 |
|
|
Baten Kaitos Review
|
| Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean is a recent RPG produced by Namco for the Nintendo GameCube. My first thought about the game, like most people out there, was rather cynical. Its battle system is by far the most innovative thing about it; it is turn based, but you select things called 'Magnus' to fight with. They are basically cards. Naturally, this sounded rather strange. However, it's highly fun and addicting, rather than being a dull, boring card game. If you actually give it a shot, rather than being turned off by the 'turn-based card battle system', it's really awesome. It's become one of my favorite games of all time. Story The story is quite intricate. It's not all important, like in some games, but it's got a pretty good story. There's several plot twists in the game, too, so you won't be able to predict everything by any means. Basically, your game starts out as a guy named Kalas. In the beginning, he comes off as a jerk, but he gets past that. He meets a girl named Xelha at the beginning, too, and by a few events they team up. Eventually you find out about an evil Emperor's plans to unleash things called 'End Magnus', which contain the deadly power of an ancient evil god. Xelha is wrapped up in this. Her purpose is to stop the Emperor, Geldoblame. Over time, they meet new people who join their cause. A few things that relate to the rest of the story (I'm not going to say the rest of the plot because it spoils the first part) and that should be known are that everyone lives in the Sky, on five islands. This is because in a war with the humans and the gods, a millennium ago, the earth became tainted with evil poison. It is surrounded by poisonous clouds. There is actually much more to the story, as you will find out. The story is quite wonderful at any rate; it's not your typical dull, boring fare. Story Grade- 10/10 Controls Wow! A game that uses the C stick for something besides camera angles! I was surprised by this. I'll tell you about that in the gameplay, but Baten Kaitos makes use of almost every button. A, of course, lets you talk to people, select things, use certain commands like go down a ladder and climb on top of something, etc. B is your typical "back" command in menus and the like. Y activates the main menu. X and Y are used to sort things in some sections of the menu. You move around with the Control Stick, of course... L and R select your targets in battle. There's a lot to remember, but the controls are effective and not hard to use. Controls Grade- 10/10 Gameplay Gameplay is by far where Baten Kaitos shines. Sure, you've had second thoughts about it, right? I wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was either. The majority of your gaming will be in battles, but let's discuss outside-of-battle gameplay first. There aren't really very many puzzles in the game for you to solve. Only a few areas in the game really require much thinking. The only complaint I have about outside-battle gameplay is that your character moves SO slow. And you can't hold B like in some games to speed up. You're perpetually moving at a slow walking speed. Outside of battle you're not doing a lot but walking around, talking to people and the like. Before actually describing the battles, you should know about the Magnus system. Magnus are basically cards that contain the 'essence' of an object. In the game, there are around a thousand different ones. Most of the Magnus you'll use are in battle. You see, the Magnus you use outside of battle (as the game calls it, 'in camp') disappear once used. The ones in battle never disappear. For this reason, you should nearly always heal in battle, with healing Magnus, rather than using items in camp. Battle Magnus can, however, deteriorate in different ways. For instance, one of the early Magnus you get, Flame Swords, turn into short swords because they lose their flames. Almost all food items (your healing Magnus) rot over time. Other Magnus, like a fortune Magnus, change rapidly. One moment it may be a good fortune, the next it may be awful. So, Magnus won't stay the same throughout your game. Also, unlike most RPGs, there are no 'equippable weapons' or anything. There is a type of Magnus called an "Equip Magnus", but there are few of these. All they do is enhance your stats somewhat. Only one can be equipped, as well. One more thing that's different from most RPGs is that your leveling up is done in a place, rather than after a battle. Whereas in most games you'd get a certain amount of experience points and then level up, you just gain these experiments and travel to a church. You get there through giant blue flowers, which can also save your game. Also, red flowers have only the capability of saving the game, but you can't go to the church. In the church you can speak to the priest, and level up/class up from there. Now then, you'll be spending most of your time in battles, so I'll describe those. Your party of characters in battle can only be three out of the six characters you have. They cannot be switched out when they die, either. As I've said, the game is turn-based. However, you don't select every character's move all at once. It's more interactive. You select your battle Magnus one at a time, and select more in real time. If you're not fast enough, the turn ends. As the game progresses, you can "Class Up" and increase the number of Magnus you can use and the number of Magnus in your hand and deck. You can also defend against enemy attacks with defensive Magnus. Some Magnus double with defense and offense, as well. One of the things you have to pay attention to in battles is elements. There are six elements: Water and Fire, Dark and Light, and Wind and Chrono. Each of the two in each set oppose each other. Water cancels Fire and vice versa, Dark cancels Light and vice versa... and so on. For instance, if you use two Magnus in a turn, one with a Water attribute and another with a Fire attribute, the elemental damage will negate. Let's say you did 60 damage with Fire, and 40 with Water. It would end up doing only a total of 20 Fire damage. The lesser is subtracted from the greater. You have to pay close attention to what Magnus you can use or not use without lowering your damage. Also, some enemies are more weak to one element. Choosing the right ones can increase your damage. Another thing that adds to the battle are 'spirit numbers'. These numbers appear in corners of the cards (you start out with only one, but it increases over time to four). Choosing the right numbers in order will grant you bonus damage. The bonus comes in a percent. For instance, choosing four of the same spirit number in a row would net you a bonus of around 40% or so. To calculate this, you'd take 40% of your total damage and add it on to the total damage. By the end of the game, you can do a full straight of the numbers one through nine-- this nets you around a 300% bonus! You select the spirit number you want with the C-stick, pointing it in the direction of the corner with the number you want on it. You can also press A to select a Magnus, but this will always select the spirit number in the top-right corner. One other thing you have to watch out for is using healing items on enemies. You can select them just like any other Magnus in battle. Using them in defense, however, can provide resistance effects to status effects. These effects include things like confusion, which simply spin spirit numbers on the Magnus around in a circle, poison and flames, which lower HP gradually, Death, Freeze, and a few others. Using these factors, you simply select the Magnus you want in battle. You start out with three in your hand and two usable in a row, but that increases to seven in your hand and nine usable in a row by the end of the game. With this increase, or classing up as I said before, comes a limited time to choose your first Magnus, though. In the beginning your time is unlimited, but you end up with only four seconds once you're up to the highest, Class 6. Lastly, you get a super-powerful Magnus occasionally on your last move. Like, if you could use three in a row, it would appear on your third. Only Kalas can do this, but he'll get a super-powerful one at random occasionally. Combine all this into the basic battle system and you've got Baten Kaitos's gameplay! It sounds difficult and odd, but you really get used to it and it becomes second nature. Gameplay Grade- 10/10 Music/Sound Effects This could sound a little biased, because the soundtrack is composed by my favorite composer, Motoi Sakuraba. The soundtrack is quite lovely, though. All the songs are well-composed and don't get annoying at all. The only complaint I have about it is that a lot of them sound too.. similar. They can be classified easily into: 1. Battle themes, 2. Happy town music, 3. Emotional or sad level/town/event music, and 4. 'Imperial' sounding songs. Where's the variety? There is none. I have the soundtrack on disk and have listened to it many, many times, but there are still a few songs I can't tell a difference between very easily. I showed a friend two or three songs, and when he listened to one, then another, he asked me if it was the same song. Variety is the only complaint I have with the wonderful soundtrack. As for the sound effects... I'll say what I usually do. They're nice, but nothing really special. I don't ever pay a lot of attention to them. The voice acting constitutes most of the SFX though. The voice acting is not terrible, but it's not great either. You hear it a ton in the game, of course, so thankfully it's not bad. But, it sounds as if the characters are talking into something that echoes slightly, giving them a slightly robotic sound. They do speak with emotion, but it's as if they're talking into a big, empty metal can, like the ones ground coffee beans come in. That really could have been better. Music/Sound Effects Grade- 8/10 Graphics The graphics in Baten Kaitos are wonderful. Everything's wonderfully detailed, colorful, and vivid. The only real problem in here is that sometimes your character is totally dwarfed by the size of the environment you're in. It can be very hard to see your character sometimes because of this. It doesn't happen much, but it is quite annoying. Effects from battles look nice, though some are dull. There also is some very occasional slowdown and lag on just a couple of finisher moves. Nevertheless, Baten Kaitos is a very appealing game visually. Graphics Grade- 9/10 Challenge As an RPG, Baten Kaitos is slightly on the easy side. Unlike most RPGs, there is never a time where you will feel like pulling your hair out, screaming in anger, throwing your GameCube controller across the room, stomping off, slamming the door shut, and going to do something else. It's up to you to decide whether that's really a good thing or not, I suppose. But there isn't really a part of the game that's difficult. It's not easy, but you'll be able to breeze through most of it pretty easily. There's only two or three bosses that are just insanely hard. Also, the game advertises 60+ hours of gameplay (though my time was around 55 hours), so there's certainly no shortage of challenge as far as length goes. All in all, it's not too easy or hard. Challenge Grade- 10/10 Fun Factor I personally found Baten Kaitos a very fun game. It's my new favorite game, actually. If turn based battles are totally, completely not your thing, though, you probably won't find it too fun. Obviously, most of your game time is spent battling. I find the battle system intriguing. It actually makes you pay attention to lots of things, rather than just being a simple "hit the A button over and over again to attack" sort of turn based thing. It's actually pretty darn fun if it's your thing. Fun Factor Grade- 10/10 Replayability/Extras Well, there are around a thousand Magnus to collect. There are also extra things and sidequests to do to obtain other Magnus. You can collect the fifty pieces of the 'Star Map' to obtain a total of fifty new Magnus (one for every piece, of course). There are numerous other quests to do to get more Magnus if you want to take the time to do it. There are Magnus combos you can do to get a bonus Magnus, too, called an SP Combo. You won't be short on extra things in Baten Kaitos. As for replayability... well, the sheer length of Baten Kaitos will probably mean you've had enough. I loved it, but I don't plan on replaying it for a while. As I mentioned before, with 55-60+ hours of gameplay (MUCH more if you get everything in the game), you just won't want to do the whole thing over again. Replayability/Extras Grade- 10/10 Pros and Cons Pros: -Awesome battle system -Long game -Good graphics -Good soundtrack -Lots of extra things -Fun! Cons: -Music has little variety -Voice acting sounds echo-ish -Large environments can dwarf the character and its movement -No hard mode Rent, Buy, or Leave it on the Shelf? If you love RPGs, it's a must-buy. If you don't like turn-based battling at all, it's maybe a rent, just to see if you like the interesting spin on it. If you like the idea of it, give it a rent. There's very few people out there to whom I'd suggest "Don't buy this game at all". Overview of Scores Story- 10/10 Controls- 10/10 Gameplay- 10/10 Music- 9/10* Sound Effects- 8/10* Graphics- 9/10 Challenge- 10/10 Fun Factor- 10/10 Replayability- 9/10* Extras- 10/10* *: Separate categories in the Overview, but are listed in the same category in the actual review. When changed into two categories from one, they are subject to slight change in some cases. TOTAL SCORE- 95/100 (or 9.5/10, which I will round up to 10/10) |