I played through this on Switch with the HD remaster and I can see why it's beloved to so many.
Baten Kaitos is an RPG created by the joint efforts of Tri-Crescendo and Monolith Soft, one clearly under budget restraints and hardware restraints (the game required two GameCube discs due to the limited size of that media) and as such the scope and ambition of the story is held back by these restraints. Outside of the opening movie there are no FMV cutscenes and the world itself is made up of 2D jpeg artwork with the characters being 3D models that move on those. Even camera work is restricted with the final scene being egregiously noticeable as instead of zooming out it continuously cuts and loads a further out picture. These things don't ruin the game but you can feel the pushback against the ambition throughout and there's a feeling of what could've been when you're aware of what Monolith Soft have accomplished with cutscene direction throughout their history.
Where Baten Kaitos shines is its story. Set in the sky after a war against a god ravaged the earth, people now live on a smattering of sky islands with toxic clouds below them to prevent them reaching the earth's surface. People also now have wings to help them get around and it is in general a really cool world setting with an interesting history that is full of surprises as you learn more and more.
Our set up for the game sees the empire trying to revive the sealed god Malpercio in an attempt to claim its power for themselves. They go around the islands in hopes of awakening the five end magnus (in Baten Kaitos all essences can be captured in cards called magnus and used later) and it's up to our party to put a stop to their plans.
Our party consists of protagonist Kalas, whose journey consists of seeking revenge against those who killed his grandfather and brother and he quite frankly couldn't care less about the wider conflict or any side quest distractions and it's actually really quite refreshing to have a protagonist like that. He is guided by a guardian spirit who is essentially the player themselves looking into the game world and we can use dialogue options to try and help push Kalas in the right direction. I believe the dialogue options affect bonuses in battle but I also think making the player themselves a guardian spirit is a really cool way to bridge the player into the game without making the protagonist a silent character.
As Kalas goes through his journey he's met by Xelha, a girl who has escaped the empire with an important pendant and he soons finds himself being dragged into the wider conflict at play. As our main heroine of the game, Xelha makes a fantastic counterpart to Kalas as she wants to help people and stop the empire's plans. The two balance each other pretty well and as the party continues to grow you end up with a pretty diverse and interesting cast of likeable characters with their own motivations and backstories.
The basis of the plot is great enough but where it really gets its hooks into you is through its many twists and turns it takes with revelations that are bound to catch you off guard and make for a memorable journey. It's not perfect, there's a lot of stuff unpacked in the last couple of scenes that feel like they could've explored earlier but when they hit, they hit strong.
Battle wise is where Baten Kaitos truly shines in its uniqueness. It's core is a turn based rpg system but battles are handled through a card system where you have a deck you've built to include attack, defence, and healing cards. Each card has its own numbers on it so you try and build combos with what you've drawn by using straights (1-2-3 etc) or pairs and the bigger combo you pull off, the better bonus damage you get and the potential for a unique combo special. Defence cards can be used to reduce damage from an opponent's attacks while healing cards do what they say on the tin. As you level up you'll be able to increase your deck size, hand size, and combo limit allowing you to pull off even mightier strikes. It's an incredibly fun battle system once you get used to it but it does come with a few drawbacks. 1. You're reliant on the draw of the cards so you can often be stuck with no attack cards or no defence cards when you need them. 2. Each character uses their own unique deck which means you'll be organising and optimising up to 6 decks and that's extremely time consuming. 3. Food cards expire with time so you'll be left with rotten cards and need to constantly swap in fresh ones which is a pain.
These drawbacks are frustrating but it doesn't stop this being an incredibly fun and unique battle system to experiment with. The HD remaster also comes with the option of turning one hit KOs on so if you do tire from it you can simplify things to push on for a bit (which I ended up doing for most standard encounters)
The card system is also used for puzzles in the overworld where you can use blank magnus to store the essence of stuff like fire or water and use them to solve puzzles you come across. There's some cool stuff like storing milk and holding onto it long for it to become cheese and yogurt which is really interesting to see.
The HD remaster includes a few new options on top of the updated visuals. Mentioned before is the one hit KO option to speed through battles and there's an option to turn off standard encounters. On top of that you can increase game speed and battle speed. These are done through menus and I'd rather have them be a button toggle because I only want to speed up animations or certain portions and going in and out of menus to do it constantly is a bit annoying.
One other area the game truly peaks at is its soundtrack. The area and town themes all provide great background music with Mira bringing a really strong bass hook. The battle themes all go really hard with electric guitars hitting some fire riffs while the Chaotic Dance boss music is all sorts of wonderfully funky. One of the last boss fights in the game has to be one of my all time favourite boss songs as it hits some incredible headbanging moments.
Baten Kaitos is a great RPG that just misses out on its potential with its ambition being held back by its budget. If you can get on board with its unique battle system then there's a great time to be had here with lovely characters and a story full of twists and turns but unfortunately it is a bit of a learning curve that may put people off.
Baten Kaitos is an RPG created by the joint efforts of Tri-Crescendo and Monolith Soft, one clearly under budget restraints and hardware restraints (the game required two GameCube discs due to the limited size of that media) and as such the scope and ambition of the story is held back by these restraints. Outside of the opening movie there are no FMV cutscenes and the world itself is made up of 2D jpeg artwork with the characters being 3D models that move on those. Even camera work is restricted with the final scene being egregiously noticeable as instead of zooming out it continuously cuts and loads a further out picture. These things don't ruin the game but you can feel the pushback against the ambition throughout and there's a feeling of what could've been when you're aware of what Monolith Soft have accomplished with cutscene direction throughout their history.
Where Baten Kaitos shines is its story. Set in the sky after a war against a god ravaged the earth, people now live on a smattering of sky islands with toxic clouds below them to prevent them reaching the earth's surface. People also now have wings to help them get around and it is in general a really cool world setting with an interesting history that is full of surprises as you learn more and more.
Our set up for the game sees the empire trying to revive the sealed god Malpercio in an attempt to claim its power for themselves. They go around the islands in hopes of awakening the five end magnus (in Baten Kaitos all essences can be captured in cards called magnus and used later) and it's up to our party to put a stop to their plans.
Our party consists of protagonist Kalas, whose journey consists of seeking revenge against those who killed his grandfather and brother and he quite frankly couldn't care less about the wider conflict or any side quest distractions and it's actually really quite refreshing to have a protagonist like that. He is guided by a guardian spirit who is essentially the player themselves looking into the game world and we can use dialogue options to try and help push Kalas in the right direction. I believe the dialogue options affect bonuses in battle but I also think making the player themselves a guardian spirit is a really cool way to bridge the player into the game without making the protagonist a silent character.
As Kalas goes through his journey he's met by Xelha, a girl who has escaped the empire with an important pendant and he soons finds himself being dragged into the wider conflict at play. As our main heroine of the game, Xelha makes a fantastic counterpart to Kalas as she wants to help people and stop the empire's plans. The two balance each other pretty well and as the party continues to grow you end up with a pretty diverse and interesting cast of likeable characters with their own motivations and backstories.
The basis of the plot is great enough but where it really gets its hooks into you is through its many twists and turns it takes with revelations that are bound to catch you off guard and make for a memorable journey. It's not perfect, there's a lot of stuff unpacked in the last couple of scenes that feel like they could've explored earlier but when they hit, they hit strong.
Battle wise is where Baten Kaitos truly shines in its uniqueness. It's core is a turn based rpg system but battles are handled through a card system where you have a deck you've built to include attack, defence, and healing cards. Each card has its own numbers on it so you try and build combos with what you've drawn by using straights (1-2-3 etc) or pairs and the bigger combo you pull off, the better bonus damage you get and the potential for a unique combo special. Defence cards can be used to reduce damage from an opponent's attacks while healing cards do what they say on the tin. As you level up you'll be able to increase your deck size, hand size, and combo limit allowing you to pull off even mightier strikes. It's an incredibly fun battle system once you get used to it but it does come with a few drawbacks. 1. You're reliant on the draw of the cards so you can often be stuck with no attack cards or no defence cards when you need them. 2. Each character uses their own unique deck which means you'll be organising and optimising up to 6 decks and that's extremely time consuming. 3. Food cards expire with time so you'll be left with rotten cards and need to constantly swap in fresh ones which is a pain.
These drawbacks are frustrating but it doesn't stop this being an incredibly fun and unique battle system to experiment with. The HD remaster also comes with the option of turning one hit KOs on so if you do tire from it you can simplify things to push on for a bit (which I ended up doing for most standard encounters)
The card system is also used for puzzles in the overworld where you can use blank magnus to store the essence of stuff like fire or water and use them to solve puzzles you come across. There's some cool stuff like storing milk and holding onto it long for it to become cheese and yogurt which is really interesting to see.
The HD remaster includes a few new options on top of the updated visuals. Mentioned before is the one hit KO option to speed through battles and there's an option to turn off standard encounters. On top of that you can increase game speed and battle speed. These are done through menus and I'd rather have them be a button toggle because I only want to speed up animations or certain portions and going in and out of menus to do it constantly is a bit annoying.
One other area the game truly peaks at is its soundtrack. The area and town themes all provide great background music with Mira bringing a really strong bass hook. The battle themes all go really hard with electric guitars hitting some fire riffs while the Chaotic Dance boss music is all sorts of wonderfully funky. One of the last boss fights in the game has to be one of my all time favourite boss songs as it hits some incredible headbanging moments.
Baten Kaitos is a great RPG that just misses out on its potential with its ambition being held back by its budget. If you can get on board with its unique battle system then there's a great time to be had here with lovely characters and a story full of twists and turns but unfortunately it is a bit of a learning curve that may put people off.