Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean – Review

If there’s one Role Playing Game on the GameCube which has stolen my heart, Baten Kaitos is the one. It is a very lovely, beautiful styled and breathtaking game with a great story which isn’t boring due to some twisting turns. I completely fell in love with this game and hopefully I can make you enthusiastic as well with this review. It’s worth checking out!

Baten What?
Let’s be honest, Namco didn’t promote this game a lot and besides reviews on other sites there was hardly any information. With the provided information I had my doubts if this game was suitable, entertaining for me as it includes a turn by turn card battle system. Due to some bad experiences in the past with this battle system in several games, I was in doubt but eventually took the chance to test it. And as you already noticed I didn’t regret it, although it sometimes was very hard to beat some heavy end-bosses. But the urge to discover more about the story and the final outcome took control over me.

Story
Baten Kaitos takes place at a time when lands exist in the sky. There are several islands floating in the sky and the existence of the ocean and earth seems to be fable, so the people tell the story from generation to generation. It seems that a thousand years ago the earth and ocean disappeared due to some huge power. It divided the original world into five main islands and each of them contain a sealed End-Magnus; a part of the sealed evil power which had caused the end of the original world. As people always strive to have as much power as possible, some try to release the evil power again by gaining each End-Magnus. And that is of course out of the question. Therefore the good intended main characters try to gather the sealed powers before the bad people do to avoid the unleashing of the evil power. If they succeed? Your help is needed as you’re the Guardian Spirit of Kalas, the first character to control. It’s your task to guide and advise him. Later in the game you’re also going to support the lovely Xelha, the second most important main character. Will you lead them both to destruction or resurrection of the original world? Unlock the mystery of the lost sea in an enchanting story of friendship, betrayal and prayer.

Leading Characters and Lots of Cards
Kalas is a young man who’s seeking revenge for his murdered brother and grandfather. He survived the attack and has been brought to a village where he’s in good hands. As soon as he recovers, he plans his revenge but unfortunately he’s still weak. He explores the environment and talks to the villagers to gather information, new team members to help him out in future battles and useful items. The items come in the form of cards; magnus cards. There are six elements of cards, fire, water, light, darkness, wind and chronos. They also include weapons (defense / attack), health power-ups, and quest items such as a family tree document, a bottle of water or a adventure book. Depending on the character, cards can be sorted into a deck for usage in battle or to improve the characters’ skills. In total there are over a thousand magnus cards to choose from!

Xelha is the other main leading character and she teams up with Kalas in the beginning of the game. As EVERY lady in the game she has quite a lot of secrets and is very important as the game evolves. She makes the game very attractive and can turn the story upside down. You, as a Guardian Spirit, are also going to lead her on her quests in a certain period in the game. But you’re not the only one to guide her and Kalas. Later on the team expands with a fisherman (Gibari), an ex-ambassador (Lyude), a mercenary (Savyna) and one of the strangest characters in the game (Mizuti).

Battle System
Before you start a battle it’s important to select who’s going to team up for battle and the according magnus cards to beat the opponent(s). Depending on the level of each character you can select a certain total of cards. Note that attack, defence and health cards are needed. As you don’t know which elements are suitable, it’s recommended to select the best cards with the most efficient effects. If the opponent is weak against fire, you’ll need to cast as many fire elemental cards available. Unfortunately you don’t know the opponent(s)weaknesses and strengths until you’re already in the battle but if you lose you can always change the deck and give it another try. The battle system is turn based; one character / opponent fights per turn, then it’s somebody elses turn. If the opponent attacks, you need to protect yourself with defense cards and vice versa. Each magnus card contains a spirit number and if you cast the cards in an increasing, decreasing or matching up order, an extra percentage of damage / attack will be added. Note that there’s also a time factor involved with casting cards. Within seconds you need to choose the opponent (or team member to heal)and the card to cast. You’ll need to be very quick and therefore recommended to know the purpose of your cards before going into battle. If you’re too late with casting, the turn is over. And speaking of “over”, you lose the battle if the health points are decreased to zero. Of course there are other members to back up in the fight, but as soon as all team members have lost all of their health points, the battle is over. Time to start again and try your utter best to defeat the opponent(s) and get on with the adventure.

Graphics
If there’s one thing which made me go crazy in a positive way, it was about the graphics and the design of items, characters and environments. Never before have I experienced such a highly graphical game seen on the GameCube. Breathtaking, thanks to the pre-rendered backgrounds with polygonal characters. As the game world has been split up in multiple areas, each area has its own typical theme which has been designed in a splendid way. It’s just very hard to describe but take it from me, the whole game is a masterpiece when it comes to design. Also if you switch to battle mode, you can cast special attack cards and the outcome is spectacular. It’s very colorful and full with visualized energy. Flashy lights all over the place! The game movies included are of course even better than the in-game graphics, but that’s nothing new for us gamers. If you already experienced Baten Kaitos, you always will remember the church, right? To me that was the first and most impressive graphical art experience in the game and yes my mouth fell open when I saw it. But as the game evolves, every single area is again breathtaking and astonishing. Especially Anuenue and Mira were my favourite areas!

Sound
That’s a funny one as while playing and battling a lot, the same song played over and over again and when I stopped playing, my boyfriend started to whistle it. So the music is quite catching. But that was the battle music theme which never got irritating. What counts for the graphics also counts for the music; each area has its own sound / music theme. Some are more orchestral and classical, some are just happy tunes. Also the characters sound quite ok. Quite as I got a little bored with hearing Xelha saying “light flare” over and over again when she’d cast a white magnus card in battle. The communication between characters (and you as a Guardian Spirit) is visualized on screen and can be read on your own speed. You need to click on the A button to proceed to read the next line. But it’s not only readable. Important characters have a real voice thanks to the multiple voice actors. And they did a great job and gave the characters even more personality.

Female point of view
When it comes to the female attendees in Baten Kaitos, I cannot complain. Actually I wonder at this point if there are more female characters compared to male characters. Anyway the leading female character is Xelha, which you’re going to control in a certain period of the game. Later on Savyna is going to join the club. She’s a powerful, mysterious, yet incredibly cold but badass mercenary that seems to be upset with her past, killing innocent people. Also Mizuti, the strange masked characters turns out to be a female. Maybe I have spoilt it now already too much, so I won’t reveal more about her. There are more important female characters showing up who take part in the quest to save the world from the evil, but again, I don’t want to spoil it for you if you haven’t played this game yet. But if one thing is very clear: the women have some very important roles in this game!

Conclusion
The first couple of gaming hours are quite easy to handle. My main goal and fun was to talk to all citizens and search for hidden treasures. I signed up for several side-quests such as finding all family members for a dying person and restoring the star-map in the church. The battle system was easy although in the beginning I tried to sneak around enemies instead of fighting them to gain experience points and more interesting magnus cards. And that was a big mistake. While enjoying how the story turned and explored more areas, the difficulty of end-bosses increased heavily. After playing for twenty hours I needed to conquer 3 major experienced enemies and I wasn’t capable of doing it. It was frustrating and after battling for many hours, it felt like the love for the game was making place for irritation. I consulted some forums and found the answer. I needed to level up my characters quickly before getting into the battlefield again! So all of the enemies I tried to avoid in the beginning were necessary to upgrade the leading characters. I over-upgraded the characters as the battle was quite easy afterwards to beat and it helped me a lot with other future fights. Yes, the love for the game had returned and I really wanted to know how the story ended. The final battle was presented to me after playing for seventy hours! Another three hours to conquer the last huge END-boss and I finished the monster with just a minimum of health points left. But I did it and the story would be revealed. I won’t go into detail but it still was quite an intriguing and emotional ending. The pieces of the story fell together and you finally understood what all had happened and what the title was all about. The most emotional part was when it was time for you, Guardian Spirit, to leave. All important characters gathered to say goodbye and waved at you. Yep, a game which definitely touched my heart and deserved to be called a must experience game for the gamecube owners! And please don’t give up if you struggle with some bad enemies, it’s worth leveling up and beating all of them. Believe me!

Review by Wencke – Guardian Spirit
Thumb Bandits European Correspondent & manager of GGU.