Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
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| Baten Kaitos | |
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| Developer(s) | tri-Crescendo Monolith Soft |
| Publisher(s) | Namco |
| Designer(s) | Yasuyuki Honne |
| Engine | Unique |
| Platform(s) | GameCube |
| Release date |  December 5, 2003 November 16, 2004 April 1, 2005 |
| Genre(s) | RPG |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | CERO: Free ESRB: T (Teen) PEGI: 12+ OFLC: M |
| Media | 2 × GameCube Optical Disc |
| Input methods | Standard GameCube controller |
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (バテン・カイトス 終わらない翼と失われた海 Baten Kaitosu: Owaranai Tsubasa to Ushinawareta Umi) is a role-playing video game that was developed by tri-Crescendo and Monolith Soft and published by Namco for the Nintendo GameCube. First released in Japan in 2003, it is the first game in the Baten Kaitos series, and takes place after Baten Kaitos Origins, a prequel made in 2006. It tells the story of a young man named Kalas and his companion Xelha, who live in an aerial island-based kingdom in the clouds.
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[edit] Plot
The story begins with Kalas, the main character, an unwilling hero, waking up in a hospital bed in the frontier of Sadal Suud remembering little more than his desire to seek revenge against those who murdered his family and burned down his home. While in pursuit of his family's murderers, Kalas encounters Xelha, a young girl running from the Empire and in possession of a mysteriously powerful medallion. With mutual goals, Kalas and Xelha find themselves in an unfortunate situation of having to stick together if they wish to survive the Alfard Empire's minions.
The two travel to Diadem where they meet Gibari, a fisherman from Nashira, and Lyude, the ambassador to Diadem from the Empire. After lowering the water level of Diadem's Lesser Celestial River, which has recently flooded, they leave with Gibari for the capital where they are welcomed by its King, Ladekahn.
They soon learn that the Empire is after the so-called "End Magnus", Magnus cards that have the power of an evil god named Malpercio. Kalas, Xelha, Gibari, and Lyude find one of the five End Magnus in Diadem, but it is stolen from them. They then travel to Anuenue to find the next End Magnus; while there, they confront the emperor of Alfard, Geldoblame, and meet Savyna, an ex-mercenary for the Empire. The group then travels to Mira, Kalas' home nation, where they meet Mizuti, a strange and androgynous being. They are then arrested for the kidnapping of Lady Melodia and lose their only End Magnus.
Finally, the group of six heads to Alfard, where they intend to stop Geldoblame once and for all. Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Kalas and Melodia have been working all along to try to revive the ancient god Malpercio. The game then becomes something of an apocalyptic epic, with Xelha trying to stop Malpercio yet seeking to save the one she loves.
[edit] Characters
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To meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup because it is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this section to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (February 2008) |
- Playable characters
- Guardian Spirit is a creature that can be seen as the avatar of you the player. As the spirit you watch over Kalas and his party. Kalas occasionally addresses the spirit by turning toward the screen and asking him/her to make a decision.
- Kalas is a youth who seeks revenge for the death of his grandfather, Georg, and his little brother, Fee.
- Xelha is a young girl who carries a mysterious pendant linked to the End Magnus. Her true nature and identity are not revealed until late in the game.
- Gibari is a laid-back but proud fisherman from Nashira. He is comfortable disobeying village rules when it suits him, though this is usually done to help others, and prefers living on rules of his own. It is implied that he was once a knight of Diadem.
- Lyude is an imperial ambassador to Diadem, son of a powerful family in the heart of the Alfard Empire. He has a dreadful secret to bear, related to his transfer to Diadem.
- Savyna is an ex-mercenary whose past is unknown but to few.
- Mizuti is a masked creature who is shrouded in mystery. Frequently calls self "Great Mizuti", always speaks of self in the third person, and never conjugates the verb "to be". Towards the end of the game Mizuti's mask shatters and Mizuti is revealed to be a surprisingly cute little girl. Even later they meet Mizuti's parents who disapprove of her overactive imagination though she does, in fact, possess greater power than anyone else in her tribe.
For further detail, see List of characters in Baten Kaitos.
[edit] Magnus
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean is marked by a unique card-based system using "Magnus cards." Magnus cards can magically absorb the "Magna essence" of real-world objects for storage and later use. Everything has a "Magna essence" inside of itself, even living people, yet living people cannot be contained inside Magnus. There are four varieties of Magnus: Quest, Camp, Battle, and Equipment.
[edit] Types of Magnus
[edit] Quest Magnus
Quest magnus are used to trap the magna essence of various items, storing them in a card. Kalas obtains six blank quest magnus very early in the game, and will get more as he progresses. Quest magnus are used for carrying items related to puzzles and sidequests. The contents of a quest magnus will sometimes change over time. For example, lava will eventually harden to a hot rock, which will eventually cool to become a pebble. Once the contents of a Quest Magnus have been exhausted, they can be refilled with any other appropriate contents. if you complete a Quest for a person they will give you a reward(The most popular is a star map magnus).
[edit] Camp Magnus
Camp Magnus are one-use items that can only be used outside of battle. Camp magnus come in two general types: Healing items (including revival, poison curing, and flame curing), and magnus that give permanent bonuses such as increased maximum HP or attack.
[edit] Battle Magnus
Battle Magnus can only be used in battle. Outside of battle, the player assembles a deck of Magnus for each party member, from which he or she draws random hands. Hand size, deck size and maximum combo size go up as the player upgrades the party members' Class by finding character-specific Magnus and having them applied at the Church. However, as the character's class go up, they are also given less time to choose their initial magnus during each turn. At the highest class level, for example, only five seconds are given to choose the first magnus, and the character misses their turn if they do not choose one in time. Weapon cards are used to fight with, Armor cards to block with, and Effect cards cause a variety of things (food cards, for instance, heal HP and can be applied to both allies and enemies).
Each Magnus has a Spirit Number in the corner ranging from 1-9. As the game progresses the player will encounter Battle Magnus with more than one Spirit Number (up to four). The Spirit Numbers are utilized during battle in order to create straights and same-number groupings (pairs, three-of-a-kinds, etc), thus resulting in an increased effect. On cards with multiple spirit numbers, the player can select which number they want to use with the C-stick. Battle Magnus are removed from the active deck in the course of a battle until A) the character runs out of cards in his/her deck and loses a turn in order to reshuffle or B) the battle ends. In this manner, Battle Magnus are replenishable, as opposed to Camp Magnus.
Finishing moves are a special type of attack magnus. They have some restrictions on their use: they can only be played after a certain number of magnus have been played in a combo, and they immediately end a combo even if it has not yet reached maximum size. However, they are very powerful and visually impressive. Finishing moves are character-specific, and each playable character can collect nine of them throughout the game. All bosses and most enemies use finishing moves as well.
[edit] Equipment Magnus
Equipment Magnus are character-specific Magnus, which are found throughout the game, that can be equipped to enhance a character's parameters (ATK, DEF, Agility, HP, as well as resistance to various status effects). Characters can only have one Equipment Magnus equipped at a time.
[edit] Constellation Magnus
The top of the church is adorned by a star map that once showed the location of all the constellations in the sky, but is now empty. A man in the church asks the player to restore it by collecting the 50 Constellation Magnus scattered throughout the game, each one adding a constellation to the star map. The man rewards the player with a new Magnus for every Constellation Magnus brought to the church, as well as one more powerful Magnus for every ten.
[edit] Class up magnus
Class up magnus are magnus that are found through the game, some are easy to find and are dropped by enemies and others are in chests.When you get a class up this will allow you to hold more cards in your deck and in you hand as well as allowing you to play more cards at one time. To get a class up you must first obtain the card for a specific character then go to the Church and pray with the priest using the card in the proses.
[edit] Other Magnus notes
Some of the Magnus change over time, gaining a stronger, weaker, or all together different effect (e.g. food items may rot and turn into items which cause poison or wine will turn from a healing item into vinegar, an attack card.)
Magnus can also be combined during battle. When certain Magnus are played (sometimes it must be in a specific order), Special (SP) combos are formed, thus creating a new Magnus. When an SP combo is performed, it will be listed in the "SP Combos" section of the menu. Some Magnus can only be found through the use of SP Combos. For example, Sacred Wine is formed by combining the Holy Grail and Sacred Wine or Holy Grail and Japanese Rice Wine magnus. No other magnus besides the required ones can be used when forming an SP combo.
There are seven types of damage: physical, light, dark, water, fire, wind, and chrono. Each of the elements has an opposite: wind vs. chrono, water vs. fire, and light vs. dark. Every enemy is aligned with at least one element. Damage of the element(s) an enemy is aligned with will be reduced, and damage of the opposite element(s) will be increased. Using two opposite elements in the same turn will cause their damage to cancel. For example, if a player uses both a wind and chrono magnus, and deals 40 chrono damage and 60 wind damage, then they will cancel to 20 wind damage. Magnus aligned with an element generally deal some physical damage as well - for example, a Fire Burst Level 1 deals 10 fire damage and 5 physical damage.
[edit] Development
In Baten Kaitos, the player is an active participant as a Guardian Spirit who guides Kalas on all of his decisions. If the player maintains a good relationship with Kalas, additional powerful attacks known as "spirit attacks" become activated during combat. There is one spirit attack for each element: Distorting Wind, Lingering Time, Shining Seraph, Demons of Darkness, Sacred Spring, and Hellfire. Spirit attacks only appear at the end of a maximum-sized combo and are the strongest individual attacks in the game.
Saving the game and leveling a character up occur in a straightforward manner, albeit the latter is done in somewhat of an unconventional manner. Red and blue flowers are scattered through the game. The player can save when he directs the character to stand over the flower (both red and blue). Saving can also be done when navigating the Sub-World Screen. Leveling up can only be done when a blue flower is present. The player can then visit the Church (alluded to above) where he/she can Pray to the priest in order to level up, as well as to upgrade their Class. A level up results in an increase in the character's primary attributes such as HP and Attack and Defense, while a Class up results in an increase in the character's deck capacity. The latter can only be done once a certain item Magnus is obtained (one per character per class). The particular classes are not specified.
Money is primarily obtained in an unusual way. One of the Magnus that can be put in a deck is a camera, which comes in three types of varying efficiency. When in battle, the character can use the camera to take a picture of an enemy. After the battle, that picture will develop in about ten real time minutes. As it develops, it gains in worth, which can also depend on how fast an enemy is moving. Photos can be sold at any magnus shop. Other magnus can be sold as well, but with the exception of a few specific items, they generally sell for meager amounts of money. Photos of rarer enemies (i.e. bosses) are worth more. If the enemy blocks a camera shot, the enemy in the photo will appear somewhat distorted and will be worth less. Using light or dark attacks along with the camera will make the photo lighter or darker, respectively. A photo will sell for less if it is too bright or too dark. Photos of PCs normally have very low sellback value, but there is a small chance of getting "rare shots" that are worth a decent amount.
The plot of Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean is one that is enveloped in the ideas of humanity and what it means to be human. Baten Kaitos takes a very positive look at humanity unlike its cousin, the Xenosaga series. The game has a good-natured, poetic approach which appeals to the heart. Baten Kaitos also looks at the ideas of what it means to be alive and what it means to be dead. It also poses the question of what makes a person "good" or "evil" - as Malpercio, the ancient god, is said to be himself suffering, suggesting that he is not indeed truly evil.
Baten Kaitos is the name of a star in the real-world constellation Cetus, the Whale. It translates to "The Belly of the Sea Monster/Whale" in Arabic. In fact, many locations in the game (islands, towns, etc.) are named after stars.
The star Baten Kaitos is thought to have become a dead star, though we see it in the twilight of its life. Given the focus of this game upon the oceans that have been lost beneath the clouds, and a whale-god, the choice of name seems quite apt. The art, done by comic artist Nakaba Higurashi is observed by some people as having a very Arabian appearance, which adds to the premise and feel of the game.
The fact that many of the characters (from NPCs to most of the people who join the party) in Baten Kaitos have unique "soulwings" or "Wings of the Heart" is a fairly central focus of the plot. It is difficult to define exactly what the Wings of the Heart are, for the only comprehensive description of them given to us in the game is related in a flashback sequence by Georg, Kalas' grandfather: "The Wings of the Heart are the visual manifestation of the energy, willpower, and aura that any person has. They are strongly affected by an individual's emotions. As emotions are involved, so is the mind. That is to say, the electrical signals from the left and right hemispheres. .." Basically, it means that a person's wings reflect who they truly are. Disfigurements, such as possessing only a single wing (as Kalas does, making him unable to fly)could be linked to matters inside his own heart. All citizens of the Baten Kaitos world are known to have wings, with the exception of the Imperial citizens from Alfard. There is no evidence in the game pointing to whether or not Imperials have Wings of the Heart since they use only winglets (mechanical wings that are manufactured) and automated hovering vehicles. More information on Wings of the Heart can be found in Baten Kaitos Origins.
[edit] Music
[edit] Reception
IGN gave it an 8.8, calling it "beautiful and thoroughly engrossing", with impressive graphics and combat.[1]
The game has seen mostly positive feedback from players as well, though critics gave mixed reviews due to the controversial battle system. However, since the game was not well advertised, it is a mostly unheard of game to the general public. IGN has described the game as having a 'cult following' and other sources have called the game a cult classic. [Source- http://wii.ign.com/articles/715/715091p1.html]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Juan Castro (November 12th, 2004). Baten Kaitos Review. IGN. Retrieved on 2008-02-08.
