Mattcrampy
Level: Smitemaster

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Registered: 05-29-2003
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Baten Kaitos for the GameCube has just been released in "Europe". I picked it up, having heard good things about it.

It's an interesting game. Essentially, all of the battles are handled via the use of cards, and you can play a certain amount of cards during your turn with small bonuses if you have particular runs of cards in your hand. Apart from having this sequence run in real-time, so far, nothing too new.

What makes it interesting, however, is that the standard console RPG systems are taken to extremes here. There are over a thousand different types of cards, some of which react in unpredictable ways that you have to discover (I'm trying to work out what my Secret Recipe and Pine Tree can do). Cards will change over playtime - I found some milk in the first area, which turned into yoghurt, which turned into cheese. About half of the cards will do this, changing their properties radically. The standard yes/no decision trees subtly trigger special cards to appear in your hand in battle, depending on whether your decisions are consistant with the main character's temprement. Yes, they give you a roleplaying bonus, although it's easily gamed, something I hope they start to catch.

As I'm playing, in fact, I find it increasingly difficult to think of it in terms of a console RPG. The battles entirely depend on how you deal with your hand as dealt, and there's usually a card or two you want to experiment with during the battles (again, I'm pretty sure the Pine Tree card has a special combo I need to discover). There is an honest-to-god inventory system. The complexity of the interactions, the varied battle mechanics, makes me approach it more in terms of a computer RPG, where your choices actually matter, but it keeps the reasonably straightforward nature of the quests intact, although there's enough sidequests to do. It seems like a marriage between console and computer RPGs, or at least a console RPG without most of the stuff that makes those games usually suck.

One thing, though: The voice acting is pretty bad. DROD's voice acting looks Hollywood by comparison, and if a scrappy puzzle game developer can make voice acting that doesn't sound crap, Namco should be able to.

Matt

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cheese obsessive
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 219
Registered: 10-10-2004
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I have beaten this game like 4 times, just to see if I could manage to collect all of the cards (which hasn't happened yet). I did figure out most of the card combos, fortunately.

This was one of the coolest RPG's I have ever played, mostly because of the awesome battle system, which requires more thought and luck than one of those RPG's where you just press your super special 359867487 damage attack every time and win every battle. I love playing poker, so this game really interested me from the start. If I had the choice, I would've made all of the elements represent 'suits' like in a regular deck of cards, so that would make more combinations for extra damage. I wasn't really fond of the story, though...I thought it was way to predictable...until the massive plot twist in the middle somewhere, which was about the only good part in the story, I thought. Not only did the voice acting suck, but so did the character development. To me, it just seemed like the same exact characters the whole way through. I thought some relationship would happen between some characters, but nothing at all happened. :/

Over all, this was a really good game, mostly because the battle system never gets monotonous like on most other RPGs. Play it. Or at least rent it first. I give it 4/5 stars.

jdyer
Level: Smiter
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Registered: 03-19-2003
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cheese obsessive wrote:
If I had the choice, I would've made all of the elements represent 'suits' like in a regular deck of cards, so that would make more combinations for extra damage.

Well, of course the interesting thing is you still have to think about the elements in that you don't want to match opposing elements. Still, to nail a really good straight sometimes I tossed a dark in with some light anyway. It adds a completely different sort of difficulty to things.

Mattcrampy
Level: Smitemaster

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I like that aspect of the game - I think the combos do well enough as elementals.

The one thing I really appreciate is that not only are all the battles appreciably different (different starting hands) but you have a reason to go into battle (free healing and trying to unlock combos). It's a really subtle system, and I like it very much.

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cheese obsessive
Level: Master Delver

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Registered: 10-10-2004
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jdyer wrote:

cheese obsessive wrote:
If I had the choice, I would've made all of the elements represent 'suits' like in a regular deck of cards, so that would make more combinations for extra damage.

Well, of course the interesting thing is you still have to think about the elements in that you don't want to match opposing elements. Still, to nail a really good straight sometimes I tossed a dark in with some light anyway. It adds a completely different sort of difficulty to things.

Yeah...somehow, I managed to get really really lucky and I beat the final boss with like 10 hands total. I got a bunch 1-9 or 9-1 straights in a row. But of course, mixing bad elements would take away a little from the total damage, but the 200-something percent combo bonus more than makes up for that. It just depends on if it is worth it to sacrifice a little damage to hit a huge combo.

I would've liked to see like a 'royal flush' type thing where you get cards 1-9 all in the same element.

Radiant
Level: Moderator

Rank Points: 142
Registered: 02-05-2003
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Sounds pretty cool! Unfortunately I don't have a gamecube, so I guess I'll be waiting for some sourceforge team to create a PC/linux version


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= Radiant =