Baten Kaitos Review

Outside the battle system is a world to explore. You travel from town to town through an overworld which is surprisingly reminiscent of Chrono Cross’s picturesque visuals. In typical RPG format, you’ll explore various towns, talk to people, go shopping at a store, save, rest, and perform sidequests.

On the subject of save points, they are huge flower buds that comes in red and blue. Red flowers only allows you to save, whereas blue flowers not only save your progress, but also give you the opportunity to visit a church and “pray” in order to level up or build your class up by one. There are no chests at all in the game because every item you pick up are Magnus which can be found or obtained through searching shelves, desks, and other places. Quest Magnus are items in which you use outside of battle. Need to get through a pile of rocks and want a grenade? Well, you can pick them up and use them for that situation. Other items like apples and water are used for their respective purposes and you’ll usually gain a few useful Magnus. Money is not hard to find because you’ll obtain money through battles. You use a camera magnus to take pictures and once you obtained a picture, let it develop for a while until the resolution is clear, thus when you sell it, the value will increase drastically.

Shop owners are more likely to give you more money if the developed picture is fully developed, thus the idea of time is used for certain Magnus. An apple will rot, pictures will eventually become clear, milk becomes yogurt, then cheese, helpful items will become harmful and so on. A unique feature found within Baten Kaitos is the relationship level between Kalas and you, the Guardian Spirit. There are times when Kalas will ask you a question and whatever decision you choose will effect whether super finishers will appear more frequently. Finishers are cards used in battle as the final card.

The graphics in the game are out of the ordinary. Players are treated to a beautifully made FMV sequence before the start of the actual game, while the rest of the game happens to be prerendered. This may cause a lot of heads to pop up, because Resident Evil Remake contains (even to this day) unparalleled visuals for the naked eye. However, Baten Kaitos improved on that through making “living environments” and beautiful scenery. From trees swaying, water flowing with exuberance and realism, fog passes by, lights illuminating, all while the camera follows Kalas around from place to place.

A downside for certain people would be the lack of FMV to further enhance the story, as well as the fact the characters don’t seen to have any facial animation or expression. This could be considered a turn off for many gamers, but once you jump into the game and awe in glory as you see the visuals. From the sound perspective, it’s muffled in the beginning, but if you change your sound settings to Surround sound, everything will be fixed except for the controversial part of the game….the voice acting.

While it’s not the worst, nor the best, the voice acting of certain characters is tolerable, and not much more. There are often times if you wonder if Namco just picked up a few hitchhikers and gave them parts in the game. They expressed barely any real emotion in the game and at times feel two-dimensional.

The music is superb. Motoi Sakuraba has done an excellent job bringing these songs in its glory in the final product of the game. There are many varied tunes that are generally memorable and favorable for the players. And on a technical level, it sounds great as well. The musical score succeeds on the same level of the rest of the experience: it is usually beautiful, ambient, and generally complementary to the events on-screen.

This game is an experience. One of the best RPGs of the year, no matter how you look at it. It succeeds where nearly every other game in its genre has failed: by making card-battling fun. The stigma attached to card games does not apply at all to Baten Kaitos–its system is intuitive, strategic, and easy to get the hang of, while being difficult to master. All in all, it just works. It’s surprisingly accessible.

Ultimately, Baten Kaitos is a brilliant title; a piece of art that will take gamers into a journey beyond their wildest fantasies. The game will take 60 hours to complete, but that’s without all of sidequest. It’s definitely one of the finest GameCube games made to date thanks to its innovative system, lush graphics, excellent story and damn near jaw-dropping soundtrack. If anyone happens to be a GameCube owner, this is a must buy and a test to prove that you’re supporting Nintendo through and through not just with third party support, but also with quality games in general.