Baten Kaitos

by Namco

Product Features

• A breed apart from other RPGs - Its unconventional battle system, leveling system and compelling narrative offer a new kind of deep role-playing experience
• Turn-based card battle system based on the collection Magnus cards -- over 1,000 in all, with all kinds of powers and abilities
• Capture the essence of certain items within blank Magnus Cards, then reproduce these essences to solve puzzles, battle enemies and heal comrades
• Ingenious, twist-filled story rich with surprises and emotions
• Gorgeous graphics - sub-worlds, villages, cities and weather patterns burst with colors and details

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0002CHIWO
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches ; 4 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: November 16, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,682 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The world of Baten Kaitos is a world adrift in time and space. Humanity forges its existence on an archipelago of land floating in a yawning, endless sky. The earth below, and the vast oceans it once harbored, are mere legend. It is by no means a tranquil existence. A sinister conspiracy is afoot, one that threatens to tear these few remaining rafts of land from the heavens and erase forever the memory of the seas below. Act as conscience and spirit guide for young Kalas and his companion Xelha. Guide them in battle and watch their friendship bloom. Join them as they struggle to reveal the mystery of the lost sea and destroy the corruption that threatens their world.

Features

• Embark upon an epic and emotional journey across a richly imagined world. Enjoy detailed character development and unravel an intricate plot spanning over 60 hours of gameplay.
• Innovative, dynamic "Magnus card" system unites all elements of gameplay. Capture the essence of items, weapons and spells in Magnus cards and use them for exploration and combat. Cards in your inventory change with the passage of time: food ripens or rots, blades rust and rare items increase in value.
• Baten Kaitos' unconventional card-based battle engine features over 1000 Magnus cards--each with unique artwork--that can be combined for a virtually infinite number of attacks and spell effects.
• Enter a landscape overflowing with graphic detail. Vivid, pre-rendered backgrounds are alive with movement and subtle, ambient animations. Enjoy gloriously rendered battle environments and astounding spell effects.
• Character design by renowned artist Nakaba Higurashi. Epic, stirring soundtrack

Product Description

Baten Kaitos is a world where islands float in the air and oceans are story from the past. A world already on the edge is about to fall into chaos, when a young man named Kalas goes after revenge. Travelling with the more noble Xhela, they'll enter the ancient Moonguile Forest and seek out answers to old questions. As they go, they'll be led by a spirit that guides Kalas to his goal -- and his destiny as savior. Use Magnus Cards wisely -- foods will ripen or rot, items will rust and gain or lose value

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Falls short in many areas, May 15, 2005

By 

Michael Clarkson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Baten Kaitos (Video Game)

Oh, Baten Kaitos. What a fantastic game you could have been. With a little more care in your design, and a completely different voice cast, you could have been a game of the year. Instead, you're already fading from memory.

GAMEPLAY: Good
Potential buyers should be aware that the gameplay in Baten Kaitos will initially strike them as highly weird. Some aspects of RPG battling will be familiar: battle is turn-based, and your characters line up across a battle area from a group of baddies. At this point, though, things start to go a little strange, as you don't use mana, or technique points, or even equipment. Instead you play "Magnus Cards" that contain your spells, weapons, armor, and healing items. In a given turn you will "play" these cards from your hand, determine damage, and then "draw" new ones from your deck. You get to play cards any time you attack or defend yourself. By linking these cards together in an order determined by their "Spirit Numbers" you can play several at a time and enhance their effects. Playing certain cards in combination will create new cards entirely. Over time, some cards even change: a bamboo shoot becomes a bamboo spear, then a fishing pole. Bananas go from green, to ripe, to black and spotty. These aging events can change a healing item into an offensive one, and back again.

As your characters progress, the battle turn will start to depend more on reflexes, with a timer that limits how long you can wait to choose your first card. The amount of time you have available to choose cards after the first will depend on how long the character takes to attack -- if you don't choose one in time, your turn will end. The character Savyna attacks very quickly, so you're likely to end several turns prematurely in this way if you play with her. Additionally, as you start to get cards with more than one spirit number, the c-stick will come into play as a method for choosing which you want.

This card-based system allows for some astonishingly deep combat, but there is a significant problem: there is no discard feature. Most defensive cards cannot be played on an offensive turn, and unless you are supremely confident you will usually have more defensive cards in your deck than you can hold in your hand. It is therefore not uncommon to encounter a situation where a character has a hand consisting entirely of defensive cards, and no way to get rid of them except to play them one at a time as failed attempts at offense. Perversely, the game seems to sense which character is in this predicament and stop attacking him or her. A multi-card discard capability would have been most welcome, and anyone who's lost a battle because one of his characters had to sit out turn after turn would probably argue that it was essential.

Attacks deal "physical" and "elemental" damage; certain enemies are weak against certain elements, so this adds another layer of strategy. However, damage dealt by opposing elements cancels out. This gets to be a major problem for spellcasters, who primarily deal elemental damage, but who will not be able to continue attack combos in most cases without drawing from opposing elements. An obvious remedy for this difficulty is to adjust the characters' decks based on the situation. This proves to be time-consuming, however, and is made more so by the fact that you cannot save a deck setup. Furthermore, some characters have tendencies to receive useless elements. Kalas, for instance, ends up with an arsenal of high-level Darkness and Chronos based weapons, but his best finishing moves are based on Light and Wind (the opposite of Chronos in Baten Kaitos), and most late enemies are strong or immune to Darkness, limiting his usefulness.

As usual, characters earn experience by engaging in battle, though the characters who don't take part in a particular fight (only 3 can battle) earn *much* less. This sets up a dilemma: shuffle your characters in and out between fights so that everyone earns a moderate level of experience, or focus improvement on one or two? I ended up keeping Kalas in the party almost all the time, and rotating everyone except Savyna through the other two slots.

Almost all the characters have wings, but gameplay virtually ignores this fact. Indeed, in some areas you will be forced to use blocks to bridge very narrow canals of water, or you will have to take a very roundabout route to get past a low ledge or a little gap. It's not clear why the characters don't just fly over these obstacles, but my guess is that it's because the designers spent all their creativity on the battle system and couldn't spare any to devise less pedestrian puzzles for their dungeons. With the exception of some interesting block problems in the Tower of Zosma, the puzzles in Baten Kaitos are universally lame; even the game's "labyrinth" is small and easily navigated.

Ignoring the wings is a particular loss in battles. The idea of flying heroes brings to mind images of furious, kinetic aerial battles that are just as much about positioning and trajectory as they are about your choice of attacks and defenses. None of that here, though; it's just the same "line up and fight" arena that's been around since Final Fantasy I. It's a disappointment, but a survivable one.

The game offers an interesting and strategically deep battle system which is sorely lacking one key feature. The few puzzles you encounter are generally boring, and often make no sense in the context of the game world. In the end, although it's definitely different, I have trouble saying that the card-based system is measurably better than any other RPG battle system, and in fact I'd have to say the real-time battle system of Tales of Symphonia (also by Namco) was superior. Even on its own terms the system here is not as good as it could or should be: aside from the discard problem, magic-users are occasionally hamstrung by the elemental system, and some characters are significantly harder to use without being any more effective in battle. Overall, good but not exceptional.

STORY: Excellent
The story centers around Kalas, who seems strangely uninterested in saving the world for a lead character in an RPG. He's more intent on avenging himself against the people who killed his grandfather and brother. You play a guardian spirit who advises him on his journey, though you've developed a case of amnesia. Kalas seemingly gets dragged into a quest to gather strange cards called End Magnus by a girl named Xelha, but a twist about halfway through the game will simultaneously explain almost everything and also give you quite a jolt. From there on the story is much more straightforward, though it continues to be nicely constructed. Themes of loyalty, duty, and regret are prominent, and for the most part reasonably well-played.

However, there are some glaring weaknesses. Lyude in particular is poorly written; noble protector one moment, sobbing wimp the next. Giacomo's motivations are obscure, and Melodia's lines are often just awful. Some of the other characters are glossed over -- Gibari's personality is mostly unexplained, and Savyna's backstory doesn't quite fit with the timeline for anyone else. A couple of important plot points receive painfully bad explanations, and the love story is pretty weak, too. These weaknesses are often exacerbated by the bad voice acting.

Overall, though, the story is entertaining and progresses believably. Game areas serve the plot, rather than vice-versa, so you never feel like the developers were suffering through story to string together dungeons.

AUDIO: Poor
Baten Kaitos has the worst voice acting and dialogue recording quality of any piece of media I have ever encountered in my life, and this includes the radio dramas I recorded on tape with my brother when I was ten. I cannot imagine how anyone at Namco approved this terrible, terrible audio track. The actors themselves often seem incapable of emoting through any means except growling and howling; in this regard Kalas is particularly bad. Almost every line is overplayed. Only Gibari is passable. Of course, even if the voice acting had been fantastic, the recording quality would have ruined it. There's a tinny resonant noise in every line of dialogue, as if each was recorded by having the voice actors shout into a microphone at the bottom of a coffee can. The only good thing about the dialogue is that everything the characters say is also printed on screen, so you can turn it off and lose nothing. The character voices will still be inflicted upon you in battle, however. The sound effects are forgettable, except for the "finishing move" prelude, which has a high-end whine that grates on my ears.

The music is fair overall, and very good in some cases ("Imperial Dynamics" has a great violin flair at the beginning, and "Temple of Celestial Flowers" is just all-around good). A few pieces, however, seem to be recycled... "Mystery Crystal" sounds very similar to the music that plays in Exire and Heimdall in Tales of Symphonia, for instance. However, the music does not make up for the wretched voices, in my opinion.

VISUALS: Excellent
The game has a full 3-D intro that looks astounding, but don't get your hopes up. Nothing in the rest of the game (save for the Magnus shopkeepers) looks quite like that. Nonetheless, the character renders (which you'll only see full-sized in battle scenes) are quite good, though one or two are too cluttered. The backgrounds are layered and feature a fair amount of animation, all very well drawn. However, the scale of these environments occasionally dwarfs the onscreen character, making it difficult to track motion. The variety and bizarre beauty of these environments tends to compensate, however. Some of the special attacks look... Read more ›

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Final Fantasy on Cube? Not quite but very unique, January 2, 2005

By 

Tso Haven Hei Wan "Havenough Dupont Randall-B... (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Baten Kaitos (Video Game)

Baten Kaitos could be considered as another most anticipated RPG for Cube owners. Developed by the same minds behind Xenosaga and Chrono Cross, it could be understood why it is an anticipated title.

Baten Kaitos returns to the turn base RPG but with cards. Though most card battle systems are disappointing, the card battle system in Baten Kaitos provides the player both intuitive and strategic options in the battle. Players started off with a small number of cards they card hold and wield in the battle and as they "class up" the number of both increased. However, a "class up" also change the initially infinity time limit for wielding the first card to as short as 5 seconds. That means you have to make sure you get the right cards in the decks before the battle starts, for changes are not possible once it is started. Kills are relying on combos. Pairs and same cards in no matter what order increases your chance of scoring bonus, nonetheless, it is the straight numbers, no matter ascending or descending that counts most. The numbers are written on the cards, from initially one on the right to over all four corners. A good combo can triple damage to 300% of the face values. Further different characters have different speed in finishing one move. For example Savyna is extremely fast but devastating. So if you want her to kill fast, you have to think fast for once the action of the last card is finished, the string is broken and the turn is finished.

On top of that, the elemental factor plays a huge part in the game. To improve your kills, you have to have the right elements in your deck. So fire against water and vice versa. Nonetheless, in terms of defence, it is more difficult to predict for a water based enemy could cause more than one elemental damage, which mean you might need different armours to protect yourself, especially if the attacks on you are multiple.

The downside of this card system is the randomness in the cards available in each round. There could be a chance that you only have attack cards in your defence round, which means if your attack cards can't act as defence cards, you would just be standing there to be hit. Of course you can forfeit certain cards to hope that defence cards will come up, but that will also mean that you are losing attack cards in the next round.

Cards in the game could be purchased from shops but prices are steep. So the best will be getting them from the enemies. However, this would require players to spend huge amount of time to create their dream decks. Certain enemies drop certain cards repeatedly, so you can decide whether you would want to stay in one area for a long time just to level up your character and your cards.

Levelling up is done through visiting the church. Level up, as mentioned is by experience points but class up requires certain items that you could find throughout the adventure.

In terms of dungeons designs, there are areas that could be annoying especially considering your enemies will reappear if you leave one place and go back later. There are a number of dungeons requiring backtracking, which if you are not a levelling up fan you could find it annoying. Puzzles are pretty straight forward though. The graphic designs are lavishing and full of style. Different islands have different cultures and they are fully exhibited and exploited. Every bit of details that you could think about were attended to. The only downside is some of the non playable characters are quite unobvious that you can't see them. This would be annoying when you need to finish certain side quests. The opening scene is phenomenal and can rival to all current FF series.

Story wise, it is in fact very cliché and there are some really annoying bits. It is very typical Japanese style and some of the chauvinistic aspect would put some people off. Nonetheless, having said that there are still a number of twists that could impress you a lot in the plot. However, it is quite linear at certain points for you won't be able to do anything but what you are asked to do. The most innovative part comes in when you are actually playing the role of a guardian spirit. Characters will ask you for your opinion and advice and a good advice could increase your tie with your character. This improves the interactivity of the game.

In the department of music, the tunes are well composed but they are recycled too many times in the game. Sometimes after listening to the same tune again and again in different areas you would just want to switch the music off. The voice acting is even worse with cheeky tones connecting cheeky conversation, the best solution will be turn the voice off, though you still could not cut the voice off in battles, as you could do with Arc The Lac.

In all Baten Kaitos does offer a whole lot of good game plays. The battle system is good and the side quests are interesting, though pretty standard. It is more interactive and it definitely offers a different and unique experience in game plays. However, the story itself and the voice acting taxed out quite a bit of the game. Hopefully in the remaining a year or so for the Cube before the Revolution, Nintendo would be releasing more new and good RPG titles. Probably a lot of Cubers are looking forward to Zelda, Advance Wars on GC, Fire Emblem and Golden Sun. But at the meantime, just enjoy a good game with Baten Kaitos.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my new faves, July 28, 2005

By 

RPG Fan (California) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Baten Kaitos (Video Game)

I love this game and it is now ranked up there with FFX on my list of awesome RPGs. I really love this game, it's as simple as that. I recently bought a GCN solely for the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess that will be coming out soon and was just wandering the aisles looking for anything decent when I happened upon this bad boy. Everything about Baten Kaitos is ingenious-- battle engine is awesome and intuitive, graphics are amazing, and storyline is incredible. I'm a die hard RPG fan and have grown tired of the same hack and slash, cast magic, heal your party, etc... that's out there. BK answers the call of breaking through the monotony via a card-based battle system and it works very well. Leveling seems like less of a chore since every battle is literally different; each time you'll be dealt different cards to use. The customization of each player's deck is also emjoyable for those who like card-based games. The utility of time is a really cool aspect. For example, if you hang on to some green bananas (an attack item at first. You chuck 'em at the enemy) they'll ripen and become a healing item. Hang on to them for too long and they become rotten and their status changes again. Cards can also be combined to create new cards-- mix up some Light magic with a flower bud and you have a flower, etc... The manner in which you collect money is the most creative system I've encountered and I really like it. You aren't paid for every victory-- you have to take pictures of either the monsters you're fighting or your characters-- and you can only do so if you're dealt the "camera" card. It's a really cool system in my opinion. Leveling is also done a little differently. You're rewarded with experience after each battle but it doesn't do any good unless you visit a priest and have him level you up. All of the small things in this game that have been tweaked from the norm of the RPG genre is what really sets it apart and makes it different-- the reason why I like it so much. Sound and voice acting don't apply to me since I'm deaf, I know that seems to be something that most people are complaing about but it doesn't affect me at all. The intro cinematic is just breathtaking, the graphics are stunning, and the concept of the world being presented is clever. Some more CG scenes would be nice but the graphics in the game are good enough to compensate. Other than that I recommend this title to all RPG fans and GCN owners. BK is not to be missed.