User Reviews (21 - 31 of 48)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Best Real-Time Card-Based RPG for Gamecube

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: October 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Baten Kaitos Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean is an epic game that stretches over 60 hours of role playing gameplay. Besides having an original universe, story, and characters it is most well known for the unique gameplay with the very innovative and fun Real-Time Card-Based battle system. Also the graphics and soundtrack on this game is among the best found on the Gamecube or any platform really.

The kind of things that make the real-time card based battle system really fun are:

1. Each card has one or more number and you can select the cards using the numbers to create pairs, strings, etc to create combo attacks that do extra damage

2. Each card can evolve and change over time using the real-time clock so that something like a meat card which is a health item will become rotten meat card over time and then can be used as an offensive card that causes poisoning

3. Different cards when combined logically can yield new cards. A simple example is using a wood card followed by fire card will yield burnt wood card. Plenty of combinations to discover.

4. You the player are a spirit that resides in the main character. Throughout the game you are prompted with choices. The more your choice is in sync with the game character the more likely you will be to get defensive cards during the defence and also you will be more likely to get cards during your attack to continue building your combo.

5. Cards can have attributes like water or fire which can cause additional damage (especially if used against enemies weak to certain element). However if you use a water and fire card in the same attack then you will cancel out the elemental effect/damage.

6. Even though there are large variety of cards they add to variety instead of becoming cumbersome deck management like other card based games. This one is more about the combos then it is about the card statistics and this keeps the game more action oriented.

Attack of the Stick Figure Opera

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: December 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I would like to start this review out with a simple, heartfelt lament in the line of Menelaeus (But slightly modernized): Oh Gack! Oh agony! Oh frantic card-flipping, endless-babbling GAME OF DOOM! Would that I were instead speared with a thousand horned-toads and cast upon an ocean of maltodextrin than EVER, EVER have to see this horrible game again!
That is to say - this game was not fun. Not even remotely fun. It almost made me quit playing RPGs - and I've played them for 18 years now.
How did they write the plot for this game? I think they took a bunch of Japanese teenagers and locked them in a room with an English-only script for Final Fantasy VIII (Not the good one, mind you!). I could see the Japanese doing that - they could put it on television as some kind of reality-humiliation event. After the first week without food, they start hallucinating about flying ballerinas worshipping space whales. There are numerous senseless fetch quests, alot of obnoxious, still-life pontificating, and altogether too much card-flipping (Tip: When the enemy dude has only THREE cards that he plays OVER AND OVER AGAIN, and you have to manage a deck of 40, with NO DISCARD, it's not exactly built for a cheery experience). And, when you beat the game, you are rewarded with nearly a HALF HOUR of little, tiny stick-figures of people talking and talking - FOR HALF AN HOUR. I think at that point the developers and writers were all just too tired and drunk to have the heart to finish the game off. So they sort of panned out and let it run for awhile while they slept it off.
I have played RPGs since before alot of the people that wrote reviews for this game were born. I have put up with alot of bad games - but this was honestly the most senseless waste of time I have experienced in a long time (And I'm including the Harry Potter movie in that list).
To me, the only plus was the voice-acting, because, frankly, I needed something to laugh about after spending 30 minutes traipsing around linear quests to reach another senseless cut-scene. I turned off the voices early because I 'didn't want to spoil the experience' - but you know, I soon realized that the only hope for this game was as a sort of B-movie. So I turned them back on - and you know, they did help. Maybe the people that do those Harry Potter movies could take a cue from this?

Only the hardcore need apply

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: May 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The Gamecube has had a serious lack of RPG's. Even the ones that are RPG's don't even get recognized. FF: Crystal Chronicles is a really fun game but having multiplayer being the best option it's a rather tedious way to play. Tales of Symphonia is ok but the battles do get annoying. And that voice acting, ugh. Paper Mario 2 is one of the better ones. With Baten Kaitos, it's one of those that just comes up short of being awesome. Really short.

Story: You are actually a guardian spirit but you control Kalas, who is interested in figuring out who killed his father and brother. He gets caught up in saving the world from a monster who wants to awaken another monster and rule the world. Standard RPG fare no?

Graphics: Absolutely.Stunning. Seriously, this is the best looking game since Crystal Chronicles or the Metroid games. The games are just so vivid and colorful that even inane looking places still look detailed.

Sound/Music: There's gonna be a pattern here. Story bad, graphics good so this area is bad. The music is great with the Pherkad music being stunning. But the voice acting is just horrible. Flat, wooden delivery and overacted at the same time too.

Gameplay: This isn't the good category but it's not bad. Basically your battle system is a card system, like Yu-Gi-Oh! or Phantasy Star Card Revolution. Every turn you have the option to pick an attack, defense or magic and other cards for your turns. Probably is they're random so you can get stuck looking for something really quickly. Also be prepared for a LOT of leveling up has enemies can come out of nowhere and demolish you.

If you're curious about the game, give it a rent but I really recommend try to see if you're into it.

A fun game!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: April 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

A lot of fun! Even though it is a card based fighting stlye, it's still a very good game! Plenty of characters, tons of weapons, plus a good story behind it.

sweet

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: February 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you've ever read my review for FF Crystal Chronicles (the one that says "Unfortunately, this game sucks")you know that I was very dissapointed with it. All I want is a good RPG for the GC. Finally, I got what I wanted. Let me tell you, this game is awesome.
Graphics: 10/10- Watch the opening cutscene. You'll understand.
(The environments in the game itself are bursting with life and color as well.)
Sound: 9/10- It is really cool to be walking around in a town or village and hear people talking, birds crying, and wind blowing. Not many other games can offer environments that are so...alive. On a more bitter note, some of the voiceovers are laughable, especially Gibari when he says, "This might sting a little" in battle. (It sounds like he's been "Sniff" ing a little "Whoa" if you know what I mean.
Playability: 10/10- The controls in this game are absolutley perfect. I was able to pick up the game immediatley, but still can't master it.
Entertainment: 10/10- The characters, plot, graphics, sound, and general togetherness of this game make it an absolute blast to play. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got an empire to fight.

EXCELLENT RPG

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: August 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Excellent
One of the best RPG i've play in my life.

Great Battle System.
Great Graphics.
Great Music.

And the most important great Story line.
A must have for die hard RPG fans

A great story with great graphics, but gameplay/sound kinda stinks

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: September 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Okay, I found myself deciding between this game and some others, and I kinda wish I would have gotten one of the others, but overall, I'm not complaining.

When I first started playing this game I was like, wow, I can tell this is gonna be a really good game, just by the AMAZING opening cinema...turned out to be a "meh" game. Has its good points, has its bad points, but nothing to write home about.

Here's why I only gave it 3/5.

-Card battle system. If I wanted Yu-Gi-Oh, I would have bought it. If I wanted to play Magic: The Gathering, I would have bought that as well. The graphics on the cards are very well done, and some of the descriptions are funny, but still..its card battle and I hate that. I'd rather have a judgement wheel like Shadow hearts 2 or old school rpg action like Final Fantasy.
-Lack of cinemas. When I saw the opening video to this game while watching the title screen, I almost fell off my chair! I couldn't wait to get going and get into the story! However, after finishing disk 1 and getting 3/4 of the way through disk 2, I was incredibly dissapointed to find out there were NIL, NADA, ZERO, ZILCH FMVs. Thats not really a thing I look for in a game, but when they put a simply AWESOME opening intro fmv to the game, and not include those same fmvs in the actual game at critical plot points, it really sucks.
-Sound. I just had to turn off character voices. Not that they are done bad, just the people's voices they picked to do the characters are annoying and get to me. I really didn't like Kalas' character voice, Xhela's voice gets reeeeeeeaaallly annoying after hearing her name off all her spells as she fires them off in fights.
-Experience points, leveling up and acquiring money. Now I was kinda on the fence with this one. Its different from any other RPG I've played, so I can't decide if its good or bad. You technically kill monsters over and over for experience points till you level up like any other rpg, but in order to level up, you have to go to a church and pray to level up. There is no indicator how much xp till your next level either, so you just have to make periodic visits to the church to level your character up. You don't get money from monsters by killing them either like other rpgs, you have to take pictures with a camera (yes that's right there's a card that lets you take pictures of monsters), then you sell the pictures at stores for cash.

PROS:

-Simply AMAZING graphics. The opening cinema on the title screen had me hooked on this game, just waiting to learn the plot. The worlds are beautiful and something completely new to the rpg scene (everyone lives on floating islands, almost everyone has wings). Every character and monster and spell/special move has great graphics as well.
-In-depth and deep plot. Like I said, I don't like card battle rpgs, so I was forcing myself to keep playing the game (I hated the fights), but there are many plot twists and turns that keep you shocked and intrigued...::spoiler alert:: Most of the best plot stuff happens at the end of disc 1. The game setting was really well-done also..I loved the setting.

Other than the flaws I listed above this game could have been a SOLID 5/5 or even 6/5 had the creators made it not a crappy card rpg, got different actors for the voices (you'll see what I mean if you play this), and put in some FMVs to help the story at critical plot points. I would definitely not buy this game, this is more of a rental..but the game is so long and in-depth it may take you a few weeks to beat it :)

Alright, It's Not So Good ):'

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: October 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Baten Kaitos is a sucky game. It could've been great though. The storyline is very clever, especially the whole god thing. Namco could've gave the storyline a great game, but they didn't. Baten Kaitos tried to follow up to its great predesessor(I think that's how it's spelled) known as Tales of Symphonia, but nothing can ever reach that level of greatness(exept probably FF7, Ocarina of time, or Chrono Trigger). I'm sorry, but I have to jump on the bandwagon of saying that the voice acting is the worst thing to happen since 9/11.

Falls short in many areas

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: December 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The story is great!! Very original, and it has it's surprises!! You will be surprised! The system battle, original! It's a card system battle, which you use cards to fight for example you choose an axe as a card you see your character fight with the axe. ALthough It doesn't have like full motion videos, just one, and it's the intro... but it's kinda fun you should buy it!

great rpg but not perfect

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

overall i loved this game wich kept me glued to my tv for several hours.
let me give you a list of the pro's and the con's
pro's 1.story is riveting although a bit predictable
2.graphics and music are great
3.battle system is inventive and a lot of fun although you have to rely on luck of the draw a lot wich can be frustrating at times but overall one of the best in the industry.
4.characters and character development is very well done
5.gameplay is great and the flows easily plus you decide how long you want to play by choosing side quests or not wich dont affect the outcome but makes it all more challenging.
6.not to many complicated puzzles just enough to keep it interesting knida like tales of symphonia.
7.fun for the whole family something in it for everybody no matter age or gender.
now for the con's.
1.voice acting is below average
2.ennemy roster is small and very repetitive and becomes unchallenging and predictable after a while, especially since the same monsters return when you come back to any screen wich can be very monotonus.Even bosses that you have disposed of keep coming back wich shows a lack of creativity in the game.
3.some sidequests are extremely difficult and time consuming considering the rewards most of them are just not worth the time as far as im concerned.Plus i found that they did not give me enough info to complete them and i finished the game without finishing all of them because i couldn't figure it out.The actual storyline of the game is easier than the sidequests.
4.i had to waste a lot of time powering up my characters wich because of the above mentionned reasons can be long and very boring and unrealistic.
5.you are forced into fights that you dont want because the ennemys are always in the way and keep coming back even after you beat them in the exact spot to boot.
6.cannot buy key weapons and items anywhere or for any amount of money wich is a pity.
7.you cannot purchase or get info that you need to complete certain tasks wich for beginners or intermediate will make the game less enjoyable
8.the world map is too small and too simple compared to most rpg
9.finally the ending is kinda not what you expect.Wich i guess for some thats a good thing.
thats it thank you for reading my revue and i hope it helped you to make an educated decision about buying this game wich i thouroughly enjoyed myself despite it's few flaws.
have a good day

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 Next 

Actions