Baten Kaitos Origins
December 27,2006 - In all honesty, RPG’s that have a card-based battle system don’t usually end up being as fun as other RPG’s, or other games, in general. However, Monolith Soft thought otherwise. In 2004, Namco published Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, a stylish new RPG, on the GameCube. Though the game doesn’t get the attention it truly deserves, it made its card-based battle system fun, and it had lush visuals with a nice soundtrack to go with it. Now, more than two years later, Monolith has decided to try its hand with another entry to the series—a prequel. The developers claim to have fixed anything that made the first game seem out of place. But does Baten Kaitos Origins prove true?

The game takes place many years before the events of the first Baten Kaitos game, where the Alfard Empire slowly begins to gain their power. Like in the previous title, you play the role of a Guardian Spirit, only this time for a youth named Sagi, a new recruit to the empire. If you’ve played the previous game, you’d know that the Alfard Empire is an evil tyranny. In this game, they haven’t gained that hatred yet—however, right off the bat you’re given the objective the murder the emperor. After the deed’s been finished, Sagi gets framed for the crime, when in fact he found the emperor already dead on his throne. Now he’s on the run away from the empire, and at the same time, he’s discovering things about himself and his family that he wouldn’t imagine could be true.

The thing that sets Baten Kaitos apart from other RPG’s is its unique battle system that, as stated, uses cards called magnus to defend yourself as well as attack and heal both allies and enemies. It’s not like your standard card battle system though; in Baten Kaitos, it plays like more of a turn-based action battle system. All you have to do is choose a card from your hand, and you’ll suddenly attack. Think of the cards as your standard attack/defend menu like in other games like Final Fantasy, and that’s basically all there is to know.

However, it’s a bit changed up in Baten Kaitos Origins. The battle system in BKO is dummied down a bit. In the first Baten Kaitos, there were plenty of cards that could be used by virtually anybody in your party. In BKO, there are plenty of person-specific cards that only those people can use, and that takes out a lot of the freedom more experienced BK players are accustomed to having. Why is it this way? Simple; to shorten the time of battle, the developers decided to make the entire party use one deck whereas in the previous game, everybody in your party had their own deck. Sadly, this doesn’t necessarily improve the battle system at all. One thing that made the BK battle system great was the freedom the player had with performing combos.

With BKO, combos are a lot harder to perform, and this definitely contradicts Monolith’s goal from the very start. The previous game pretty much made everything a combo. The magnus were numbered anywhere from 0-9, and players had the freedom of using combos such as a straight or loads of pairs to deal more damage to their enemies. In BKO, they remove that freedom. To have a combo, you’re strictly limited to using a forward straight (such as 1-2-3), or simple duplicates (such as 2-2-2). You can’t go out of the ordinary and do (2-2-4-4) anymore. In an attempt to make the game easier for their audience, Monolith ended up making the game harder—definitely not a great move.

Gameplay, fortunately, is changed for the better. After battle, your characters regain all their health and don’t become victim to status changes such as poison. That being said, camp magnus is useless, so it’s been wiped out. But you do still have the Quest Magnus, which obviously help you on your quest. As with the previous game, depending on how long you keep certain magnus, they’ll start to change. So if you have a card of bananas, eventually they’ll ripen and then become rotten food when you hold them for too long.

You also have the ability to make use of your wings and glide for a limited time in places. By holding B while moving, Sagi will glide for a while and move 4x his normal walking speed, so that’s a great option. An RPG based on exploration wouldn’t seem right without a bunch of puzzles to leave players thinking, so as you’d expect, there are plenty of puzzles in the various dungeons in BKO—and yes, they are harder than the ones experienced in the first game. But each puzzle has its own distinct features that separate them from the rest, and nothing feels old and repetitive like in most other games, and that’s what makes the exploration part of the game great.

The high point in Baten Kaitos Origins is definitely its graphics and visual style. Everything from the cutscenes to the environments to the magic just looks great, not unlike its predecessor. On the other hand, while the game has fantastic graphics and an on par soundtrack, the game sounds mediocre—specifically the voice acting. You can easily get used to crappy voice acting, but Sagi’s sidekick is something you definitely can’t get used to. It sounds like both a crazed woman and a devil child. Once you get passed that, the sound can be something you can live with.

The world of Baten Kaitos is a place of luscious and beautiful color that anybody would want to visit in a fairy tale. But is that enough? If you’ve played the first game, you’re bound to be disappointed with the way the first half of this title turns out. However, the story and nostalgic feeling you get while reaching the end are all worth it as it really begins to pickup once you get through the so-called “improved” battle system. Needless to say, the game is quite good despite its unnecessary tinkering, but it could’ve been a lot better if Monolith didn’t mess with it. If you’ve never played the first Baten Kaitos, this is a fine place to start, and if you’ve played and beat the first one and can’t get enough, go ahead and get it. Be warned, you might not want to pay full price for this one.

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