Gamecube gets another exclusive RPG: Baten Kaitos

[Gadfly2317]

This game sounds pretty promising, especially since the GC has been light on Role Playing games. Baten Kaitos, if I understand correctly, is being developed by people associated with Xenogear. The screenshots are gorgeous. I clicked on the game from the pictures because it looked like xbox quality graphics, and I was curious to see if the xbox was getting a cool looking japanese RPG. I was pleased to see this coming out for the Gamecube.

http://www.gamers.com/news/1449949/

http://www.gamers.com/game/1426926

This will be out in Japan in December; US release not announced, but likely a few months later.

[shogun]

Well, I wouldn't gush over the screens too much:the backgrounds are prerendered a la FF VII-IX. The game certainly has potential, but right now my money is on Tales of Symphonia.

[Gadfly2317]

<div class=\"smallfont\">Well, I wouldn't gush over the screens too much:the backgrounds are prerendered a la FF VII-IX. The game certainly has potential, but right now my money is on Tales of Symphonia.</div>

The backgrounds are prerendered, but my do they look pretty. Some kinds of games pre-rerendered backgrounds really work for. FF would be one. Prerendered backgrounds were effectively used to make the recent resident evil games look really sharp. In the case of resident evil though, I thought even though the rendedered backgrounds looked nice, the way your character intereacted with the environment distracted from the game. Since it was going for realism, the slight "off" feel of the rendered environments was a distraction. In fantasy role playing game with highly unreal worlds with floating islands, it may work a lot better. Anyway, I'm probably not the best person to talk about Baten Kaitos, I read a bit about the gameplay elements, but I'm not really a role playing gamer. Last one I played was FF VII. Kind of planned on getting around to trying Skies of Arcadia, but I just rarely have that many hours to invest in a game anymore.

[T.Tashi]

<div class=\"smallfont\"><div class=\"smallfont\"></div>

The backgrounds are prerendered, but my do they look pretty. Some kinds of games pre-rerendered backgrounds really work for. FF would be one. Prerendered backgrounds were effectively used to make the recent resident evil games look really sharp. In the case of resident evil though, I thought even though the rendedered backgrounds looked nice, the way your character intereacted with the environment distracted from the game. Since it was going for realism, the slight "off" feel of the rendered environments was a distraction. In fantasy role playing game with highly unreal worlds with floating islands, it may work a lot better. Anyway, I'm probably not the best person to talk about Baten Kaitos, I read a bit about the gameplay elements, but I'm not really a role playing gamer. Last one I played was FF VII. Kind of planned on getting around to trying Skies of Arcadia, but I just rarely have that many hours to invest in a game anymore.</div>

I'm poised to get a Cube here real soon with the price drop coming and I'm kinda giddy. :D GS had a used one for $88 that I almost bought, but I decided to wait.

And you're right about the distraction of prerendered backgrounds, especially in a genre like survival horror that has those claustrophobic, tight camera angles. I don't mind, but it is very noticable.

Skies is the poo man I'm tellin ya! ;) It's not really a long game if you skip the island discoveries. I beat it in 58 hours but I put a lot of time in discovering all the islands. Even though I played it on DC I'd get it again for the extras.

[Suicides-by-Steve]

Yeah Skies of Arcadia wasn't too shabby of a game. A little repetitive in the battle department, but over all it was a great blend between a Zelda game and an RPG.

[T.Tashi]

<div class=\"smallfont\">Yeah Skies of Arcadia wasn't too shabby of a game. A little repetitive in the battle department, but over all it was a great blend between a Zelda game and an RPG.</div>

Yeah those random battles coming every few seconds were murder. I read they toned it down in the remake.

[shogun]

Man, I hated that game....I had the original DC version, but ended up selling it after getting pissed off by one random battle too many. If Sega was going to make you fight an enemy every 5 steps you take, they should have at least made the battle system more entertaining. It's a shame really, since there were so many bright spots that made me want to keep going

"sigh"... random battles are one gaming convention that needs to die ASAP. :o

[Suicides-by-Steve]

<div class=\"smallfont\">
"sigh"... random battles are one gaming convention that needs to die ASAP. :o</div>

Well, like T.Tashi said, they DID tone down the random battles. However, they were still often enough that if you made a wrong turn in a dungeon, you could be assured of one or two battles in return for your mistaken navigation while backtracking. An auto combat feature would have been nice.

However, I don't really agree with you about getting rid of random battles, especially in a CRPG... Leveling up your char would be too hard, or simply boring since only planned encounters and/or player choices could net you XP. Inherently random battles have always been, and most likely always WILL be a part of the experience.

I find alot of console games though have a wacky amount of encounters though, over and above RPG games on the PC such as Baldur's Gate or Gothic- which in that game, each Chapter the monsters respawn, not before, so once an area is cleared, it remains so until the story progresses. That's not too bad an alternative.

[slade]

Here's a Baten Kaitos trailer from the Tokyo Game Show.

http://download.namco-ch.net/Baten_Battle_large.mpeg

If that doesn't work, go to www.gamefront.de and scroll downwards.