Eternal Sonata "Encore" - the defining 1000G

After finishing Enchant Arm about 5 days ago, I began working on my 2nd playthrough of Eternal Sonata (aka Encore playthrough) in order to get the remaining 660 gamerscore which were attainable only on the 2nd playhrough. In a way, it's kinda funny that the 660G comprise of only 5 out of the total 22 achievements, implicating how significant the 2nd playthrough is in term of getting a major score for this game. And one of the achievement has a pretty odd score at 321 gamerscore (rebalanced by one other achievement at 81G), which correspond well with what the achievement is all about (collect all EZI items). EZI = 321.

I find getting full 1000G for Eternal Sonata isn't that hard, especially if you complete everything you need to do in my first playthrough (in particular, the Mysterious Unison secret Dungeon and all scores/achievements that we can get from there). Overall it took me about 3 days, or 20 hours in total to get the full 1000G, although I basically did not finish the Encore and stop the moment I get the final achievement, Score Piece Collector.

The battle itself isn't particularly hard either, although Encore is basically the "hard mode" of Eternal Sonata. The hard thing probably is that normal mobs can kill you in one or two hits if you didn't heal quickly, and many bosses (especially Captain Dolce) almost certainly will kill you quick enough. But just like normal mode, healing itself is not a problem as you can stock all sorts of Angel Plume/party heal 3000/6000 hp etc, now that you can set the full 50 items right from the start. And money isn't a problem either thanks to Beat's photo. And lastly, the fact that we can use Party level 6 from the start rebalanced the difficulty since you can spam Harmony Chains in every battle, and even more in boss fights.

As for character usage, one could argue that Salsa is better than Viola because che can rack up combo faster, and hence is more useful with party Level 6. But I don't find much difference between the two when they combo, both can accumulate similar amount of hits, although Salsa can hit easier. In the end of the day, I'd rather pick Viola (along with Allegretto and Falsetto) than Salsa because...well I would pick boobs any day over some rough lolis :3 Too bad if only Claves was available all the time in Encore, I would have pick her from level 50 onwards. Her design was really nice, and her stat growth at higher levels are insane.

ps: Claves > Viola > Rondo > Serenade > Falsetto > Polka >>> the Agogo twins