View Full Version : Who else is waiting for Baten Kaitos for GCN to come out ?
captain nintendo
08-03-2004, 01:15 PM
Yet another rpg by Namco ?!? X_x And on the GCN again ?
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean is the full title and IMO this will be another one of those games like Tales of Symphonia .
If you like Tales of Symphonia you will probably like Baten Kaitos.
http://www.gamershell.com/news_BBatenKaitosBNAReleaseDa.shtml
I will be pre-ordering this !
How about you ?
Crush Crawfish
08-03-2004, 01:22 PM
An RPG that's like Tales of Symphonia? Sounds good to me! I'll be buying this one, then.
Daria
08-03-2004, 03:36 PM
From what I've seen Baten Kaitos is nothing like Tales of Symphonia... ToS is more or less an Action RPG while Kaitos features a card based battle system.
That said it looks like a very cool game. And the preview trailer I've seen promises a very "cinematic" game. And I don't mean that in it'll have a lot of movie sequances but that it seems to have a very involving storyline.
calthaer
08-03-2004, 04:00 PM
It looks great - finally the Cube is proving itself to be the great machine we've always known it was by getting some good RPGs. I already have a huge RPG backlog, though, so unless they give out some good e-Reader promo cards or other useful gaming goodies for pre-orders, I won't be picking this one up right away.
captain nintendo
08-03-2004, 04:09 PM
From what I've seen Baten Kaitos is nothing like Tales of Symphonia... ToS is more or less an Action RPG while Kaitos features a card based battle system.
That said it looks like a very cool game. And the preview trailer I've seen promises a very "cinematic" game.
My bad , I meant the art and cinema looks simular. :embarrassed:
It does somehow involve cards , however it does look tantilizing :-P
Aussie2B
08-03-2004, 05:11 PM
I'm not waiting for it because I already beat it months ago. :P
Yeah, it's pretty much nothing like Tales. It has elements of action that keeps you on your toes, but you're not moving all over the place or anything. It's more or less turn-based, but as the game goes on, the time you have to make your selections gets more limited, so if you're slow, you may miss the chance to attack or block.
It's card-based, but it's not a Yu-Gi-Oh style game. You form a deck of cards out of weapon/armor/healing/misc. cards, it's dealt to you in a random order when you start the battle, and you pick what you want to use out of your hand (which brings in new cards too). If you run out during the battle (usually only happens in boss fights), your deck is shuffled, and the cycle begins again. Enemies have decks too, but they pretty much always can attack and block. It helps when they lose a turn to have their deck shuffled, though.
The story is nice and simple, which I find refreshing after the endless stream of teenage angst RPGs. It's not TOO simple, though. The plot twists are pretty good (and not particularly obvious as they are in some RPGs). The characters are cool, and each is very unique in both personality and attacking style. It's a very colorful game, so that might bug some people. My boyfriend didn't really like the fact that Xelha was dressed in pastel pink, Gibari was bright orange, Mizuti looked like a rainbow, etc.
The game has the prettiest pre-rendered backgrounds you'll ever see, and the music is some of the best stuff Sakuraba has cranked out in the last few years. The game is cinematic, but don't be misled by the intro. There is NO FMV in the entire game, not even the ending. Everything in the game is done with in-game graphics, and there are tons of long dialogue scenes. The voice acting keeps them from getting dull, but who knows what the US voice acting will be like (if they even choose to keep voice acting for all those scenes).
Well, here's to hoping they do a good localization. Baten Kaitos didn't sell very well in Japan, so I'm very surprised that they even considered it for US release. I doubt it will sell well here either, but at least the hardcore GameCube fans have another great RPG to look forward to. It should be a happy time for American fans of tri-Ace with Star Ocean 3 coming out in about a month and the tri-Crescendo developed Baten Kaitos to follow (Monolith had involvement too, of course, but tri-Crescendo did most of the actual game programming).
brykasch
08-03-2004, 07:16 PM
After seeing the e3 stuff on the gamespot dvd, I am amped for this as well.
FantasiaWHT
08-03-2004, 07:35 PM
It's set in the ToS/D/P universe I think.
And only that one CG cinema? Damn it's pretty tho...
I'll get it for sure.
I'm pissed we (At EB) got so few copies of ToS... our buyers are morons.
RPG + Gamecube...
HELLO!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? It didn't even HAVE to be good to sell...
Lemmy Kilmister
08-03-2004, 07:44 PM
Sorry but i personally think it looks pretty crappy. The fact that it's a "card battle" type rpg and the fact that the one of the guys looks like one of the characters from chrono cross (yuck) is another point agaisnt it. I'm not going to be as so biased to say it sucks already but i think it just looks blah.
Aussie2B
08-03-2004, 09:02 PM
It's set in the ToS/D/P universe I think.
Uh... no. I think I would know after playing through it if it was in the same universe. :P For the last time, the game has absolutely NO relation to the Tales series. It's not even made by the Tales Studio. The only thing they have in common is that both are published by Namco, and it was designed by tri-Crescendo, which is a spin-off company of tri-Ace, which was formed from former Wolf Team employees who made the original Tales of Phantasia. So there's your six degrees of Baten Kaitos. :P
Aussie2B
08-03-2004, 09:14 PM
Sorry but i personally think it looks pretty crappy. The fact that it's a "card battle" type rpg and the fact that the one of the guys looks like one of the characters from chrono cross (yuck) is another point agaisnt it. I'm not going to be as so biased to say it sucks already but i think it just looks blah.
The whole card feature will be the death of the game. Seriously. I think that's what turned off many Japanese gamers from buying it, and the same thing will happen with US players. Even I was a little apprehensive about purchasing the game. However, once you play it, you'll realize that it's NOTHING like any card-based game you've seen before. It's a completely new kind of battle system, and it has more similarities to poker than a Yu-Gi-Oh style game. Sometimes I wonder why the developers didn't avoid the whole card issue. It's all an aesthetic kind of thing. It could have been anything else. Just take out the words "deck" and "card" and such, replace them with some made up words or some other object name, draw the images as something else, and boom, no more complaints, or at least a significantly less amount.
As for the Chrono Cross similarities, that's another six degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of thing. Monolith handled most of the character design, plot, backgrounds, etc. stuff, and Monolith was a company started from former Square employees who had been working on the Chrono series, Xenogears, and other stuff. While the Chrono Cross artist, Nobuteru Yuuki, (who I adore) had no involvement in Baten Kaitos, it's only natural for there to be similarities in graphics to Chrono Cross. That's where the similarities end, though, so you don't have to worry that it plays like Chrono Cross.
Lemmy Kilmister
08-03-2004, 09:18 PM
As for the Chrono Cross similarities, that's another six degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of thing. Monolith handled most of the character design, plot, backgrounds, etc. stuff, and Monolith was a company started from former Square employees who had been working on the Chrono series, Xenogears, and other stuff. While the Chrono Cross artist, Nobuteru Yuuki, (who I adore) had no involvement in Baten Kaitos, it's only natural for there to be similarities in graphics to Chrono Cross. That's where the similarities end, though, so you don't have to worry that it plays like Chrono Cross.
I see now thanks. I didn't know monolith was part of the project (most likely because i was never really interested).
Daria
08-03-2004, 09:25 PM
As for the Chrono Cross similarities, that's another six degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of thing. Monolith handled most of the character design, plot, backgrounds, etc. stuff, and Monolith was a company started from former Square employees who had been working on the Chrono series, Xenogears, and other stuff. While the Chrono Cross artist, Nobuteru Yuuki, (who I adore) had no involvement in Baten Kaitos, it's only natural for there to be similarities in graphics to Chrono Cross. That's where the similarities end, though, so you don't have to worry that it plays like Chrono Cross.
I see now thanks. I didn't know monolith was part of the project (most likely because i was never really interested).
Way to slap judgement on a game without looking into at all. :roll:
Lemmy Kilmister
08-03-2004, 09:29 PM
Did you see my first post? I said that i would save judgement tell i actually played or seen it in action. It's just from what i seen so far it doesn't look like anything i would be interested in. Not to say it's bad.
Daria
08-03-2004, 09:38 PM
Did you see my first post? I said that i would save judgement tell i actually played or seen it in action.
No you didn't, you said you won't be biased and say it outright looks like crap but it's still blah. So there! Nyah! ;)
Lemmy Kilmister
08-03-2004, 09:41 PM
Did you see my first post? I said that i would save judgement tell i actually played or seen it in action.
No you didn't, you said you won't be biased and say it outright looks like crap but it's still blah. So there! Nyah! ;)
Fine you win. LOL Though i'm still going to wait on this one.
I've seen some nice stills in my Nintendo Power and it looks great!
Drexel923
08-03-2004, 11:39 PM
Yeah, it's pretty much nothing like Tales. It has elements of action that keeps you on your toes, but you're not moving all over the place or anything. It's more or less turn-based, but as the game goes on, the time you have to make your selections gets more limited, so if you're slow, you may miss the chance to attack or block.
It's card-based, but it's not a Yu-Gi-Oh style game. You form a deck of cards out of weapon/armor/healing/misc. cards, it's dealt to you in a random order when you start the battle, and you pick what you want to use out of your hand (which brings in new cards too). If you run out during the battle (usually only happens in boss fights), your deck is shuffled, and the cycle begins again. Enemies have decks too, but they pretty much always can attack and block. It helps when they lose a turn to have their deck shuffled, though.
I was a little bummed when I found out the game was card based, but after reading this I'm a little more optimistic. Thanks for the info.