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[lyre]

Tales of games aren't really the best source of Sakuraba tracks anyway (his Shining Force 3 music is a lot better than what he did in Tales of Phantasia and Destiny IMO). Anyone who is remotely insterested in his work should know that.

Get the Silmeria OSTs.

 

[Attack You]

In a world of Shenmues and Robot Alchemic Drives, Baten Kaitos is the first game that forced me to mute the voice track.

Spoiler

I liked Shenmue's dub, oddly enough.

 

[thetrin]

is "baten kaitos" a really dumb name?

No, it`s not. It`s the arabic name of a constellation. What`s so dumb about that?

I don`t know about the US version (I played the JP version), but the sound quality in the JP version sounded canned, literally.

I liked the story, though. The twists at the end were beyond dumb, but the story up until the epilogue was pretty good, if you ask me.

I really loved BK, especially because of the battle system. Maybe that`s just me.

 

[Mejilan]

Tales of games aren't really the best source of Sakuraba tracks anyway (his Shining Force 3 music is a lot better than what he did in Tales of Phantasia and Destiny IMO). Anyone who is remotely insterested in his work should know that.

Get the Silmeria OSTs.

Yeah, I know that he saves the good stuff for non-Tales RPGs. Pity he saved little-none for Valkyrie Profile 2, however. Even Baten Kaitos 2 was better, and THAT was a disappointment as well.

My bump was really more of a response to ethelred.

 

[Jive Turkey]

I don`t know about the US version (I played the JP version), but the sound quality in the JP version sounded canned, literally.

The US version was like that too. Seems adjusting the audio to stereo helped fix this a little.

 

[thetrin]

The US version was like that too. Seems adjusting the audio to stereo helped fix this a little.

From what I know of the US version, though, the JP acting was far better.

 

[Jive Turkey]

From what I know of the US version, though, the JP acting was far better.

I would certianly hope so. Couldn't possibly be any worse. I'm really hoping Namco springs for actual voice talent/crew/time for the sequel.

 

[Mejilan]

I would certianly hope so. Couldn't possibly be any worse. I'm really hoping Namco springs for actual voice talent/crew/time for the sequel.

I thought Nintendo was localizing the sequel? Or just publishing it?

 

[Jive Turkey]

I thought Nintendo was localizing the sequel? Or just publishing it?

Oh? I haven't paid attention at all. If true this could be really good news. Where's ivysaur when you need him?

 

[Beezy]

Mizuti's voice acting is the best. That's not saying much in this game though. :lol

Even if you turned off the voices, you still hear him when you first meet him.

 

[thetrin]

Oh? I haven't paid attention at all. If true this could be really good news. Where's ivysaur when you need him?

They published the second game in Japan, and I definitely heard that they were localizing it in the US. Hope that actually happens. More people need to play BK2.

 

[ethelred]

Ok, so I'm listening to Tales of the Abyss and am thoroughly unimpressed. What I imagine are the battle themes are almost universally awful. (Note: Everlasting Fight is thoroughly incredible, however).

Looking at the spread though, most of the few songs I actually like are Sakuraba's. Not the worst Tales of OST (that goes to Eternia, IMHO), but it's way worse than ToL (which I realize had no Sakuraba involvement). ToS smokes TotA. Easily.

So I definitely think Sakuraba's recent works don't compare to his older stuff. :/

Hmm. Interrrresting. Well, I don't entirely agree. I think the background stuff in Abyss beats Symphonia's stuff (Symph's background music was quite weak on the whole). There are a lot more battle songs in Symph than Abyss, and most of them are quite good... however, I really, really liked a lot of the Abyss battle songs. Aside from Everlasting Fight (one of Sakuraba's best battle tracks ever, up there with Fighting of the Spirit and Stab the Sword of Justice)... I really enjoyed Never Surrender, Awkward Justice, and The Arrow Was Shot. None of these are awful at all!

Oh? I haven't paid attention at all. If true this could be really good news. Where's ivysaur when you need him?

Well, Namco didn't really have any involvement in the game... Nintendo published it in Japan and is publishing it in the US. So I imagine they'll be doing the localization.

Fingers crossed, anyway!

 

[Mejilan]

Hmm. Interrrresting. Well, I don't entirely agree. I think the background stuff in Abyss beats Symphonia's stuff (Symph's background music was quite weak on the whole). There are a lot more battle songs in Symph than Abyss, and most of them are quite good... however, I really, really liked a lot of the Abyss battle songs. Aside from Everlasting Fight (one of Sakuraba's best battle tracks ever, up there with Fighting of the Spirit and Stab the Sword of Justice)... I really enjoyed Never Surrender, Awkward Justice, and The Arrow Was Shot. None of these are awful at all!

Yes! Everlasting Fight is amazing. (Compilation of various other Tales of fighting themes, no? Definitely some recognizable stuff there, though I can't quite place them. I've spent the last week or so going through all of the Tales of OSTs, and now I've got the various battle themes mixed up.) Anywho, Awkward Justice was also great. The Arrow Was Shot is awful. Possible my most hated Sakuraba battle theme. And it seems like it's the game's primary battle theme? Uuuugh. At least, from what I can tell from its placement in the song order.

I rate the music one my iPod in one of 2 ways. 0 Stars or 5 Stars. 5 Star music then eventually gets rotated into a ton of "Random 30" smart playlists spanning genres, composers, game series, etc. ToS wound up with MANY more 5 Star songs than TotA.

 

[Jiguryo]

The voice acting is terrible, mainly Lyude and most of old ladies' voices. But all in all, I never felt like turning them off.

BK has a great system, amazing soundtrack, and its story ramps up from out of nowhere, from "cookie-cutter JRPG" to "wtf, I wasn't expecting that" as it draws closer to the second disc.

 

[Ronin]

Some of the random townsfolk made me want to kill myself.

 

[Wyndstryker]

Oh the acting is bad...

The stuff I did in high school ages ago sounds more professional...

 

[thetrin]

The voice acting is terrible, mainly Lyude and most of old ladies' voices. But all in all, I never felt like turning them off.

BK has a great system, amazing soundtrack, and its story ramps up from out of nowhere, from "cookie-cutter JRPG" to "wtf, I wasn't expecting that" as it draws closer to the second disc.

This was the best part of BK. The wtf twist made it one of the most enjoyable RPGs in recent years.

 

[ethelred]

I totally disagree about that plot twist.

 

[thetrin]

I totally disagree about that plot twist.

That`s fine. I disagree with almost everything you post anyway.

 

[ethelred]

That`s fine. I disagree with almost everything you post anyway.

Ouch. That really hurts.

Oh well, can't win 'em all. I still like most of the stuff you post, except when you're delivering depressing news about Yasumi Matsuno.

And as to why I disagree on BK's plot twist:

Yes, as a narrative trick, it was a good plot twist -- a pretty original one, and one that the player largely would not be inclined to see coming. However, what I disagree with is the implication that the story was bad before, then after that plot twist-as-turning point the story became good.

I think you had a really, really poor story (perhaps not all the story's fault, but the pretty poor writing and atrocious voice acting really drug down what would've possibly been mediocre otherwise) -- and then a big plot twist, which because of the generally low quality of the game beforehand, didn't so much function as the savior of the story as it felt forced. Like, "Oh shit, we're really sucking here... let's throw something in!" Then after that point, it basically carried on as an okay story for a bit, but pretty promptly went right back to the generally low quality of the earlier segments of the game.

A single good moment does not and cannot a quality story make, and when the overall quality is so low, it makes a good moment feel less like a high quality addition to a consistently good plot and more like just a forced moment.

But like I said before, BK is still a good game for other reasons unrelated to the poor plot -- great music, fantastic visuals, and a really excellent and innovative battle system.