Baten Kaitos DS, and Xenosaga

[Gadfly2317]

http://namco-ch.net/list_game/list.php?hid=26

Namco has posted these titles on its Japanese website. Xenosaga had been announced already, but I hadn't heard of a Baten Kaitos game being done for DS.

I was really interested in Baten Kaitos for GC but never got around to it. The way it patterned its card-combat after poker really intruiged me. With it being a game done with pre-rendered backgrounds, this could look really gorgeous on the DS, and the handhelds are really where I want to play RPG's anyway.

[Aylmer]

You won't have to wait too long for an RPG, since Lunar will be out in a couple of weeks.

I've said for years that the advent of deep RPGs on handheld consoles was a greater advance in gaming than console based online gameplay. There is something way too addictive about an awesome RPG on a handheld. I am going through Sword of Mana again with the second character right now, and the difference in playing a GBA game on the DS is amazing.

Baten Kaitos is a fantastic game. I am not against card games as long as they have some redeeming quality, and Baten Kaitos' gameplay mechanic addresses the main hassle about card games, which is the luck (or unluck) of the draw supercedes skill in many cases. BK gets around that by having ALL the game elements, powerups, weapons, recovery items, rares, etc. used as cards. It is an awesome game. And beautiful to look at.

It would be very nice if it's done right for the DS, and I think using the stylus to use/sort cards would be very cool.

[trebor]

I've heard that Xenosaga has uber-long cutscenes, so I'm wondering how that will translate to the DS.

One way they could do it, would be to release the game with both a DS and a GBA cart, in one package, ala' Metroid Pinball. Based on my understanding, the GBA carts have larger storage capacities, and can even do true video. Plus, the DS game boxes already have a slot for a GBA cart, so I wonder if that has always been intended for larger, more expansive DS titles.

[Aylmer]

Yes, the GBA slot used with the DS cart slot opens a lot of possibilities.

I just got GBA Movie Player (a 3rd party device, not a Nintendo Play-Yan) from Lik-Sang last week, and it uses standard Compact Flash memory cards to hold data. It fits right into the GBA slot on the DS, so all kinds of things could be possible, like downloadable content.

[trebor]

I just got GBA Movie Player (a 3rd party device, not a Nintendo Play-Yan) from Lik-Sang last week, and it uses standard Compact Flash memory cards to hold data. It fits right into the GBA slot on the DS, so all kinds of things could be possible, like downloadable content.

You'll have to give us a full review of that, after you've played with it for a while. Compact Flash cards are getting way cheap too, so it would be an awesome solution for MP3s.