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Baten Kaitos Appreciation Thread

S

Shikamaru Ninja

任天堂 の 忍者
Let us not forget this game. I think it will go down as one of my favorite RPGs ever. I also think it has the best intro ever. I mean the further you get in the game, the intro means more and more. "Ohhh that's what that is". The battle system and score were also spectacular. The only negative thing was that the characters were kind of lame, well for a serious RPG anyway. Kalas was cool though.

Where the hell is Baten Kaitos DS!!!
 
It also has the best voice actors from Shenmue (In other words the worst voice acting in pretty much any game this generation)
 
I'm about 30 hours into it, but it's been a challenge to keep chugging along. The art and graphics are really pretty to look at, and the music is great, but I do have issues with the game. The story had a very cliche thing going until about halfway through the game (i.e. collect the five magical things) when it took a turn for the better, but it was still a struggle through that part. As you mentioned, the characters were kinda weak too. Probably the biggest thing though is the battle system; while different, innovative and fun, battle's took TOO friggin' long. An average battle could last about 5-6 minutes long, and a boss battle could easily take you a 20 minutes to a 1/2 hour... and I don't necessarily have that amount of time in a day for a single battle. Especially since I was just coming off of the Tales games too.

However, I do agree that it's an underappreciated RPG; one of the better ones I've played this generation.
 
Definitely one of the better turn-based battle systems I've experienced this generation...But Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga takes the cake on that one overall.
 
well since not many bought it's an underrated game. the battles are damn smooth. Gotta love surpreme ruler of the 9 heavens.
 
Great game, and I agree, the opening is fantastic. Probably my favourite this gen. I also loved the OST.. I'm actually considering buying it online if I can find it reasonably priced. The game's downfalls are mainly its cliched plot and poor voice acting, but I found the battle system refreshing, despite the length of some battles.
 
I couldn´t finish it, lost interest in the latter part of the game. Exploring the world was not very pleasant, too many dull dialogues everywhere. The card concept was cool, but having to rearrange your deck every now and then was not the most fun thing out there, since you were getting new cards after every combat. Art was good, except for characters, and scenarios were lacking different cameras. THe OST is indeed very very good, if something I miss variety, specially in towns, where the track was the same for all of them.

The biggest issue of BK for me is the sloooooooooow pace, specially the PAL version, without 60Hzs. Some pretty good and original ideas most of the missused or lost in a sea of bad choices. Not very apreaciated game for me. The best thing is that I bought it by 20€ and sold it by 50. Now, this is quite subjective I must add.
 
Just started this game last night. I haven't gotten into a JRPG for some time. Played it for 5 hours straight. I was afraid that the card system might be a little weird, but it's actually quite involving. It keeps you on your toes as opposed to many other RPG's which just have you tapping the same button over and over again.

The art, music, and graphics are all pretty nice. The deck management system is effective, as is the rest of the UI. The VA could definitely use some work. The enunciation is horrible. I actually disabled voice so that I could just read the dialogue old school style.

One of the most unique things in the game so far has to be the family tree sidequest. I don't recall seeing anything quite like it in other games, at least not to the same degree. It really is the little touches that help make a game unique.
 
Suikoguy said:
It also has the best voice actors from Shenmue (In other words the worst voice acting in pretty much any game this generation)
Click to expand...
Holy shit, I was already planning to pick this up sometime, but you just totally sold me on this game.

Shenmue VAs >>>>>>> ANYTHING

:D
 
Senretsu said:
where did you get it for $10?
Click to expand...

circuit city


i played it for about 3-4 hours. i like the music and the battle system. story seems bleh to me so far. i've been side tracked though with other games lately...hopefully i'll get back to it soon
 
20 hours in and I've been having a great time. Battles kinda sucked in the beginning, but now that my deck is getting built up pretty nicely, things got a hell of a lot more interesting. I almost got screwed over at the beginning of disc 2 though. If I didn't have a backup file, I probably would have quit. :-/
 
I bought the game when it first came out and it was definitely worth the purchase.

TERRIBLE VOICE ACTING!

Do yourself a favor and just turn it off after the opening scenes. Changing the audio to surround helps a lot, but not the over exaggerated voice acting.

The game actually supports 480p and it looks beautiful doing it. This game supports the best 2D backgrounds in any game (yes even better than the Resident Evil remake) this gen. Each screen is chalk full of full-motion animated backgrounds.

The accompanying soundtrack and effects are also noteworthy. It's so damn good, you nearly (not completely) forget about the terrible voice acting :lol

It's a VERY long game, too. Depending on how good you are with finishing RPG's and if you like doing all the side-quests, this game will average you about 50-60 hours.

The biggest downside is that there is zero replay value. You'll finish the game and realize you never really want to start over and do it again. I finally started a new game, 7 months later, after seeing this thread.
 
It's a great game so far and i'm enjoying it. I haven't play it since May even though i didn't finish it. i need to go back and finish it.

I'm at the 5th End Magnus and Lava Cave Boss is whooping my a$$ by casting death sentence on one of my characters even though i'm having a hard time staying alive with 2 characters. My characters's hit points is between 28 to 33 i believed. Kalas, Gibari, and either Lydude or Savyna.

I know casting light will give huge damage but it kept healing itself alot more than my character gets a chance to heal every few turns. Talk about ownage!!! I need to raise my hit points to over 38 or so. It's gonna be a looong time for me to get past it.
 
Just use spoiler tags.

I like this game. Great battle system! Great backgrounds, just amazing at times.

I thought it was a much more interesting title than ToS which got talked about too much.
 
meh.

Fun at first. Cool side quests, gorgeous environments, great music.

I actually didn't really care for the battle system, though. The card collections got to be large and unwieldy, deck building tedious, and battles either way too easy or just a matter of having the right cards in your hand at the right time. Extremely excessive wandering encounters in some areas. Oh, and making you use camera cards to get cash was pretty weak.

Gave up on....hmmm..fourth island I think? Something like that. I can see why others like it, but I can also see why it didn't do very well.
 
Yeah I enjoyed my time with Baten Kaitos. I managed to make it to the last area of the game only to promptly have my ass handed to me, I would have worked through it but I just couldn't handle leveling up. The probelm was the battle system was starting to really bug me, I think it was the fact that they just took too damn long, but beyond the battle system I enjoyed myself.
 
the only thing i didn't like was the rewards for completing the sky map and that old mans relatives quest. They were tough, and final items for them stunk
 
I lost my save when I was about 20 hours into the game (Please don't ask how it happened, it's a really sad story), do yo think it's worth it to go back through all the long battles and crappy dialoges again? I like the game but come on, 20 hours?! :\

I was on the ice cream planet when I lost my save, god that city looked delicious. :lol
 
Khalid-S said:
I lost my save when I was about 20 hours into the game (Please don't ask how it happened, it's a really sad story), do yo think it's worth it to go back through all the long battles and crappy dialoges again? I like the game but come on, 20 hours?! :\

I was on the ice cream planet when I lost my save, god that city looked delicious. :lol
Click to expand...

Yeah I'd say it's worth going back to, esp since you only got through about 1/3 of the game. You've still yet to see a lot of levels and since you know what you're doing the this time around, it shouldn't take nearly as long to get through what you've already played.
 
I'm about to restart the game cause I didn't get the
Light Aura Card
like I should have at the castle level. Stupid mistake on my part that I wanted to correct, but got lazy and didn't feel like replaying the soldier usage mini-game.

Is there any point to keeping the pics you take of bosses or should you just sell them for money?
 
Future Trunks said:
I'm about to restart the game cause I didn't get the
Light Aura Card
like I should have at the castle level. Stupid mistake on my part that I wanted to correct, but got lazy and didn't feel like replaying the soldier usage mini-game.

Is there any point to keeping the pics you take of bosses or should you just sell them for money?
Click to expand...

no point at keeping them at all. Just sell them.
 
Future Trunks said:
I'm about to restart the game cause I didn't get the
Light Aura Card
like I should have at the castle level. Stupid mistake on my part that I wanted to correct, but got lazy and didn't feel like replaying the soldier usage mini-game.

Is there any point to keeping the pics you take of bosses or should you just sell them for money?
Click to expand...

yeah they're meant to be sold. it's really the only way to earn money in the game if i remember correctly.
 
Thanks. :)

So, for everyone before I undo 20 hours of gameplay, is it worth it to go back and get the
Light Aura Card
.

Really? I was just selling pics of common enemies, :lol! I seemed to be getting by....
 
I also snagged it for $10 at Circuit City. I'm looking forward to playing it soon (damn backlog). The battle system sounds interesting.
 
Read only you have beaten the Lava Cave dungeon in Azha...

I just fought
Geldoblame
... I was like "WTF? o_O ".

Is
Kalas the really the bad guy now
? I didn't save because
if I wont get Kalas in my party again, I want some magnus back to my deck then...

I think I didn't get the Light Aura Card... what is it for? Is it really important (because of some people restarting the game again just to get it)?
 
Farore, the Light Aura card is not important to the overall flow of the game. It's just something extra. In no way worth restarting your game if you missed it. Go ahead and take those cards out..... but don't worry about Kalas.

Damn, I liked this game so much. I only went through it once but I put about 65 hours into it so that's fine. Great game. The card system works very well and the music is amazing, especially if you consider what Sakuraba managed to pull of in some of the songs with the unstruments that he used. The story is fairly weak for the most part and the voice acting needs to be turned off immediately but it's still a great game.
 
Ironclad_Ninja said:
Farore, the Light Aura card is not important to the overall flow of the game. It's just something extra. In no way worth restarting your game if you missed it. Go ahead and take those cards out..... but don't worry about Kalas.

Damn, I liked this game so much. I only went through it once but I put about 65 hours into it so that's fine. Great game. The card system works very well and the music is amazing, especially if you consider what Sakuraba managed to pull of in some of the songs with the unstruments that he used. The story is fairly weak for the most part and the voice acting needs to be turned off immediately but it's still a great game.
Click to expand...

Thanks...
Kalas will be
missing a few magnus when I fight with
Geldoblame
again then :) ...

And yes, the OST is excellent (specially the boss battle themes)...
I wanted to buy this game but I'm broke, so I borrowed it from a friend :D ...

And regarding the voice acting, I never turn it off in any game because is a way to practice my English (at least with the pronunciation of a few words) and thanks to it I always new that
Melodia was a villain
(each time you release an End Magnus,
in animation with the cocoons falling to the water, the girl's voice talking about the destruction of the world was Melodia's
)...
 
Farore, thats not the only hint they dropped :)
 
Concerning the End Magnus scenes, did anyone NOT laugh?

Seriously, I hope you guys did. That SHIT was too funny.

I say that because the things looked like turds,

they made a "ploop" sound in the water like turds,

and the "water" even turned brown like turds.

I could not help but laugh at those scenes.
 
Attention Canada : I saw this for $18.83 at Wal mart if you are thinking about getting it.

I bought it long time ago still sitting in the queue unfortunately.
 
If you pretend the story didn't suck and the characters weren't losers and undeveloped then it rocks!

Oh and it was waaay too easy.

But parts of it like the art, music, and battle system were amazing. Need a Baten Kaitos 2 with some real plot writers this time around.
 
Culex said:
This game supports the best 2D backgrounds in any game (yes even better than the Resident Evil remake) this gen. Each screen is chalk full of full-motion animated backgrounds.
Click to expand...

Heh, can't agree with that. Baten Kaitos backgrounds were generally like really nice paintings...beautiful pictures yeah, but they weren't very lively or well-animated. I thought many of the "full-motion animated" backgrounds looked pretty cheap, and a substantial number of them weren't even animated in any way. Res Evil Remake backgrounds were a lot more convincing that way.
 
I just beat the game a few weeks ago. The ending was LONG as hell, plus you actually had to fight a boss during the ending!

I thought BK had the best battle system this generation. The only problem with it was that you couldn't heal yourself while attacking your enemy.

Oh yeah. The character designs sucked.
 
i just finished my first session w/ the game. i'm about 10 hours in and while it's enjoyable there are some small issues i have.

well worth the $10 i payed @ circuit city
 
eternalsunshine said:
So are any of the other card-based RPG's similarly entertaining?
Click to expand...

I enjoy Lost Kingdoms (1 & 2) and Etherlords II (PC) but I wouldn't call either of them similar to Baten Kaitos, exactly.

Etherlords II has one of the most brutal single player campaigns in all of gamedom.
 
great music, nice battle system, and the story seemed cool from what I've played


I don't have much time for RPG's now, but I think this is a better game than ToS
 
Suikoguy said:
Farore, thats not the only hint they dropped :)
Click to expand...

Care to spoil me? :)




Is there an on-line gallery or page that shows all the magnus artwork? Some of them are really cool and I would like to see them all because I'm not going to get the 1000+ cards in the game...

A quick question: How the hell do you make combos? I think I have done only 1 and I don't know how...
 
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