An epic game with over 50 hours of enjoying gameplay

User Rating: 9.6 | Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean GC
Namco was in shape in 2004. After the release of another great RPG(tales of symphonia) they showed Baten Kaitos. Unlike ToS this isen't a game with realtime battles but turnbased card attacks. Even though this game does only has the basics of RPG(exp => leveling) it has it's own original way to do this. You get experience for beating enemies in card battles but you don't level up when you have the right number of experience, instead you have to find a blue flower. They can transport you to the church where you can talk to the priest to level up. Leveling up means more life and more power with your attacks.
But your level is not the only thing that can improve you. in order to understand this you need to understand the battle system first.

You get a deck with a certain number of cards. There are weapon, armor, healing, damage and just useless cards. When you attack you first choose a target. Or an enemy or someone from your team(1-3). Then you choose the cards you want to use against him/her. This way you can heal your teammates but also enemies if you're not carefull. All cards have one or more numbers on them. By tilting the C-stick i the right direction you can select the number you want. These numbers add an extra dimension to battles since combo's are possible. These combo's all can be found in poker(f.e. a pair, two pairs, three of a kind or 1-2-3-4-5...)

Back to the improvement now. At the beginning you can use up to two cards in one turn. after a while you can upgrade your class, making your deck larger and increasing the number of cards you can use in one turn. Another thing it does is decreasing the amount of time you have to select your first card, which will cause chaotic moments from time to time.

As I said before Baten Kaitos uses cards. Most of these cards like swords or armor stay the same, but other change over time. A bamboo shoot that can heal you can turn into a bamboo spear that can attack enemies.

After explaining all that let's start with the story. You are a spirit that accompanies Kalas. For some reason you have lost your memory, so you help Kalas while trying to get back your memory. Over time the story gets complicating and depends on your choices. From time to time you are asked something, depending on your answers the story will unfold in a different direction, allowing multiple endings for the game.

Not everything is perfect though. The music is great, but sometimes it's hard to find out where you have to go. Or atleast you know but can't. For those who don't know what I'm talking about I'll give an example. At a certain moment I had to find someone's house in the city. I ran around seeking it but couldn't find it. It was not clearly indicated I could go right to a street, in fact I could not even see a street and ran in accidentaly. Eventually I found it, but it took a while and spoiled the atmosphere.

In general this is a really fun game that keeps you at it for a while. I you like RPG's you have to try this one.