Review: Baten Kaitos
From the studio that brought us quality RPG titles such as Chrono Cross, Xenosaga, and Xenogears, Namco Hometek (formerly of Squaresoft) created a RPG for the Nintendo Gamecube, and its name is Baten Kaitos. Oh and did I mention that the battle scenes are card based. Normally I would run for my life from a game that is card based, but could this game change my mind?
Story:
You are the guardian spirit for a young man Named Kalas whom is out to gain vengeance for the murder of his brother and grandfather. Along the way he meets Xelha a girl with a mysterious past, whom is out to stop an insidious plot.
Graphics:
Baten Kaitos is easily one of the most beautiful games made for the Gamecube, while almost surpassing the Final Fantasy games in many respects as the most beautiful RPG available in the current market, but what keeps it from being at the top of the heap is that the game's latent beauty can sometimes get in the way of exploration because necessary paths can become hidden in the lush backgrounds.
Music:
Musically Baten Kaitos is excellent, and that also applies to the sound and voice acting, but I feel that it could have been a bit better, but that is me being picky again, I just wanted more of this soundtrack, I should know I loved it enough that I own it.
Control:
You only really control your characters out of the battle scenes because battles quite literally rely on luck of the draw, and reshuffling, but are still fun and engaging. As for out of battle the game plays like all of its Square/Enix RPG brethren which is a good thing if you like Square RPG's but for those of us that were wanting more we might find ourselves wanting more
Game play: As I said before this game is card based, but instead of cards being the primary focus of everything in the game, cards are used more like storage containers, or storage slots, and in battle cards are used as the characters own menu, so each characters have their own deck so you can design them to play anyway you want, if you want one character to focus on healing the party you can stack the deck with healing items and spells. All and all the game play is fun and surprisingly engaging, but being a card based system you can get an occasional bad draw which can lead to your death, still if you do die you are allowed to retool your characters decks, and retry the failed fight.
Design:
Each Character seems almost a little too gaudy, if not a little stereotypical of many RPG' of this generation, I mean that Gibari blatantly looks like a Wakka (FF 10) rip-off, and Kalas sees like a Cloud (FF 7) rip-off only having one wing and all. That aside though each character is well designed, and the stages are well done, and gorgeous.
Amazing Graphics, Good design, good characters, good use of cards, and well thought out plot is what makes Baten Kaitos a great surprise. If you don't own this game you should at the least try it out, especially if you like RPG's and you own a Gamecube, I have a feeling you will be as pleasantly surprised as I was by this game and run out to buy it.
Graphics
9.5/10
Game play
7/10
Sound
9/10
Fun factor
9/10
Tilt
9/10
Average score
8.7
Baten Kaitos:
Pros:
Great Music
Amazing Graphics
Good design
Good characters
Good Story
Surprisingly good Game play
Cons:
Card based game might scare many away
Graphics can sometimes hinder game play
Some characters are blatant Square RPG Rip-offs