"The gate to Fun has been opened."

I don't own Baten Kaitos. I haven't completed Baten Kaitos. I'm actually still on the first disc of Baten Kaitos and it's due back on Sunday. (Well, with Blockbuster's new rules, I have no idea when it's actually "due"…) But in the few short days I have been in possession of this game, I have loved it. It is positive, indisputable proof that an RPG does not need to have "Final Fantasy" slapped on its title to be good.

Story: 10/10
Although the storyline starts out rather slow, it will pick up—trust me on this. Essentially, there is this Empire who is out to steal these items which, if all unsealed, would wreak havoc on the entire world. You, Kalas, the good guy—wait, strike that. You are not Kalas, the good guy. You are a guardian spirit who communicates to Kalas, the good guy. Anyway, Kalas, the good guy, is trying to stop them—sort of. Kalas is not your typical RPG save-the-world hero type; his motivation for battling the bad guy is revenge. Luckily for you, the guardian spirit/player, you will meet characters whose motivation is to save the world.

Controls: 9/10
Because the game is an RPG, the controls are generally simple. A is used to talk to people. A is used to select your weapon or defense. A is used to examine items. B is used to get out of places. The Control Stick moves you. Start pauses the game. Y is used to access the menu screen (you know, the all-important RPG menu screen that lets you use items, change equipment, and the like). The C Stick accesses the Blank Magnus—cards used to trap certain inanimate objects in the game for use in certain sidequests and sometimes the main quest itself. You of course use the omnipotent A button to confirm the Blank Magnus you've selected.

The only reason this gets a score of 9/10 is because in battle, it is sometimes easy to press the Control Stick one too far to the left or right and accidentally select a useless defensive card (or worse, a curative card) on your attacking turn (see "Battle Gameplay"), and thus inflict no damage on—or even heal—your opponent. It's easy to make a mistake in battle if you mess up on your controls.

Overworld Gameplay: 10/10
Playing the game in the overworld is relatively simple, with a few confusing twists—which is how games should be. The Blank Magnus system can be annoying—you may eventually run into some lady in a sidequest who wants something that is ONLY found in a place you visited 95,000 years ago and can't return to right now. But for the most part, your overworld is just a standard, everyday RPG overworld. You have your save spots, shops, houses of NPCs, castles, and the like. And like in most RPGs, you can accomplish almost everything by talking to everyone five times.

Battle Gameplay: 8/10
As in Tales of Symphonia, the monsters are visible, so you will know you're about to get into a battle when you get into a battle. Unlike Tales of Symphonia, Final Fantasy (Any Roman Numeral Here), Chrono Trigger, or any other RPG known to man, the battle system employs cards in a way which I am pretty sure has never been done before. Although it is a card-based battle system, it's not like Yu-Gi-Oh where you play your Blue-Eyes White Dragon in Attack mode and attack your opponent's Celtic Guardian, thus making your opponent lose 1600 life points; it's more like Final Fantasy with the random order of the cards taking care of things like item stock and magic points. Essentially it is a turn-based battle with a time limit on the turns. Your and your opponent's weapons, magics, shields, and healing items are sealed inside cards, which you "play" in combos. As you progress through the game, you can increase the length of these combos as well as gain stronger attacks.

The problem with this is that, because the cards are random, it is possible you will get all defensive cards on your offensive turn, in which case you can do nothing, or the only cards you get are curative cards with all your characters at full HP and no status ailments, or the only cards you get are Dark-type attacks against a boss with 80% resistance to Dark-type attacks. A seven-card combo doesn't do you much good if you can't use a first card. Also, as I said in the "Controls" section, it is easy to, due to the time limit, select an invalid card on your offensive turn (which ends the turn), forget to switch the target to an ally and use a Skipjack (+300 HP) on the boss, or cast two spells in close succession which nullify each other (for example, Fire Burst Lv. II and Aqua Burst Lv. II). Either that or you will use a finishing move (ending your turn) as the second card in a combo when you meant to use six. Or you might forget to take a photograph of a boss, which would net you a ton of money, which you needed to do because you're out of money and the only way to get decent money is to take pictures of enemies.

It is also impossible to switch characters during battle, not even at the cost of one turn.

Leveling System: 10/10
In order to level up, you have to go to church and pray. (No, you do NOT have to be playing on a Sunday in order to do this.) There are actually two actions that may be possible to undertake when praying: Level Up and Class Up.

Level Up is exactly as it sounds: you increase a level, and your HP goes up (and is completely healed in the process—yay!). Class Up is a bit harder: you have to collect a certain Magnus (card) that allows a specific character to Class Up. When a character Classes Up, their deck capacity is increased, they can use an additional card in a combo. Of course, when you get past 3-card combos (when the time to pick the first card is infinite), this also decreases the amount of time you have to choose your first card of the combo—meaning you have to look at the cards and your characters' HP in the process.

Graphics: 10/10
The graphics are what you'd expect from a GameCube game, and thankfully aren't memory-intensive. The game itself—or at least the first disc—only requires 8 blocks of free memory to save, which can be managed on as little as a Memory Card 59 which already contains Pikmin, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Wind Waker saves.

Music: 11/10
Unbelievable. Namco really did a good job here. The music feels like the areas you're supposed to be in, and the battle music is simply incredible. You can also access any music you've already listened to, anytime, simply by going to the appropriate section on the menu screen.

Replayability: 8/10
This is an RPG, which means that it will take quite a while to play the first time you play. Therefore you may not want to replay it. However, most RPGs afford the opportunity of playing in different styles, so you could try, for example, a 100% completion run, a level-1-only run (never level up at the church), a no-class-up run (never class up at the church), initial equipment, initial deck, no items, no curative Magnus in battle, etc.

Rent or Buy:
Given the amount of time you'll need to spend on this game, I'd advise you to buy it. I'm still on the first disc and almost near the end of the rental period, and I've been out of school during it.

Final Score: 76/80 = 9.5/10
9.5 rounds up to 10.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/28/04