The Offical Cubed3 Baten Kaitos Debate Thread

There used to be a common feature many moons ago whereby games that had been reviewed were linked to the forums, the reasons for this are simple.

Here you get YOUR say without having to argue with some guy who waltzed over from IGN or Gamespot and found we had different opinions and didn't like it.

It keeps the actual review page cleaner, comments can be posted there but debate and arguments should be handled here.

And lastly you guys can ask us reviewers direct questions about the game and the review. Was there something we weren't clear on, did we make a point that seemed contradictory or confusing? Post it here and we will do our best to answer it.

Well the Baten kaitos review is finally up so what better way to bring the old traditions back then with a game we've reviewed a clear 30% less than the average website.

[ Edited by Gastrian on 2005/3/31 18:21 ]

I'd normally be willing to take Matt's views with a pinch of salt, but I feel that perhaps the score is too harsh.

I haven't played it yet, but Gastrian does point out that the game is a love or hae issue.

I think the game still sounds appealing; bright, fantasy world and the whole card basis at least looks innovative and exciting (for cards).

This is where a lot of misconceptions come into the game. It isn't a card game like say magic the gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh. The cards are merely another way of depicting commands and items.

A sword magnus is merely a sword and using that magnus is identical to using an attack command from a Final Fantasy game.

Fighting with magnus is a new way of viewing the combat screen and not a new ay of playing it.

So in other words it's exactally the same as other RPG's but they've just worded it different to make it sound unique and interesting?

Sort of. You've also got the combo rules. If you plays cards with numbers in order - 1,2,3,4,etc you get an attack or defense bonus for thay round.

The commands you are given is random, unique but not to my taste.

Opposing elements, using a dark attack and a light attack together nullify each other out but I've been told thats was also used on the Chrono games.

Combo rewards. By using certain magnus in order you get rewarded with a bonus magnus at the end of combat.

The rest is exactly the same and it doesn't just apply to battles either. Magnus are items, no matter what people say about them they are collected the same way, used the same way and stored the same way. Yes certain magnus change overtime but the same aspect could be applied to natural items.

[ Edited by Gastrian on 2005/3/31 19:28 ]

As I said in my comments for the review, all my replies to questions and arguments would be here, so bare with me as I flick between 2 screens.

Elrinth, I seriously have to disagree with your comments. 8.6/10 purely because its got "beautiful graphics and music". Graphics and music should not really affect the final score of a game in this genre. Are you saying that this game is better than GBA rpgs purely because the graphics and sound are better? Graphics and audio degrade with time, gameplay never changes.

Also considering that RPGs are story driven games you commented yourself on how boring the storyline was surely good graphics and sound cannot compensate for this.

Galvaniser, this game was MEANT to be the realistic rpg cube fans have been waiting for. What we got was something different.

Thomaschung, a debate requires reasoning, reasoning requires intelligence. Lame arse refutals of statements without back-up shows a lack of both reasoning and intelligence. If you wish to disagree with this statement by all means post here and prove it, till then the statement remains valid.

Talesosymphonia, I never once talked about the difficulty level of the game, as stated my game-overs primarily came from bad random dealings of cards. The tedium with regards to the save points is part of the levelling up system.

As I explained earlier I find the magnus system to be a simple make-over of the item and equip system and not worth the fuss made over it. The little tweaks that appear in the magnus system could easily be applied to a standard inventory system yet because this games uses cards its automatically assumed to be better and more innovative.

The randomness of the magnus system can bring with it surprise during combat and also frustration and annoyance. If one of your characters gets dealt all defensive cards and is not targeted throughout the battle they are essentially removed from it. Only being able to remove one card per attack phase means the character is there waiting to be dealt an offensive or support card even when using a balanced deck. So just through random good/bad luck youve been reduced to two players.

In all honesty the Gamespot review should be read in addition to reviews like mine. The gamespot review doesn't point out much more than mine, it just takes a more positive look at the game focusing on its good points feeling they outweigh the bad, mine is just the opposite to that and I feel the good points don't compensate for its bad.

I much prefered the http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/launchreview.asp?reviewid=446979 review to gamespots as it was very much gameplay orientated and while their opinion does differ to mine it is a good, balanced read and one of the best on the net.

Also in your comments you bring up the difficulty level of the game up quite a bit even though I never mentioned it. Just because I found parts of the game annoying and tedious doesn't mean I found them hard.

If anyone wishes to further discuss this then by all means reply to this topic. I know my review was against the norm but when bigger sites who coincide with the norm make comments like this

For example, you can visit a dairy and trap the essence of fresh milk on one your cards. You can use the milk to heal yourself in battle for a certain number of health points. Should you decide to keep the item in your inventory, it eventually curdles into cheese, which heals a character better than plain milk.

Of course anyone who's played the game know that Quest magnus cards are the only ones that can trap magnus essence and they can't be used in battle because as the name suggests they are quest items only. All battle and field magnus you pick up are already in card format.

You practically did talk about the difficulty of the game whether you originally meant to or not in your review. You were saying that the leveling system was an annoyance because you could only level up at specific blue save points. It seemed like you were saying that the game was harder because of this where you wouldn't normally level up in other RPG games. You would have to go back to a save point in order to level up and be ready for a boss battle or else face the boss unprepared. The difficulty of this game isn't that much in order for you to have to backtrack through every dungeon in order to level up before a major boss battle. This is where my argument about the difficulty came in as you didn't necessarily use those words, but that is what you were saying.

You are blaming the magnus system that they used just to try to differ the game from others because it is trying to be innovative? First, you were complaining about the leveling system which isn't a problem as long as you don't skip every possible battle along the way and level regularly. Now, you are blaming the magnus system because it is just trying to imitate a regular inventory minus the regular items that you would have and replacing them with cards. Can you be more of a hypocrite? Complaining about the card system not being innovative enough and complaining about the leveling system because it is being TOO innovative? Sorry, I cannot understand your complaints.

I have already explained about the randomness of the magnus system while in battle, but I might as well again. If you have an imaginative and quick-responding mind, then you should have no trouble overcoming the problem where you have too many offensive magnus or too many defensive magnus. What I did when I had too many defensive magnus was discard a few each turn to try to get an actual attack in, which I would say would be the logical idea instead of staring at the screen while your turn is wasted. What I did when I had too many offensive magnus was discard some of them during my defensive turn to try to get some defense up instead of staring at the screen while my HP is drained right out of me. Maybe you failed to try to improvise in the kinds of ways that I did and maybe that's why you found the randomness frustrating. I don't know right now. Either way, there are enough variations of magnus cards that you find throughout the game that you should not have the trouble of characters dying too often during battle. You should always also keep a good balance of good offensive and defensive magnus in your deck so instances such as these you're explaining do not occur too often. Such is what happened while I was playing this game. I kept a good balance of defensive and offensive magnus in each of my character's decks as I possibly could and I barely had any problems with them dying. Barely any problems with this despite one encounter that people I know had problems with while they were playing too. Luck should not be any problem with anyone if you just keep a good balance of these magnus in your characters' decks plus the occasional healing item, which are just as plentiful throughout the game.

You seem to be trying to make this into a personal attack but we'll ignore that.

As I said before and I will say again. Tedium and annoyance does NOT equal too difficult.

I did not say the leveling system was too innovative I said it was pointless. There is no advantage to the gameplay the way Baten Kaitos performs its leveling up. It is tedious and annoying because you do all the hard work and you aren't rewarded for it unless you quit the dungeon.

I wasn't complaining that the magnus system wasn't too innovative. It was a general comment towards arguments that paint the magnus system to be more innovative and therefore better than it actually is.

Now this might be down to different versions but Baten Kaitos PREVENTS you from discarding more than one defence card a turn. As soon as that first defence card is played the turn is over and it moves to a different character.

Tedium and annoyance may not equal difficulty to you, but the way you are wording your arguments is making it seem more and more like the way you actually think despite your saying it doesn't. There is no advantage to Baten Kaitos' gameplay the way they decided to make their leveling system compared to how other RPGs do this. It does, however, add more difficulty to the game for having to face a boss before you have a chance to level up. If you did actually decide to take the tedious way of going back to level up, then you are actually decreasing the amount of difficulty in the game. This is where the difficulty ties in with tedium and annoyance. Get it? You do not have to necessarily do this with every boss or any boss if you battle enough enemies on a regular basis. I went through the whole game without having to be forced to go back and level up my characters. All I had to do was reorganize my decks a bit or try another way of taking the boss on. If you battle enough enemies, you will be able to level up enough at the next town you visit to be able to take on the next area without problems. I seriously cannot see how you or anyone would have had problems with the way the game had you level up characters your characters if you just battled the enemies like you are forced to in regular RPGs with normal random encounters. Just because the game gives you to choice to fight enemies on the map or avoid them for whatever reason, doesn't mean it's always the smartest move in the long run.

I did make a slight error with saying that I was able to discard multiple defensive cards on my offensive turn despite the fact the game forces the next character's turn right when you play a defense card. It barely makes any difference with everything else I said in my above post with having a balance of offensive and defensive cards in your character's decks. Discarding even one defense card when you have no offensive cards on your offensive turn or at the end of a number of offensive cards where you would get no bonus is also the most logical move that someone should make in that predicament. This will prepare your character for the next offensive turn whether or not they are attacked and able to get rid of some defensive cards because that gives them one more possible healing or offensive magnus to use.

Of course its the logical way so when you wrote your posts why did you assume I didn't do that?

Being limited to using one card a turn is not a good predicament though especially for kalas. He has a lot of combo moves and many of his better swords have to be used second in a chain as well as his special finishing moves. Even with a well structured deck a bad set of cards can ruin a fight.

Going up a level or two within a given zone does not impact the difficulty level of said zone. Going up a level gives a small increase to stats which is barely noticable. The class level ups are balanced out by the reduced timers on the cards. I've done all my bosses before leveling up so the tedium and annoyance cannot come from the difficulty.
The annoyance comes from accomplishing and earning something but being told you cannot have your reward because of a game mechanic.
The tedium comes from constantly having to backtrack if you want that reward.

I respect your decison. I havent played it yet, but it looks so fun!

There is room for a bit suspision when the average score was 8.4 on gamestats.com

Remember that I'm using new standards for my game reviews. If I reviewed this 2 months ago it would have likely gotten a 6.9/10 but thats was when 7.5/10 was deemed acceptable for average games.

5.0/10 is the mid-way mark and is therefore the average mark for a game.
6.0 - 7.9/10 is an average game that appeals more to a given audience so if you like that type of game pay full whack for it. If you don't wait for it to go cheap.
8.0-9.5/10 this is a good game that should appeal to people outside its genre.
9.5+/10 Quite simply you have to own this game.

I felt that Baten Kaitos is purely average and remember that many of these reviews are american and the game came out around october/november, so the graphics, which were a huge selling point don't compare to the likes of say Resident Evil and I found Star Ocean's (PS2) fully 3D evironments far superior to Baten Kaitos.

Now this is an old argument and one I don't like using but quite simply. Is Baten Kaitos more playable than Final Fantasy 7? Its a straight no. Given the age gap and the Baten Kaitos's superior graphics, its shorter, less enjoyable and less diverse. Really how good is a game if it can't beat a 7 year old title in the game aspects that really matter?

Baten Kaitos is not worth the

That is the main flaw in the way you chose to review Baten Kaitos on this website. You judge a game and a game's quality based on other games in the same genre and what has been done before better or worse in other games. Most reviewers decide to review a game based on the game itself and the game's flaws while playing said game and not comparing them to other games with better qualities. That could and I think is why Baten Kaitos received a lower score from you than a majority of other people.

I think it sad that you could find Final Fantasy 7 such a good game that it is more "playable" than Baten Kaitos is despite it's a seven year old game. Final Fantasy 7 was an extraordinary game, but compared to games of this day and age, it palely compares to most games excluding its storyline. The graphics and such might have been great for its time, but that's just it. An example would be cloud's character model. If I went back to the game, it would be horrible to see the outdated character models without attached limbs and poor-quality FMVs compared to those of today. Back then, 3D graphics were nowhere near what is capable of today. The battle system is weak compared to what Baten Kaitos offers, in my opinion. Your opinion seems to differ from the statement in your post, but I prefer full turn-based compared to half-real time battles waiting for your bar to fill up in order to attack.

Now, don't get me wrong here either. Paper Mario 2, Skies of Arcadia, and Tales of Symphonia (see my username) were all excellent RPGs and probably the best on the Gamecube including Baten Kaitos in my book. I see how each could have a better quality than Baten Kaitos, but that doesn't necessarily make each title better than Baten Kaitos all around. Sure, Tales of Symphonia has a better battle system, Skies of Arcadia has a better story possibly, and Paper Mario 2 is just a better game to play when going by simple fun factor. This doesn't mean that you should take points off Baten Kaitos if you did just because there are better titles on the Gamecube when comparing by different categories.

[ Edited by TalesoSymphonia on 2005/4/2 19:05 ]

And you've gone into the frame of mind which has led to Baten Kaitos being over-rated.

Your major point on Baten Kaitos being a better game than FF7 is due to its graphics. Graphics only contribute when the atmosphere it creates is essential to the game like Resident Evil 4, in an RPG graphics count for squat. Thats why the graphics and sound for Baten kaitos were scored highly but the game still had an average score.

There is no flaw in reviewing titles against others. In fact every reviewer should be doing just that.
First off to determine whether a game is good, bad or okay we need to judge it by a given standard and we need other games from that genre to create that standard.
This is neither a blog entry nor a mere forum post. This isn't about whether I think the game is good or not, its about whether I think the person reading it should buy it or not and whether they should buy this game over another game. To that end every game reviewed has to be compared to other games.

When reviewing you don't just "take points" off for any reason. You assess the game and give it a score based on that assessment. You have to take into consideration pros and cons and score it based on the end result, you don't score it for its pros then deduct points for the cons or the other way around.

At the end of the day our readers aren't rich, they can't afford all the titles out in the market and they need to be choosy about what they purchase. They need to now what the best games in a given genre are and the only way for them to find out is through reviews which have compared and rated titles against other titles on the market.

[ Edited by Gastrian on 2005/4/3 5:42 ]