It is by no means a tranquil existence. The earth below, and the vast oceans it once harbored, are mere legend. Humanity forges its existence on an archipelago of land floating in a yawning, endless sky. These are themes and concepts seldom observed in other titles, and offers a bold take on standard JRPG fare.Baten KaitosThe world of Baten Kaitos is a world adrift in time and space. Having been born with only a single wing, he must make do with a prosthesis, a fact that opens him to discrimination and makes him bitter toward the world around him. The people who inhabit these islands are winged, with the exception of our main protagonist.
Players collect cards that contain weapons and armor, healing and attack items, and sometimes just random objects (as well as, naturally, important key items) from various locations around the world. Cards in this world are called "magnus," and they can contain the spirit of any object (and some living things). Unlike the traditional menu-driven combat, or real-time action-oriented combat which are the usual options for RPGs, Baten Kaitos relies on a deck-based system. The first combat is both an introduction to complexity of the battle system, as well as an exercise in frustration. And it is this rule set that constitutes the story’s shocking plot twist in its middle portion.While the introductory sequence had a lot to like about it, and did a lot to immediately grab a player's attention, the game stumbles just as quickly. Put simply, the world of Baten Kaitos and the character Kalas go about their business despite you.
Some are quite simple for example, playing a Beef card with a Charcoal card and a Large Fire card will give you a Grilled Hamburger. Furthermore, certain item cards played in the correct order have a combo effect, either stacking abilities, or transforming into entirely new cards with previously unknown attributes. Weapon, armor, and item cards must all be played at once in a sequence, and incorrect ordering can have tremendously detrimental effects. However, this barely scratches the surface, as the magnus system becomes increasingly convoluted and the aggravation, accordingly, compounds. Additionally, weapons and armor have elemental affiliations, and playing the correct ones becomes pivotal in difficult encounters.At this point, the complexity of the system starts to become evident, and one might see how this could result in annoyance. Weapons and armor have numerical values from one to nine, and playing a chain of increasing value improves your damage or resistance.
This results in a battle system which, as I said, is often complicated to the point of frustration. This can take an astonishingly short amount of time, and so intentionally forming combos can be very difficult. After the first card is selected, the player has until the action is completed to select the next card. Finally, each hand is played under the constraints of a time limit. Without looking up the answers online ahead of time, there's no way to know what will happen if you execute these during a battle, or if, in fact, you might have discovered a combo while trying to do something else entirely. Some combos heal, some attack, and some do absolutely nothing.
As I speak of barriers to enjoyment, I should also single out the game's voice acting, as Baten Kaitos contains one of the very worst examples of video game voice acting from a period in time where video game voice acting frequently came under criticism (it is, in fact, one of very few games I have ever owned where I turned the voice acting off entirely in the options menu). Instead, they became hurdles toward the enjoyment of the game's narrative. While this is the most extraordinary example, it demonstrates the extremes to which players had to resort in order to uncover all of the game's secrets.These bold choices resonated with some players, but certainly not the majority. But to get Splendid Hair, he had to let the game idle, and as a result, Twitch suspended him for 24 hours, citing "non-gaming content" as the cause. Everything else in the game could be finished in about 80 hours. A notable incident occurred in 2016 when a Twitch streamer by the handle Baffan attempted to complete a 100% speedrun of Baten Kaitos.
Interestingly, the player is assigned an identity in the game, but not as one of these two characters. So although I am discussing a 15-year-old game, be aware that the following paragraphs contain a major spoiler.The game begins with the introduction of our primary protagonists Kalas, an orphan, and Xelha, a mysterious young woman from an unknown country. However, as I also discussed there, the game has a tremendous charm for those who stuck with it, especially as regards some of the game's narrative choices.
It ensues that Kalas has been in league with a third party (one Lady Melodia, who is a minor figure earlier in the game), and has been betraying and undermining the party since the beginning, using them, and the player in their role as guardian spirit, for his own ends.This is a truly remarkable narrative device. Eventually, the group heads directly to Alfard to confront its emperor, Geldoblame, where a major revelation occurs. The two conspire to retrieve the End Magnus before calamity ensues, and in short order are joined by a number of other characters to round out the party. Kalas and Xelha discover one of the legendary "End Magnus" responsible for containing Malpercio, an evil god from legend, and in typical JRPG fashion, they accidentally release it, only for it to be snapped up by the sinister forces of the evil Alfard Empire. This allows you to communicate directly with Kalas, but not with any other characters, and serves as a mechanism for the guidance and direction you give to the party.
The depths of his feeling regarding his place in a world that views his disability as a cause for both scorn and discrimination are made manifest in a narrative choice that directly affects the player and arouses a deep personal response from them.Both in narrative and in combat systems, Baten Kaitos is a spectacularly weird game. To this end, he is willing to betray his comrades and endanger the world. Furthermore, Kalas' motivation for this betrayal is not a simple thirst for power, but the desire to have his missing wing restored. That is to say, the player is themself betrayed by the actions of this character.
In Comparative Literature and Cultural Science, focusing on media studies in film and video games. Nevertheless, Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean will always be a personal favorite of mine, a game so odd and unusual that it remains impossible to forget.Dr. Could tweaking those systems have delivered a better user experience? Or would the majority of players still eschewed the non-traditional nature of the magnus system? It is, of course, impossible to say. In terms of the card-based combat system, however, it contains a categoric failure, a burden to novice players and a hindrance to the enjoyment of the game's other features. Narratively, it takes one of the best chances I've ever experienced, delivering a spin on a classic narrative that packs an unrivaled emotional punch.
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