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How is Baten Kaitos?

Alex

Alex

Member
Thanks to Atlus's awesome "release 20 copies of a game with a title that'd make a Wal-Mart workers head explode, then lie and say it never existed"TM distribution scheme. It seems I'm not gonna be getting SMT Nocturne in this local, and I can't be bothered to mess around with online ordering. Bah!

So, it's time to check the second fiddles! I'm trying to pick between Baten Kaitos and (if it hasn't suffered the same fate as Nocturne) Growlanser.

Any good post-release impressions? I know Dragona had a fit over it, but I assume Dragon Quarter warped her mind into a puddle of nonsense, so I just figured I'd check around.

Battle? Character building? Dungeons?
 
Its really quite excellent. I recommend it wholehartedly, its beautiful, has one of the best soundtracks I ve heard and its battle system is very enjoyable and different.

The only problem IMO is that some of the characters have awful voiceovers, but then again some others voices are spot on. The dungeons are also interesting and entertaining and the story is very fitting. Go for it, one of the best RPGs of the year.
 
Take the soundtrack and beautiful artistic backgrounds from Chrono Cross, the fresh battle system from Valkyrie Profile, and mix in a weird story, blend and serve chilled.

Fantastic game.
 
A very unique title. I enjoyed many aspects of it, and disliked others.

The battle system requires the player to pay attention to the commands (cards) used, so you just can't mash A to fight. It keeps the player interested in every battle (well, it certainly kept my interest). Trying to string together numbers to increase damage never got boring. However, luck is a factor more often than not because of the card system, so there may be times where your characters are sitting doing nothing because they have a hand of defense cards.

I didn't like how certain useful cards would decay over time into something useless - quite a few cards like these exist. None of the weapon cards do this, but you'll have to go late in the game to find powerful healing cards that don't decay on you over time.

The game looks great graphically, and the soundtrack is top notch. The voice acting, for the most part, stinks out loud. The story, I can take or leave. A few "twists", but RPG veterans will hardly be shocked and appalled.
 
Incredible game. Incredible hand-drawn backgrounds. Incredible music. Incredibly long.

No replay value :-(
 
It was a very enjoyable RPG to play. Sadly as noted before there is little replay value, but the game is still worth every penny paid for it. You will not be disappointed in this game.
 
Character building is primarly dependant on the deck of cards chosen for the character. The special cards with powerful attacks used to end a string of cards are of a certain element. Characters use attack cards with certain elements, and using opposing elements in your attacks mean you do less damage.

Xelha is a magic user, meaning she can use magic spells of all 6 elements. However, her final attack cards are primarily Light based, so you'll want to avoid putting Dark spells in her deck. Lyude's final attack cards are always either Light or Dark based, so you'll probably be switching his attacks between the two.
 
I'm about 10 hours into it, and I'm having fun. I don't find it as compelling to play as, say, Tales of Symphonia, but there's a lot of fun to be had in the battle system. Also, the music and backgrounds are some of the most beautiful in a game, period. I'd have to say this is Sakuraba's best work by far.

However, I will give you one warning: the voice acting is horrendous. Occasionally it's tolerable, most of the time you'll be hating it immensely. I turned it off within an hour of starting the game, and turned it on occasionally to hear the voices of new characters, and see if it improved. In my time, it hasn't at all. The game is quite good, but the voice acting (and dialogue in general) definitely brings it down a notch or two.
 
el jacko said:
I'm about 10 hours into it, and I'm having fun. I don't find it as compelling to play as, say, Tales of Symphonia, but there's a lot of fun to be had in the battle system. Also, the music and backgrounds are some of the most beautiful in a game, period. I'd have to say this is Sakuraba's best work by far.

However, I will give you one warning: the voice acting is horrendous. Occasionally it's tolerable, most of the time you'll be hating it immensely. I turned it off within an hour of starting the game, and turned it on occasionally to hear the voices of new characters, and see if it improved. In my time, it hasn't at all. The game is quite good, but the voice acting (and dialogue in general) definitely brings it down a notch or two.
Click to expand...

The voice acting becomes more bearable by a magnitude of 10 when you finally realize how easy it is to get rid of the tinny, funneled voices.
 
I don't really care about the narrative a whole bunch, but I've heard complaints. Does it suffer from simply being generic at times, or can it just be overly convoluted?

One other thing. Heard it can be easy, also heard you manually build party member levels. Can you avoid overleveling this way to make it tougher?

Edit: Mox, I actually didn't check. I guess I'll call later. I was gonna check Wal-Mart (despite the lead in, I haven't called them yet, I refuse to talk to their dimwitted staff, who would tell me it was out of stock if they were sitting on top of a pile of them) as well. Maybe I'll just nab both.
 
Alex: Yes, you can make the game more difficult this way because you can also actually choose by levels how to upgrade.

The story I found satisfying, and more interesting as you go along.
 
I have only played abour 2 hours, but the randomness of the battle system has already been annoying more than once.

It's really quite gorgeous though, no doubt. I'll surely play more later, but it isn't an immediate addiction.
 
Played it roughly 10 hours before RE4 came probably will go back into it this weekend, from what i had played its pretty good, the card system is surprisingly fun, its also quite an in depth battle system, some of it i still dont fully understand, definitely one of the best turned based battle system i've played in recent years.

Voice acting is average, but you can disable it if it annoys you to that point, the music is AWESOME and the pre-rendered backgrounds are simply gorgeous.
 
No Nocturne anywhere. :(

So I got Baten Kaitos. I guess I'll post some impressions later too, for fun. I guess I haven't really done that much in recent years.
 
Since there are fans of the game present, I'll ask...

What is the deal with the number on the cards? Should I try to play the same numbers at the same time?

Is there an advantage to playing two of the same card in a row? I realized fire & ice will cancel each out, but is there a way to create combos?
 
Good game. Really beautiful graphics. I've forgotten how beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds can look before playing this. Really fun battle. I love fighting the respawning enemies over and over, so I could collect all the cards they drop, to complete my collection. Too bad I failed(
damn you secret recipe #6!!
)

The story got progressively worse in disc one, but took a turn for the better in disc 2. It's too bad there wasn't a bigger budget for the game though. Alot of the scenes would look amazing in FMVss if the opening was any indication.


don't hightlight without completeting the game!
while watching the ending, i kept thinking that when xelha died, her spirit probably traveled back to the past and became Kalas' guardian. then i remembered the guardian is male and it wouldn't make sense since Namco put the sex option in. I like that more than Xelha springing back to life though.


I wonder what the DS version will be like. It'd be cool if it's a prequel.
 
Unison said:
Since there are fans of the game present, I'll ask...

What is the deal with the number on the cards? Should I try to play the same numbers at the same time?

Is there an advantage to playing two of the same card in a row? I realized fire & ice will cancel each out, but is there a way to create combos?
Click to expand...

for the number in the top right corner
bonus damage if the # on the cards are used in consecutive order.
bonus damage(but less than above) if the # matches. They can be used in any order(such as 3, 5, 6, 6,3, 6,5)

never did figure out what the other numbers are..
 
Gorgeous graphics, GENIUS soundtrack (Sakuraba's best since Valkyrie Profile, imho), engaging, interesting, and splendidly entertaining combat system, very lovely world, some pretty interesting dungeons.

I was surprised, I liked the game a LOT more than I thought I would. One of the more original and stronger RPGs this year. Yes, the voices generally suck, but they can also be disabled entirely, so it's not a total loss.
 
Culex said:
The voice acting becomes more bearable by a magnitude of 10 when you finally realize how easy it is to get rid of the tinny, funneled voices.
Click to expand...
You mean switch it to DPLII? Did that already, still sounds like crap. Kalas and Savyna are bearable, Xelha and Lyude (and most supporting chars) are awful, and Gibari is somewhere in the middle. From what I've heard at least, like I said I keep it off 99% of the time.

What angers me the most is that, even if the main game was in Japanese, the JPN FMV video has english voices that sound 10x better than what we got. I still can't believe Namco Hometek redubbed the game when they already had good english VAs.
 
Unison said:
What is the deal with the number on the cards? Should I try to play the same numbers at the same time?

Is there an advantage to playing two of the same card in a row? I realized fire & ice will cancel each out, but is there a way to create combos?
Click to expand...

Yes. You get multiplier bonuses for playing sequential or matching cards. Sequential have to be in order, though, so keep that in mind. You might do more damage by not playing an additional attack and getting the sequential bonus. Matching cards are the same.

Fire and Ice will cancel each other.
Dark and Light will cancel each other.
Wind and Chronos will cancel each other.

Also, the closer you become to Kalas (by reacting to what he says), the greater the chance of cards turning into special Spiritual Attacks during battle.
 
Also including a 9 in your card sequence adds a % bonus if i remember correctly. 5-6-7-8-9 would be better than 1-2-3-4-5 for example
 
Absolutely awesome game. Picked it up for $29.99 from Fry's the day after Christmas thanks to Wario and I couldn't have been happier. The game is worth every penny.
 
Good game. Good battles, music and art/graphics. The card system really makes you have to pay attention. This isn't just hitting A button every once in awhile. You have to see if you can make a run, possibly throw up some pairs, make sure not to use opposite elements and the usual tactic of ice vs fire enemy sort of stuff. Character building is setup so that you level and class up at a church, so you can choose how much you want to level up. Deck building is the other main part of character building. If you could assemble a deck of cards mostly using like 6 and 2 then you could run a lot of combos.

The dungeons so far have been kind of weak for me. I'm on the second disc and only the Mira dungeons really had any niftiness about them. They are pretty run of the mill and not that big so far.
 
I should've listened to ferricide. :(

I really have no idea what people are raving about when it comes to this game.

The graphics are nice, but the cities I've visited so far are tiny. The animation during the "cut-scenes" is 1st gen PS1 level, and the game has the worst voices ever. The story is nothing to write home about either.

The battle system seems OK, although it's pretty damn slow with all the interruptions.
 
I only played it a bit, but it's much better than I expected. The scenery/backgrounds are really stunning. Their sort of like Thomas Kincaid (sp?) portraits in motion, which normally would be appalling, but is strangely hypnotic in the context of a RPG.

The story is no great shakes so far, but just on early impressions I think this game is better than the more highly regarded ToS. It got some bad marks for story, but I'm failing to see how it grates more than the faux humor and bad anime stink of that other RPG.
 
So if you had to choose one RPG, would it be Symphonia or Baten Kaitos? The card system of BK sounds interesting, but the thought of 4 player co-op battle mayhem seems too good to pass up.
 
The co-op in Tales games has always been very weak, I wouldn't base a purchase around it personally. That, and IMO Symphonia is the weakest Tales title yet. :p

BK has been pretty nifty so far. For one, the voices aren't really so bad, IMO. I find them servicable enough to leave them on. Turning on surround to remove the weird reverb also helped.

It's not up to par VA wise with the better titles this gen, but it's not of the obscene old-school PSX horror that people made it out to be. Not even close to the disjointed butchering poor Tales of Eternia got. :(

"Also including a 9 in your card sequence adds a % bonus if i remember correctly. 5-6-7-8-9 would be better than 1-2-3-4-5 for example"
Click to expand...

Is there any additional rhyme or reason outside of landing a 9 then? Or is that the only modifier to look out for when chaining the cards?
 
Alex said:
Is there any additional rhyme or reason outside of landing a 9 then? Or is that the only modifier to look out for when chaining the cards?
Click to expand...

The #9 Magnus are rare and some only have a 9 (instead of numbers on all 4 corners).

If you are looking for other modifiers, the "Voice" Magnus adds a certain percentage depending on the level you use. However, it does no other damage, so only use it in place of a Magnus that would detract from your total amount of damage inflicted.
 
jiggle said:
for the number in the top right corner
bonus damage if the # on the cards are used in consecutive order.
bonus damage(but less than above) if the # matches. They can be used in any order(such as 3, 5, 6, 6,3, 6,5)

never did figure out what the other numbers are..
Click to expand...

the proper way to use the gamecube controller is with the d-pad and c-stick. Sure, hitting the a button will use the card you've highlited but eventually you get cards with numbers in different corners. The reason is instead of hitting the a button to select a card you can highlite it and then tilt the c-stick in the direction of the number you want. So when a card has more than one number, you have a choice of which number you want that card to count as and you use the c-stick to make your choice.
 
Holy shit, i never knew that. I used the c-stick the entire time. No wonder moving to the next card feels unresponsive if I just tilt the stick. The whole time I thought my control was wearing out. Is this listed in the manual? Now I feel stupid for skipping that -.-;
 
jiggle said:
Holy shit, i never knew that. I used the c-stick the entire time. No wonder moving to the next card feels unresponsive if I just tilt the stick. The whole time I thought my control was wearing out. Is this listed in the manual? Now I feel stupid for skipping that -.-;
Click to expand...

I forget where I learned to use the c-stick to select my card, as for using the d-pad I recall there was someone in a town in the beginning that said something like, "hey, you know just cuz we have analog sticks now doesn't mean d-pads are obsolete! Try it out sometime in battle!"
 
I keep pulling off these massive combos, and I have no idea how. I've gotten a Fire one a Light one a Dark one, ect. No idea where the special move pops from, or what cards it stems from.

The "paced" tutorial is a little annoying, and the manual doesn't seem to describe much.
 
Alex said:
I keep pulling off these massive combos, and I have no idea how. I've gotten a Fire one a Light one a Dark one, ect. No idea where the special move pops from, or what cards it stems from.

The "paced" tutorial is a little annoying, and the manual doesn't seem to describe much.
Click to expand...

it's random, you can increase your odds by using higher numbered cards, though.
 
swoon said:
it's random, you can increase your odds by using higher numbered cards, though.
Click to expand...

buh? I guess that could be true but that is certainly not what the game tells you. Where did you get that from?

It has to do with how well you (the spirit) tell Kalas what he wants to hear. The more the two of you get along, the greater the chance of those super cards coming up in battle.
 
slayn said:
buh? I guess that could be true but that is certainly not what the game tells you. Where did you get that from?

It has to do with how well you (the spirit) tell Kalas what he wants to hear. The more the two of you get along, the greater the chance of those super cards coming up in battle.
Click to expand...

i thought i had read that here, or there. but somewhere. maybe it's both? either way they become somewhat annoying later one when they start replace more powerful finishing moves and also the elements have to be random, cause the water finishing move would come up in the midst of fire combo chains, which couldn't be more annoying.
 
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