| Baten Kaitos review |
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Shinji Noguchi, the producer for publisher Namco, has bestowed on Nintendo’s GameCube an exclusive RPG epic that is anything but mediocre. Baten Kaitos’ canvas is decorated skillfully with many of the qualities essential to RPGs, but also diverges from the usual mundane, standard strokes and offers something far more beautiful.
The player follows the story of a young, arrogant adventurer Kalas who seeks to avenge his grandfather and younger brother. Reluctantly he gets caught up within a conspiracy involving blasphemous rituals, decrepit villains, fate and ultimately the salvation of the world. Although it is not overburdened with originality and takes a solid ten hours to establish itself, Baten’s script is well written and has numerous twists and turns to maintain intrigue…although it’s vital you ensure the voice acting is turned off. It really is intolerably poor and all sense of captivation is lost the moment the actors try painfully to voice their lines.
There are no pre-rendered movies (aside from the opening) but instead the cinematics use real-time rendering. More significant, though, is how the characters and script infuse, creating some emotional scenes. Many of these take place within Baten’s pre-rendered backgrounds (combined with fluidly-animated FMV) which are, quite simply, breathtaking. There are conventional areas, exotic locations and some truly unique towns (‘The Picture Book Village’ being particularly surreal). Each of Baten’s landscapes, from the weird to the wonderful, have been realised gracefully and have a distinctive feel that exudes personality and individuality.
The same cannot be said about many of the characters, however. Whereas the elegant brushstrokes of the environments evoke a sense of density and detail, the exact opposite is true of Kalas and his companions. This causes a blemished interaction between character and environment, which can at times prove to be a distraction to an otherwise enchanting experience. Equally, when in a battle scenario, the visuals often lack detail and are replaced with a cacophony of plain, repetitive and sometimes ugly textures. It comes as a surprise, then, that the many special attacks Kalas and friends possess are colorful and rarely become monotonous. The composer Motoi Sakurab strengthens Baten’s artistic expression with his well implemented score. It is even possible to select any of the tracks (once unlocked) in the menu – a truly welcome addition considering the score’s quality.
Once the appropriate number of experience points has been reached to level-up (gained by running into foes and sending them into oblivion - there are no random battles here), Kalas must first locate a special blue flower that provides the option to ‘Save Progress’ or ‘Visit the church’. To increase the character’s Level and Class, Baten coerces you to ‘reflect on your experiences’ whilst in this place of worship, with its surreal architecture and vivid colours accompanied by some suitably ecclesiastical music. It’s a clever notion on paper in the sense that it highlights the mental facet of a person’s vigour, and their means of recovering their stamina, but in reality its execution is questionable. It can prove bothersome and inconvenient at times having to re-trek and locate the blue flower. In this method’s defence, though, the flowers are usually located suitably and there is also a red flower (often available at a vital moment), whose purpose is purely to save progress.
There is also a welcome addition to exploration, wherein backtracking is minimised considerably due to a Sub-World Screen. Similar to, say, Super Mario World or Donkey Kong Country, you can control a miniature Kalas and guide him to an available location without having to run through a hub-like area. Not only are these maps wonderfully realised, exhibiting bright, alluring colours and effects, but are also very handy indeed, especially when locating a greatly desired blue flower.
The card-based combat is a vital and, thankfully, fun factor in Baten. Rather than carrying the specific items, all armour and magic spells’ essences have been captured within so-called Magnus cards. There are over a thousand that can be used either in combat, when camping or during a quest. Management of these cards is dealt with superbly in the Camp Screen, where the player also has direct analysis of parameters and statistics. During battle they are randomly dealt and displayed on the bottom of the screen ready to be manually selected by the player. This requires quick and responsive decision-making and, as a result, almost every battle is tense and pad-grippingly exciting. Initially this excitement is overshadowed by frustration as it’s easy to get lost in the battle’s mechanisms: not assigning enough cards to your deck, having too many defensive or offensive cards equipped, or misunderstanding the elemental equations are some of the pitfalls. Yet, despite initial assumptions, feelings of frustration aren’t due to broken design but rather the player’s inexperience using an unconventional system.
It takes time to get comfortable creating effective combos considering the card’s Spirit Number (each Battle Card has a number ranging from 1-9 and careful exploitation of these numbers will gain bonus damage during battle. Selecting three Spirit Numbers sequentially, for example, 2, 3, 4 will result in an increased damage percentage). Additionally there are elemental properties to consider in which the Magnus’ elements counterbalance each other when used in opposition (Fire <-> Water; Light <-> Dark; Chrono <->Wind ) although these cards are randomly-dealt there is still a fair level of freedom. It takes patience and experience but as the awareness of the mechanisms unravels in one’s mind, so too does the enjoyment. Ultimately using Magnus cards is intuitive, speedy and offers the fun of discovering new elements outside or within battle (by combining different cards together an entirely new card can be created).
There are various side-quests to divert attention from battle or to simply allow the player to relax in Baten’s tranquil universe. They range from performing morally good deeds (such as helping troubled individuals) to pervasive quests that linger through the entire course of the game. One such quest involves an elderly man who lives in Pherkad: with his life slowly ebbing away you are given his family tree and asked to fill in the blanks to re-unite his kin before his death. There are numerous other quests available and, though not compulsory, they help to prolong the enjoyment of Baten by postponing its conclusion.
Everyday in the real world, people are surrounded by artefacts of civilisation that firmly keep the mind focused on human purposes and daily activities. Experiencing an RPG such as Baten Kaitos allows the player to clear and centre their mind on a separate reality, and sometimes experience the transcendent. Sitting proudly next to Tales of Symphonia and Paper Mario 2, Baten offers GameCube owners an enchanting tapestry of stylistic design, a deep and unconventional battle system, and fifty hours-plus of rewarding game play. |
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System: Nintendo GameCube
Genre: Role Playing Game
Developer: Monolith Software
Publisher: Namco
Players: 1
Version: United States
Reviewed: Dec 2004
Writer: Adam Stone
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Pros:
- Beautifully mystic environments and presentation
- Unconventional card-based battle that works wonderfully
- Excellently written script
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Cons:
- Very poor voice acting
- Starts slow and a little frustrating
- Visually, a noticeable inconsistency between environments and characters
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Baten Kaitos Video: 7.8MB
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