Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean

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?