use Blossom Shower to heal everyone for a sizable amount at infinite range every turn. It also works with Viola and her Heal Arrow, but the trade off is that while Viola can deal absolutely absurd damage from long-range, Heal Arrow isn't as powerful as Blossom Shower. Serenade's L'energie du Vent is a good choice too if you have the PlayStation3 UpdatedRerelease.

* IdiotPlot - Prince Crescendo, Count Waltz (see WhatAnIdiot, below), Chopin ([[spoiler:his rationale for attempting to [[KillEmAll murder all the party members]]]]), the entire population of the world (see FridgeLogic, above).

* PuritySue: Deconstructed with Polka. Polka knows she doesn't have long to live, and so only keeps up her [[ThePollyana Pollyana]] act because she doesn't want to drag the party down. When it's just her and her mother, though, [[TearJerker the waterworks come on]].

* FanPreferredCouple - Chopin and Polka have better chemistry than the OfficialCouple...despite the fact A) she's analogous to his real-life DeadLittleSister, and B) he's twenty-five years older. A lot of this depends on what version you're playing, though. The PlayStation3 UpdatedRerelease goes a long way to improve the chemistry between Allegretto and Polka by adding a number of new interactions between them and compleltely altering others. One of the most notable is that in the XBox360 release, Allegretto does not so much as mention Polka when Beat and Frederic first return to Ritardando. In the [=PS3=] version, however, he most certainly does ask after her and then starts to head off to Tenuto to go after her before grudgingly agreeing to stay and give Frederic a tour of the town. Later, when he actually does slip away on his own, in the [=PS3=] version he shows great concern for Polka's health, as well as frustration at the idea that she doesn't want to do things for herself. In the XBox scene, he doesn't express any concern about her illness and instead of the sequence being about his feelings for Polka, it's just a lot of moralizing about the suspicious nature of human beings.

* CompleteMonster: Count Waltz is definitely this considering the fact that he [[spoiler: willingly turned his whole country into a bunch of mindless slaves for his own ambitions.]]
** He also [[spoiler: ordered Legato to destroy the world with his last breaths]], [[KicktheDog slapped Polka at one occasion]] and [[spoiler: [[ArsonMurderAndJayWalking completely destroyed the protagonists in a political debate in the last encounter with him]] .]]

* FridgeBrilliance: Breaking the OneSteveLimit and having two characters named "Bass," given that bass has two different meanings in music - the instrument and the type of singing voice.

* GameBreaker - Harmony Chains at Party Level 6 can be exploited to greatly reduce almost all difficulty you may encounter after that point. Level up Polka to 48 (40 in the PlayStation 3 version) so that she learns Blossom Shower and, for her sake, since she is admittedly squishy, keep her as far away from the action as possible and in sunlight. Once you're able to consistently pull off a 5 or 6 Harmony Chain, Polka can use Blossom Shower to heal everyone for a sizable amount at infinite range every turn. It also works with Viola and her Heal Arrow, but the trade off is that while Viola can deal absolutely absurd damage from long-range, Heal Arrow isn't as powerful as Blossom Shower.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Chopin uses a conductor's baton as a weapon. In real life, Chopin was not a conductor, just a (phenominally talented) pianist; any conducting that he would have done would have been at the piano, and thus done without a baton.
** The game makes a strong reference to Chopin's younger sister Emilia and the PlayStation 3 version goes further by having him lament Emilia's fate (she died when she was 14, Polka's age) in the opening and having a possible ending sequence in which he addresses a soliloquy to Emilia. There seems to be little evidence either way as to exactly what sort of relationship Chopin had with Emilia, at least certainly not enough to provide a historical justification for lines such as "Emilia, I have never once forgotten you. Who would have thought that my memories of you, would create a world as vibrant and alive as this one is?"

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot - One of the most original concepts for a game--the dying dream of Fredrick Francois Chopin--given one of the most [[ClicheStorm unoriginal executions]] ever. That Chopin is mostly OutOfFocus for the majority of the game (except for his not-so-subtle monologues that come out of nowhere) does not help either.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome - As might be expected in a game revolving around music, there are many possible choices, but some of the stand-out themes are: The mediocrity sought out by everyone, A flicker which divides light and darkness, Leap the precipice, I bet my belief, and The boundary between snow and ice. Sakuraba really outdid himself for this game. And then, of course, there are the Chopin pieces themselves, which were performed by professional pianist Stanislav Bunin. "Heaven's Mirror" also qualifies for many fans.

* NarmCharm - [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle But then again]], many agree that the second-to-last cutscene was surprisingly well done and ''incredibly'' effective. And sometimes the game's narmness somehow loops around to be oddly awesome, including the scene when Fugue [[spoiler: meets his end. He gets eaten. By a ''glowing powderpuff'']]. And it's surprisingly satisfying.

* FanPreferredCouple - Chopin and Polka have better chemistry than the OfficialCouple...despite the fact A) she's analogous to his real-life DeadLittleSister, and B) he's twenty-five years older. A lot of this depends on what version you're playing, though. The PlayStation3 UpdatedRerelease goes a long way to improve the chemistry between Allegretto by adding a number of new interactions between them and compleltely altering others. One of the most notable is that in the XBox360 release, Allegretto does not so much as mention Polka when Beat and Frederic first return to Ritardando. In the [=PS3=] version, however, he most certainly does ask after her and then starts to head off to Tenuto to go after her before grudgingly agreeing to stay and give Frederic a tour of the town. Later, when he actually does slip away on his own, in the [=PS3=] version he shows great concern for Polka's health, as well as frustration at the idea that she doesn't want to do things for herself. In the XBox scene, he doesn't express any concern about her illness and instead of the sequence being about his feelings for Polka, it's just a lot of moralizing about the suspicious nature of human beings.

* {{Troperiffic}}

* ClicheStorm[=/=]{{Troperiffic}} - YourMileageMayVary on which one it is. The Chopin part is generally agreed to be original, though.

* FanPreferredCouple - Chopin and Polka have better chemistry than the OfficialCouple...despite the fact A) she's analogous to his real-life DeadLittleSister, and B) he's twenty-five years older.

** Beat also counts considering he gets occasionally insulted by Allegretto, knocked around by Tuba, and constantly pestered by Salsa. At least Allegretto and Salsa still care about Beat though.

* EnsembleDarkhorse - Captain Dolce, leader of the TerribleTrio GoldfishPoopGang, has gained some popularity over on the GameFAQS forums. [[HelloNurse Guess why...]]

** He also [[spoiler: ordered Legato to destroy the world with his last breaths]], slapped Polka at one occasion and [[spoiler: [[ArsonMurderAndJayWalking completely destroyed the protagonists in a political debate in the last encounter with him]] .]]

* FauxAffablyEvil - Count Waltz, all the way.

* NarmCharm - [[NotSoFastBucko But then again]], many agree that the second-to-last cutscene was surprisingly well done and ''incredibly'' effective. And sometimes the game's narmness somehow loops around to be oddly awesome, including the scene when Fugue [[spoiler: meets his end. He gets eaten. By a ''glowing powderpuff'']]. And it's surprisingly satisfying.