Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean

The Good
>The Graphics<
The graphics are some of the best graphic available on the Game cube hardware and in no doubt beats some of the best on the PS2 and Xbox with-all-due-respect, with the exception of the PAL version few frame judder that occur sometime because of the PAL 50Hz conversion form the NTSC 60Hz North America version that plays perfect.

The Background Music<
If you know true music (scene suiting breathtaking excellent music) then you know Baten Kaitos has stupendous music, soundtracks competing to that of the famous Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy Music composer)

English character voices<
The voice actors did an outstanding job with the amount of heart and soul they put in to reading there scripts.

The game-play mechanics and difficulty level<

The game-play mechanics can become somewhat difficult at first to new comers as it is based on a card system; however, if one puts their mind to it shouldn’t be a problem. The game does become difficult if you don’t concentrate on levelling up so it’s advisable to level up.

The games story: appealing or not<
Baten Kaitos has a gripping storyline that indubitably will have you at the edge of your seat and unwilling to switch the game off.

The Bad
>The Graphics<
The PAL version of Baten Kaitos has a few frame judders that occur sometime because of the PAL 50Hz conversion form the NTSC 60Hz North America version which plays perfectly nothing to major.

English character voices audio<
Sadly because of the data size limitation of the Game Cube game disc (1.4 GB) the voice audio sound quality where down sampled to the point that the voice actors sound like there voice where captured from a long distant phone call, in other worlds like an bottle effect, keep in mind that roughly at the time the Game Cube was launched the PS2 and Xbox already supported full DVD5 (4.7 GB) and DVD9 (8.75 GB) games. However I think it was for the best that Baten Kaitos was released on the Game Cube and this can be overlooked as other points of the game outweigh it however one would hope that Namco re-released Baten Kaitos on the Wii fully uncompressed with added bonus furthers.

The Bottom Line
If you love games and fancy a RPG that has a gripping storyline with stupendous graphic and music at an affordable price then Baten Kaitos is the game for you, I recommend it; I simply loved Baten Kaitos to bits so much so that I had to import Baten Kaitos Origins from the US.

I'll give Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean 8/10 score.

The Good
Nintendo’s Gamecube is a console starved of RPGS. With so few one would hope that like the RPGS of the Dreamcast that it was quality over quantity. This is not the case with Baten Kaitos.

There is really nothing redeeming about this one. Even if this is the only Gamecube RPG you have not played I still cannot recommend it.

The Bad
The plot in Baten is not unique, nor is the setting. We have seen the “evil empire” plot to many times before. Just about every Final Fantasy game from FFII on have used this. We have seen the main character is a prick plot as well. If the leader of the party is such a prick why does every one follow him? The plot is also slow. So slow. Nothing of consequence happens in the first 20 hours! Furthermore all the party members are boring cookie cutter types that we have all seen before. And did a blind man design them? Look at the way they are dressed! No one would leave the house dressed like that. It is almost as bad as FFVII’s design.

The setting of Baten may seem original at first glance, but it two is not. It has been done in better games, like Skies of Arcadia. Unlike what some fellow Moby Gamers might say that was one of the best RPGS of the last 10 years.

The battle system is also called original. But yet it is just a stupid card game, disguised as a battle system. Often your success in battle depends on what card are in your deck. This for some reason is randomized. Some may claim that this makes the game more challenging. A game should not be challenging for a reason like this! Difficulty in a game should come from needing to use a certain strategy. Or needed to be a certain level. Not because of some random bullshit.

The Graphics are for the most part pre-rendered…why? Pre-rendered graphics were made for a time when true 3D did not look very good, as in the Playstation era. With the power of the Gamecube it seems kind of stupid to use such a dated graphic style.

The sound is not very good either. Why is there so much text in a CD game? And I would swear that the music is in MIDI format!

The Bottom Line
Overall Baten Kaitos, is as boring and clichéd and just as forgettable as it’s name. Recently Namco announced Baten Kaitos II. This makes me angry for so many reasons. Where is Shenmue III, or Skies of Arcadia II, or Phantasy Star V, Or Earthbound III, Or Anachronox II? So a piece of crap game like Baten Kaitos gets a sequel, but none of the choice games I just mentioned do, where is the justice in that?