History YMMV / EternalSonata

* FanPreferredCouple: In the Xbox version, Chopin and Polka have better chemistry than the OfficialCouple despite the fact that A) she's analogous to his real-life dead little sister, and B) he's twenty-five years older. The UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 UpdatedRerelease goes a long way to improve the chemistry between Allegretto and Polka by adding a number of new interactions between them and completely altering others. One of the most notable is that in the UsefulNotes/{{Xbox 360}} release, Allegretto does not so much as mention Polka when Beat and Frederic first return to Ritardando. In the [=PS3=] version he most certainly asks after her and then heads off to Tenuto to go after her before grudgingly agreeing to stay and give Frederic a tour of the town. Later, when he ''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 moralizing about the suspicious nature of human beings.

** 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 UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 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 [=PlayStation=] 3 UpdatedRerelease.

* 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. The UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 UpdatedRerelease tried to fix this by altering a number of scenes involving Frederic, and adding many new ones, including him speaking in the game's intro sequence, but the problem is still there to a limited degree.

* EvilIsSexy: Captain Dolce and Rondo; see EnsembleDarkHorse.

* TierInducedScrappy:
** '''Mixed Tier:'''
*** Polka is a healer in a game where items are cheap and more effective than healing spells. She also has bad damage output in a game where killing the opponent before it gets to move is the key to everything. That said, she's not actually terrible in anyway, just outdone. In fact, she can often compete/beat Beat in damage output and do area damage on top of that. In [[NewGamePlus Encore Mode]], Polka improves during the endgame because her InfinityPlusOneSword can be obtained earlier than the others, and that weapon puts her among the top damage dealers, gives her regen that makes her one of your bulkiest characters, and it boosts experience for your entire team! Polka actually becomes a CrutchCharacter for a while, until enemies really toughen up and your other characters get their final weapons much later.
*** Beat. There are thing about him that are actually excellent: he's a ranged character so doesn't take as much damage, he does pretty respectable damage, and gets a useful HP-draining move during lategame. However, he has the overall worst stats in the game and almost always get his next weapon upgrade later than everyone else. Beat is never outright terrible, but he kinda bounces from good to bad to great to mediocre in a way no other character does. For all of this though, he's never outright useless, as using his camera he can take photos and completely break the game's economy by making ungodly amounts of cash selling them.
** '''Low Tier:''' 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 underleveled on rejoining. He never has a reason to be used and is outclassed by pretty much the entire team.

* {{Moe}}: Polka for being a sweet IllGirl.

** '''Mixed Tier:''' Beat. There are thing about him that are actually excellent- he's a ranged character so doesn't take as much damage, he does pretty respectable damage, and when we hit the lategame, he gets a HP-draining move that makes him heal himself fully almost always... well, that'd be if he didn't have to suffer from having the overall worst stats in the game. He's the MasterOfNone to Retto's LightningBruiser. On top of this, the game developers decided to have him almost always get his next weapon upgrade later than everyone else, causing his otherwise very respectable attack to become a weakness. In comparison, Retto has attack to spare, but he tends to get his weapons FIRST! To be fair to the developers, at least they somewhat realized this, and buffed Beat's weapons to compensate. Beat is never outright terrible, but he kinda bounces from good to bad to great to mediocre in a way no other character does. For all of this though, he's never outright useless, as using his camera he can take photos and completely break the game's economy by making ungodly amounts of cash selling them.
** '''Low Tier:'''
*** Polka is a healer in a game where healing items are overall superior to healing spells, and relatively cheap to boot. She has bad damage output in a game where killing the opponent before it gets to move is the key to everything. To be fair to her, she's not actually terrible in anyway, just outdone. In fact, she can often compete/beat Beat in damage output+do area damage on top of that. In Encore, she's a metric ton better during the endgame due to picking up one of the two [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity+1 weapons]] at the beginning of the chapter if you go fetch it, and that weapon puts her among the top damage dealers, gives her regen that makes her one of your bulkiest characters, and it boosts experience for your entire team! Polka actually hits GameBreaker level for a while, until enemies really toughen up and your other characters get their final weapons much later.
*** 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 underleveled on rejoining. He 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. He was made worse in the [=PS3=] version.

** '''Low-Tier:'''

* GameBreaker

* SoOkayItsAverage: The game is a [[{{Reconstruction}} strictly traditional]] EasternRPG; people who went in with other expectations shouted this.

* TierInducedScrappy: Polka, Beat and Jazz.
** Polka is a healer in a game where healing items are overall superior to healing spells, and relatively cheap to boot. She has bad damage output in a game where killing the opponent before it gets to move is the key to everything. To be fair to her, she's not actually terrible in anyway, just outdone. In fact, she can often compete/beat Beat in damage output+do area damage on top of that. In Encore, she's a metric ton better during the endgame due to picking up one of the two [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity+1 weapons]] at the beginning of the chapter if you go fetch it, and that weapon puts her among the top damage dealers, gives her regen that makes her one of your bulkiest characters, and it boosts experience for your entire team! Polka actually hits GameBreaker level for a while, until enemies really toughen up and your other characters get their final weapons much later.
** 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 underleveled on rejoining. He 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. He was made worse in the [=PS3=] version.
** For Beat, it really seems the game is conspiring against him. There are thing about him that are actually excellent- he's a ranged character so doesn't take as much damage, he does pretty respectable damage, and when we hit the lategame, he gets a HP-draining move that makes him heal himself fully almost always... well, that'd be if he didn't have to suffer from having the overall worst stats in the game. He's the MasterOfNone to Retto's LightningBruiser. On top of this, the game developers decided to have him almost always get his next weapon upgrade later than everyone else, causing his otherwise very respectable attack to become a weakness. In comparison, Retto has attack to spare, but he tends to get his weapons FIRST! To be fair to the developers, at least they somewhat realized this, and buffed Beat's weapons to compensate. Beat is never outright terrible, but he kinda bounces from good to bad to great to mediocre in a way no other character does. For all of this though, he's never outright useless, as using his camera he can take photos and completely break the game's economy by making ungodly amounts of cash selling them.
* WhatAnIdiot:
** Prince Crescendo's plan to [[spoiler:surrender himself to CardCarryingVillain Count Waltz]].
** '''You'd Expect:''' Him to end the war peacefully.
** '''Instead:''' He [[spoiler:allows Forte to invade a weakened and confused Baroque]]. Everyone else seems to understand this, and tells him so.
** Count Waltz.
** '''You'd Expect:''' Him to order his men to fire and kill the heroes,
** '''Instead:''' He decides to take them all on himself for 'fun', accompanied only by a dragon that's extremely easy to defeat. He is then killed. Then [[spoiler:Legato]] 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:This 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 [[BreakThemByTalking breaking lecture]] from Waltz explaining his motivations.]]

** 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.
** 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 killed. Then [[spoiler:Legato]] 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:This 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 [[BreakThemByTalking breaking lecture]] from Waltz explaining his motivations.]]

* 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.

** Rondo, due to the fact that she's VERY difficult to guard against, due to her speed and she can inflict {{sta|ndardStatusEffects}}tus, damn her. Plus [[spoiler: Falsetto]] gets forced into the third slot of your party moments before the fight, which can screw up your formation, and if your healer gets kicked out...

* CompleteMonster: [[TheCaligula Count Waltz]], the [[TeensAreMonsters 16-year-old]] ruler of Forte City, oversaw the manufacturing of a drug called "mineral powder", and distributes it under the claim that it was a cure-all for illnesses. In actuality, extensive use of the drug drives the user to insanity culminating in [[BarredFromTheAfterlife sending them to an inescapable purgatory]] when they succumbed. Intending on invading Baroque with an army of [[SuperSoldier super soldiers]], Waltz searches for the "glowing agogos" to perfect his drug and turns his dragons onto Polka and her allies despite claiming that he would spare them. When beaten, he forces his advisor Legato to drink the unfinished concoction, transforming him into a wretched monster, and attempts to destroy the world upon rationalizing that [[TakingYouWithMe it was better for the world to die if he was not allowed to rule it]].

* CompleteMonster: [[TheCaligula Count Waltz]], [[TeensAreMonsters the 16-year-old]] ruler of Forte City, oversaw the manufacturing of a drug called "mineral powder", and distributes it under the claim that it was a cure-all for illnesses. In actuality, extensive use of the drug drives the user to insanity culminating in [[BarredFromTheAfterlife sending them to an inescapable purgatory]] when they succumbed. Intending on invading Baroque with an army of [[SuperSoldier super soldiers]], Waltz searches for the "glowing agogos" to perfect his drug and turns his dragons onto Polka and her allies despite claiming that he would spare them. When beaten, he forces his advisor Legato to drink the unfinished concoction, transforming him into a wretched monster, and attempts to destroy the world upon rationalizing that [[TakingYouWithMe it was better for the world to die if he was not allowed to rule it]].

* CompleteMonster: [[TheCaligula Count Waltz]] is the [[TeensAreMonsters 16-year-old]] ruler of Forte City who is [[BigBad responsible for all of the suffering throughout the game]]. Aspiring to [[TakeOverTheWorld dominate the world]], Waltz oversees the manufacturing of a mutagenic substance he dubs mineral powder. Marketing it as a miraculous cure all for illnesses, Waltz aims to create SuperSoldiers to wage war with Baroque; extensive use of the drug drives its user to madness after which their soul is trapped in a perpetual purgatory [[BarredFromTheAfterlife unable to move on]]. Concluding that beings known as the "glowing agogos" should increase the potency of the concoction, he tasks his henchmen with acquiring the creatures. Waltz becomes displeased upon realizing that his spy--[[TheMole Claves]]-- had fallen in love with the leader of Andantino--a rebel group out to overthrow him--and he sends [[DarkActionGirl Rondo]] to kill her, a fact that he mocks Jazz with later on. Learning that the agogos only glowed in [[IllGirl Polka]]'s presence, Waltz [[WouldHitAGirl slaps her to the ground]], and turns his dragons onto the group despite him saying that he'd spare them. Always a sore loser, he [[BadBoss forces his advisor, Legato, to drink the unfinished mineral powder]], transforming him into a horrid monster called the Ruined Body. [[VillainousBreakdown Refusing to accept defeat]], Waltz orders Legato [[OmnicidalManiac to destroy everything]], saying if he couldn't rule the world, [[TakingYouWithMe it may as well not exist]]. Power-hungry and alarmingly casual in his atrocities, Waltz saw experimenting on his own subjects as a necessary step towards total domination.