Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (Nintendo GameCube, 2004)

Baten Kaitos
RPG for the Gamecube by Namco

Another great RPG game for the Gamecube thanks to Namco. This RPG is different you have to buy or collect attack, spell, defense, and item cards to help you in battle. Also in the battles the attack phase is turn based with a timer, and then is goes to real time when the monsters attack and you quickly have to pick an item or defense card or get clobbered. The story of Baten Kaitos is a world adrift in time and space. The earths below, and the vast oceans it once harbored, are mere legend. Act as conscience and spirit guide for young Kalas and his companion Xelha. Guide them in battle and watch their friendship bloom. Join them as they struggle to reveal the mystery of the lost sea and destroy the corruption that threatens their world. I played this game for 70 hours, doing the three main sub quests (Constellation Magnus, Animals side quest, and family sub quest) and completing the game. Also set some time aside for a great ending, this game had a great story, good characters, and some secret stuff that rocked. I recommend this RPG, with so few on the Gamecube don’t miss out, start playing today!

My review score for Baten Kaitos = 9.5
(Score is 1 is throw it out and 10 is a must buy!)

Reviewed by: Eric Schneider
Ebay: eschneider6

Reviewed for Big Boss Games by: Eschneider6

Another great RPG game for the Gamecube thanks to Namco.

This RPG is different, you have to buy or collect attack, spell, defense, and item cards to help you in battle.

Also in the battles the attack phase is turn based with a timer, and then it goes to real time when the monsters attack and you quickly have to pick an item or defense card or get clobbered.

The story of Baten Kaitos is a world adrift in time and space. The earth below and the vast oceans it once harbored are mere legend.

Act as conscience and spirit guide for young Kalas and his companion Xelha. Guide them in battle and watch their friendship bloom. Join them as they struggle to reveal the mystery of the lost sea and destroy the corruption that threatens their world.

I played this game for 70 hours, doing the three main sub quests (Constellation Magnus, Animals side quest, and family sub quest) and completing the game.

Also set some time aside for a great ending, this game had a great story, good characters, and some secret stuff that rocked! I highly recommend this RPG. With so few RPGs available on the Gamecube, don?t miss this one out.

Start playing it today!

My review score for Baten Kaitos = 9.5
(Score is 1 is throw it out and 10 is a must buy!)

I missed out on this game when it first came out. So when I saw it for cheap on E-bay, I decided to give it a go. This game has two major draw backs. Any long time RPG fan will find most of the story ho-hum been there done that, though newbies shouldn't mind. And the voice acting is often beyond painful. Thankfully voice overs can be turned off, and if you can read you won't miss them. Trust me.

What I really like about this game is how much it feels like my old favorites on the SNES and PS1. Backgrounds are faux 3D hand painted and pre-rended images. Extra sprites and 3D effects make the environments come alive. Alot of work has gone into the art style of this game. Even the over the top Japanese wierd parts are beautiful. This kind of design means virtually no load times, ever. The game plays like Final Fantasy 7-9 and Chrono Trigger/Cross. The battle system takes some getting used to; but the game eases you into it, and after an hour or two it becomes second nature.

Summary: It's not perfect, but if you see it somewhere for $25 or less GRAB IT. A GREAT GameCube/Wii oldie

Baten Kaitos is a fun RPG that offers a fresh twist to the conventional RPG system. While it still has a turn based battle system, all the attacks involve cards drawn from each character's deck. This adds a fun and strategic twist to the battle. To get high scores, you must add up all the numbers in the cards into straights, or use them in pairs. Each card has each own elemental property, meaning that if you use two cards of different elements at the same time, they will cancel each other out! I would definitely recommend making sure every character has no opposing elements in their decks to avoid this.
The story is interesting, and has some very surprising twists. The voice acting is very bad in the game, however, so you will probably want to turn it off ASAP. That aside, the dialogue between the characters is interesting, and some of the characters have very unique personalities.
I loved this game, and I will definitely play it again in the future. The graphics are great, and the backgrounds are beautiful and highly detailed. The music is great too. Overall, this is an excellent game, and I would recommend it to all.

"Baten Kaitos" refers to a star in Cetus (the whale constellation) The scenerio is set in the future after the oceans have been destroyed and everyone lives in islands high above polluted skies. Most of the humanoid inhabitants of the game have wings, the protagonist of the game is a bit of freak having one natural wing and another engineered wing. It is sword and sorcery futuristic fantasy RPG in which strategy involves an inventory of "magnus" which are like an endless variety of playing cards. During combat the cards are suffled and then you select cards to play for lethal or healing effects.

This is an oddball game, it is very Japanese it seems Japan is always trying to create unusual variants on the usual games. This is a good thing, though it does take some getting used to. I have to admit I wasn't crazy about going around collecting cards but in effect it works out rather nicely. In a typical RPG players may find that random numbers are generated with little input from the player so essentially your random numbers are based on what you've equiped in your inventory. Using cards allows for chance with quick thinking allowing pairs and series of cards to magnify effects. It isn't highly additive but I definently liked it more than I thought I would.
Graphically the game is superb and the environments very diverse etherial and imaginative. I don't think I'll be interested in going through it again any time soon, but there is enough content to give many hours of play time.
I bought it because game cube has so few good games out there I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm happy I did.