Ah, the Tokyo Game Show, the largest gaming event in Japan. This is where all the big video game junkies and companies come from all over the world to show case their breaking new games or products. One of the biggest attendees is Namco, who has recently combined forces with Bandai to make, Namco Bandai! They’ve shown off quite a few high quality titles for both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 systems but one game really stands out. Trusty Bell (recently titled Eternal Sonata in North America) is a fantasy role playing game developed by the good guys down at tri-Crescendo (also known as Tri-Ace) and will feature an in-depth story about a famous composer named Frederic Chopin who perished from this world on October 17, 1848 from a terrible disease. Before Chopin faded away, the game tells the story three hours prior where he is sunk into his own dream where a magical world awaits and everyone has an incurable disease.

From what this sounds like, this is a fantasy world made up of the famous composers’ dreams. In Trusty Bell you will follow two main characters. Polka, a young girl who knows and is awaiting her fate, while she has Allegretto, a young silver haired hero who is trying with all his might to save her. The trailer shown at the Tokyo Game Show displayed a couple plot elements. The big part of the trailer was seeing Chopin in his own dream world, is pretty strange to know you’re in Frederic’s dream yet you will not be playing as the dreamer. Another twist is that Polka seems to accept her upcoming death by presenting a scene where she falls backwards off a cliff. Allegretto is also accompanied by his younger brother who uses, what seems to be a gun. Nothing is said about the younger sibling but he will surely be a big part in the storyline.

The battle system in Trusty Bell, you can compare it to a game like Radiata Stories or Star Ocean. Like those titles, every battle you encounter will be triggered by a real-time monster running around the free roaming world. The game is set with a fixed camera angle in each area which shows off the beautiful visuals the game has to offer. When you encounter an enemy, the screen quickly melts away to the battle system, and this is where the game really gets interesting. Trusty Bell is what some people would call, a turn time based battle system. The game will feature the turn based selection but you will find yourself being timed after every action, so really you have about five seconds to move and attack with your enemy each turn. With this you can attack as many times as you wish in those couple seconds, and luckily if your character stops moving so will the battle clock. So really the game times you on your movement and attacks, this can come in handy when you are scrolling through your menu slots for each character.

In battle, A, B, X and Y all are able to perform a certain action. You can set each button to perform a specific skill but some will be set to changing characters or something like X that lets you choose an action in your navigation. Each battle is very similar to the most recent title, Radiata Stories. Being developed by the same developer (tri- Crescendo) the game puts you in a fully 3D roaming environment where you will be limited by a circular boarder around the battle field. You can move freely across this field and it aims to deliver a more strategic approach. The game will also feature special moves. On the right side of the screen you will see a hit bar, you wont see it at first but in time as you strike your opponent with combos, images of cartoony indicators will appear. When the bar is at its max it will start to glow from bottom to top and at that time you are able to perform a special move. You can of course do a special attack when the bar is low but it won’t be fancy nor will it be as powerful.

Visually speaking, the game is gorgeous. It’s not realistic but it was never suppose to be in the first place, it has more of a Japanese Anime feel to it. Trusty Bell has a strong coat of cel-shaded visuals on three dimensional models. Looking back at all the cel-shaded games out now or coming out for the last generation systems it makes you appreciate what you can do on the next-generation platforms. Backgrounds and environments also look quite fascinating as there is a lot of color and depth that goes into the world. From what we’ve seen, animation flows fluently, each cinematic was lip synced and captured each situation to the point. Battle animation also seems to have a unique animation style to it, unforuntly the only few thing that were shown were regular attacks and special moves but those are basically the few basic commands you’ll likely use. Everything was preformed at high quality.

The upcoming title Trusty Bell (Eternal Sonata for American gamers) is currently an Xbox 360 exclusive coming, hopefully by the end of the year but more likely sometime in 2007 considering Namco didn’t give any range of its launch date during the press conference. But with its high presentation, excellent graphics and new and interesting gameplay mechanics, Trusty Bell seems to be a must watch for anyone who enjoys Japanese Role Players. There will be more coverage on the Xbox 360 as the Tokyo Game Show progresses.