For gamers who required their RPG fix, the GameCube wasn’t exactly the first system to come to mind. Until this year, the system had next to no RPGs available for it, and Sony was racking in the big bucks from RPG hungry fanatics eager to play the next installment in the endless line of Final Fantasy, Suikoden, Star Ocean, or other countless RPG series finding a snuggly-warm exclusive home on the Playstation 2. That all changed in July, when the first GameCube-exclusive RPG to be released in the US, Tales of Symphonia, came out to massive critical acclaim and heavy sales. However, Namco has decided not to stop there. Teaming up with Monolith Software, developer of the Xenosaga games for the PS2, Namco will release Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean for the GameCube. It’s not only shaping to eclipse the standard set by Tales of Symphonia, but those set by many other RPGs as well.

Baten Kaitos (which translates to “In the belly of the whale” in Arabic) takes place in a world where the land has been ripped from the ground after a fierce battle with an evil god and continents now float through the sky. The ever-adaptable human race has evolved to meet these new circumstances, and after hundreds of years, humanity has now grown wings. You play as a spirit that guides Kalas, a young man with only one wing (his other being a mechanical prosthetic) who wakes up in a hospital bed and can’t remember a thing. Kalas, rightfully freaked out, books it and bumps into a young girl, Xelha, who is on the run from evil forces of Al Faldo who require her in a ritual to resurrect the evil god. This leads Kalas and Xelha form an uneasy alliance. They must now embark in a world-spanning journey in order to eliminate evil and find the long-lost ocean, or the world itself is doomed.

What to know the sick thing? This ISN’T an FMV.

Every RPG needs a solid narrative. However, the graphics also play an important role in creating the vast world and the characters that inhabit it. Fortunately, Baten Kaitos has that role taken care of in spades. I think it’s safe to say that this game has some of the best looking visuals ever seen in a video game. This game truly shows off the capabilities of the GameCube as regards to character models. The detailed scenery really puts this game above and beyond other titles in its genre. Interestingly, the game makes use of 2D prerendered backgrounds rather than 3D rendered; which allowed the designers to put a tremendous amount of detail into them (quality that rivals most RPG FMVs). Trees sway with the wind, rivers and streams flow with the current, and even the smallest speck of dust is kicked from the ground as characters walk. Monolith Software did a great job in creating these beautiful visuals and they should be praised for a job well done.

If the graphical quality of Baten Kaitos is its selling point, it is the unique gameplay that will give the game its lasting appeal. Baten Kaitos is a card-based RPG. It’s NOT a game in the veins of Yu-Gi-Oh or the latest game based on the latest 15 minute TCG craze that turns kids into wobbling globs of Jell-O. If anything, the card system is more of a way to simplify the game’s item and battle interfaces; not create a “gotta catch ‘em all” subplot. It also does something few RPG’s have ever been able to do… make SENSE.

The gameplay is based around Magnus cards (cards which contain the essence of an object). At any time, any object can be sealed into the card or restored to what it once was. This allows players to carry numerous things by simply carrying them in the itty-bitty cards. This makes sense; just about all other RPG characters are inexplicably given a massive patch of subspace to place all of their belongings (even Zelda isn’t spared from this fact). There are 4 types of Magnus cards: Camp, Quest, Equipment, and Battle. Camp is your basic items, Quest is unique items important to the story, Equipment is self-explanatory, and Battle is all the attacks and spells players can use in a fight. At the beginning of the game, players start with a deck of up to 20 cards which can be upgraded as the game goes on. When battles begin, you are dealt a number of cards similar to any turn-based RPG. The major difference is that you can string together various spell and attack cards for combo attacks called Prizes; time your Prize attacks just right and you can unleash massive damage. In the same way, you can defend against enemy attacks (an RPG first) as previously players were forced to stand around like idiots while enemies unleashed their most powerful attacks. This not only shows the game’s uniqueness, but creates an RPG much like Tales of Symphonia. It puts an emphasis on the playing aspect.

Think this thing’s tooth is compensating for anything?

The snippets of the soundtrack I have heard are wonderful. It’s a larger-than-life array of orchestral anthems composed by Motoi Sakuraba, who also did two of this year’s other big RPG hits: the aforementioned Tales of Symphonia, as well as Star Ocean: Till The End of Time. However, the game’s sound happens to provide the only major drawback I’ve seen so far from this game, the voice acting sounds quite poor. There are terrible lines like “Say Cheeseburger!” when a monster’s picture is taken which sound forced and also have a low quality. Monolith probably felt the need to heavily compress the voice acting due to the extreme amount of dialogue. Hopefully it will be fixed before the game’s release. Monolith should put in an option to switch to the Japanese voice acting or none at all in order to save everyone’s ears from the audio offenses this game may produce.

Voice acting aside, Baten Kaitos is shaping up to be one of the best RPGs of the year, maybe even one of the best games of the year. This game will definitely be worth every penny of the $49.99 I will spend on it. Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean will hit stores on November 16th, and I highly recommend anyone who enjoys RPGs in the slightest to give this game a look.

Eric Jones