A wonderful card-based rpg, that is one of the few amazing games of its kind to ever grace the nintendo gamecube.

User Rating: 9.5 | Baten Kaitos II: Hajimari no Tsubasa to Kamigami no Shishi GC
Story

The story starts off with a young man named Sagi; his guardian spirit (beings from another world that make contracts with humans) and his puppet like friend Guillo who are members of the dark service, a group that handles all the dirty work for the empire nation of Alfard. On a dark night, Sagi is charged with carrying out the assisination of the current emperor but before he can complete his task, someone intervenes and takes the life of the emperor. After that, Sagi, Guillo and his guardian spirit are hunted for a crime they didnt commit....cornered by the empire on the streets of Alfard with nowhere left to run, the party is saved by a graceful, yet amazingly powerful heroine: Milliarde. After you are joined by Milliarde, what starts off as a way to prove your innocence soon becomes a journey to uncover the secrets about the gods of the past, a corrupted empire and your own self discovery. A journey of danger and corruption, where somethings are not always what they appear to be.

Battle System

The battle system in BKO is unique, instead of your traditional turn based, pick and attack and go system; abilities, weapons and even items are in the form of cards called magnus. All three of your characters share a deck with a total of 60 cards held within a particular deck. When you begin battle, a total of seven cards are generated in hand. Now granted, you may not get a good hand at first, but you can easily discard a card and then another will be added to your hand. Combos are where this game shines; its also the only way you will survive the myriad of boss encounters. Regular attack cards go from 1-3 and can be chained together along with special moves particular to each character to do substantial damage. As you battle enough enemies, you gain technical points which can be used to increase the size of your deck along with the cards you can hold in hand. Combos can be executed a lot easier once your relationship with your guardian spirit is high. At certain points in the game, Sagi will look for advice from his guardian spirit (you) and depending on how you answer, it increases the likelihood of getting that specific card you want in battle to maximize your combo and damage.

Graphics

For one of the few rpg titles on the gc, I must say that this game is beautiful, all your main characters are drawn perfectly and are presented with amazing voice acting; not to mention the towns are colorful and detailed; one of my personal interest was Diadem: City of the Clouds, you really get to immerse yourself in the visuals.

Negative

The only reason this game didnt get a perfect ten was because i personally didnt like the fact that Guillo was so weak. It possessed the greatest magical powers between the three and sometimes I found myself dying before I can get a combo going; other than that, the game was amazing :)

Rating

Baten Kaitos Origins: 9.5/10