Baten Kaitos reviewed.

On Gamecentral, ch4 pages 375-379.

In short: Absolutely beutiful Japanese RPG with an absolutely bonkers combat system.

PROS: Completely wonderful graphics - some of the best yet this generation.

CONS: Rubbish combat, story, charecters and dialogue completely ruin the game.

SCORE 6/10 (out now (US), March (UK).

Its not that bad, but it is a flawed game, the card system doesn't work as well as a standard turn based menu, the voice acting is pretty much appauling. I'm playing through this game some more before I give it a full review.

hmmmmm,good(to gastrians comments).
i was looking forward to the game,but some reviews have really put me off,i may just go buy MP2,or mario power tennis,DBZ:budokai 2,or something like that instead.

I wouldn't rush out and buy this game at the moment. It no where near as good as Tales of Symphonia and I'm undecided on whether its better or not that Skies of Arcadia.

That has now put me off getting this game but then again it is better to know the truth now before it is too late.

This actually conflicts with every other review i've read of the game, though i can understand the conflict over the card system. it's just an intuitive way of creating a random battle system, and with the craze of Yu-gi-oh and other card based games it was, in my opinoin, a smart decision.

It's all how you percieve the game, if you're looking for a controlled RPG game then maybe this game wouldn't be best for you, however if you're looking for a game that offers something different from the norm i would definietly recommend checking this one out.

I will say more when i finially get a chance to play it properly, i'm just basing this off what other reviews have said. I usually wouldn't post something like this without actually playing the game first, but i just want to let some people know that just because a few didn't like it, there are many more that did. And that they should look into it some more. Especially because it's an exclusive and if it doesn't sell well then Namco may stop support, and none of us want that. I'm not saying buy it for the sole reason because it's an exclusive, i'm just saying don't give up on the game so easily.

That review didn't really mention the beautiful soundtrack either. Despite the voice actors, which you can turn off. (And in my opinion should effect the over-all review because it's not a core part of the game (i.e. it's not in the original japanese version) but then again it should because it's in the game, but meh)

Graphics - Wonderfully detailed and absolutely gorgeous though the animation of the characters is extremely wooden.

Sound - The music is once again of an extremely high quality but the sound effects and voice acting are painful.

Gameplay - Extremely bland, this is an RPG by numbers with little to set it apart other than the card system which is inferior to a turn-based system.

The way the card system is played out it doesn't play the same way as Yu-Gi-Oh or any other card game. Its overly random and at times unfair. During the defence stage you have less than a second to choose and play a defence card, now if your defence card is on the right hand side of 5 cards and your last attack was the left hand side, you have to scroll through your hand to the defence card and select it before the monster initiates its attack, quite often there isn't enough time.

This game could've and should've been a lot better but for everything it does right it does something equally wrong.

hmmmmm,interesting.......
when can we expect a full review???

Wow, i dont trust that at all. IGN and Gamespot both gave the game above 8

Yep, you can expect a full review. Rivix, why don't you trust my thoughts on the game? Just because IGN and Gamespot (who are in fact the same company) gave it an 8 doesn't mean the game is any good. We've had discussions about this over Edge and GamesTM and how the final score doesn't always pair up with review. What did IGN and Gamespot say about the game that was deserving of it getting over an 8? All the game has to boast is excellent graphics and music which is then equalled out by the attrocious speech and dialogue. What did it say about the gameplay, which for an RPG makes up well over 75% of the final score, because from my time with the game I was wholly unimpressed. The characters aren't like-able, you are forced to make decisions which you don't like just to pander towards the main characters ego. Yes that's right, this is an RPG which penalises you for playing the game the way you want to play it. The quests are boring, ill thought out and illogical, for example: For one quest you go into a lady's house and she needs some milk for the food she's cooking, she can't leave the stove otherwise it burn, fair enough, so you walk over to the stables where there's buckets full of milk and even some empty buckets dotted around. You walk up, look at the milk and get told that you need a container for it. It's a BUCKET of milk, its already in a damn container, but no, you've got to wait until someone gives you a set of blank cards so you can trap the essence of the milk and then give that to the lady cooking. The quests don't get much better than that.

The card system for combat is also clumsy and awkward. Yes we've all complained about companies constantly re-using the turn based system but at the end of the day its a system that works. The card system is essentially a re-working of the turn based system which causes more problems than it solves.

Well, other sites, who aren't stupid like IGN, gave the game 8+'s aswell. Both GCAdvanced.com(gave it 8.9) and Planetgamecube.com(gave it 9) gave the game good reviews, not just scores.

But their opinion on the card system obviously differs greatly to Gastrian's, they loved the card system, they found it fresh and innovative throwing in elements of strategy, though they said at points the battles were a little slow. The card system is the core of the game, so if you don't like that, then you probably wont like the rest of the game either.

Well i have nothing again anyones opinion, but ive always trusted IGN and gamespot over other sites. But i didnt know they were the same company...

Well i plan on getting it. it look interesting, no doubt.

[ Edited by Rivix on 2004/12/9 0:44 ]

hmmmmm,how bout we wait for the review before criticising gastrian for rating it harshly before he even shows us review,lol