Baten Kaitos: Around the World

Making an exclusive RPG for the Gamecube these days may not be the greatest in quantity logical choice for a Japanese developer on the contrary Monolith Soft has never proven itself constrained by the agency of the bounds of logic before. Xenogears, after all, the game that made greatest in quantity of its staff famous, is individual of the most profoundly bizarre pieces of work in the history of the RPG genre

So it's not a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of of a leap from there to Baten Kaitos, owed for the GameCube and the GameCube sole in Japan next month. A fantasy RPG with an unusual card-driven gameplay combination of parts to form a whole it looks to be a true distinct change from what we've grown used to upon Nintendo's system, and perhaps a game RPG fans might want to pass out of their way for

Though Monolith impressible is the name most readily attached to the throw out Baten Kaitos is actually a joint effort between sum of two units developers. Monolith Soft is taking the lead, on the contrary direction, programming, sound, and battle planning are handled by means of Tri-Crescendo, a comparatively new company placeed by Motoi Sakuraba, formerly famous as the composer for many of tri-Ace's games (Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile, and others). Tri-Crescendo's Hiroya Hatsushiba is co-director, with Sakuraba composing the soundtrack, and this is the first time his company has taken charge of an area outside whole design. The game also shares a certain quantity of key staff in common with the PSX classic Chrono Cros including art director Yasuyuki Honne and scenario designer Masato Kato.

The game's medley staff perhaps explains the unusual combine of influences reflected in the game as still It starts with a somewhat conventional story -- unfrequented heroes against an ecroaching empire -- on the other hand builds an unusually creative world around that, and tops the package not upon with a card-driven combat a whole that differs both from conventional RPG combat and conventional card games.

The rationale behind the card combination of parts to form a whole goes like so. The game world is suffused with an potency called "Magnus," which is manifested in the form of cards that the player can gather and use to perform nearly any required action in the game. Cards attack, guard heal, and support -- there's flat a card for escaping a battle. And as individual would expect, it's possible to mix and match cards to create combination issues using like cards to continuation each other or a contrasting card to calculator another's attack. More than 1000 card combinations are available in the finished game.

This may bring to mind the moderate deliberate, strategic combat of tabletop collectible card games or the Yu-Gi-Oh series, on the other hand in action Baten Kaitos has a hurrying think-on-your-feet type of combat a whole A large hand size limit means that you don't acquire bogged down waiting for individual particular card, and offensive and defensive cards are held separately, with equal reason you aren't limited to focusing upon one or the other. You can also clutch more than enough cards in your "deck" to consume through them with abandon, in the way that battles tend to be fast and entertainingly pyrotechnic.

From whence all this power tend hitherwards is perhaps one of the unseens that will be revealed along the way. Baten Kaitos takes place in a world of floating continents, each divided up into various little kingdoms and city-states. Around this world travel our sum of two units heroes, a boy named Kalas and a girl, Xelha, who the pair possess an unusual power. In Japanese it's called "kokoro no tsubasa," which translates to something like "wings of the spirit," or "wings of the heart." In instants of concentration or tension, they can raise ethereal wings from their back, gaining magical powers in the proces

What are our heroes up to? That's perhaps best explained through a trip around the game world. Namco has profiled many of the floating islands that make up the game world, as well as notable cities and landmarks upon each island, which helps introduce other aspects of the game's cast and story.

Cebelrai

This is a distant faming village on Sadal Suud The adventure begins here, when Kalas awakes with no memory. If that weren't enough agitate he then runs into his associate hero, Xelha, who's being pursu through the soldiers of the Al Faldo empire.

Kalas' memory los ties into an interesting bit of world design. In Baten Kaitos, certain race have the ability to house within themselves a departed spirit. This inner man coexists with them and can manifest itself in certain ways. In a faculty of perception the player is that spirit, because Kalas' memory is gone leaving him with solitary the spirit to guide him.


Sadal Suud

This continent is lush and largely unexplored. The rife civilization occupies only a scarcely any villages and a single large port city, Pherkad. At more [i]or[/i] less point in the past, however, the continent was more discloseed and populated, since it's dotted with the ruins of past adjustments


Pherkad

A stone city upon one edge of Sadal Suud rul through the feudal lord Rodolfo, a thoroughly dislikable character (he's the fat comrade in red and green, if you can mark him in the screenshot gallery). Pherkad is primarily a port city, linked to other continents scattered around the skies. Battleships and ferries have possession of its harbors, on missions of war or simply carrying passengers to other islands. These airships advance in all shapes and sizes, from simple craft meant to carry a not many people to opulently-appointed royal liners.


Diadem

One of the ferries from Pherkad travels to Diadem, a larger continent rul through a powerful king. It's called a "kingdom of the clouds" after the multicolored fogs that swirl around its central heights. The king, Ladekahn, occupies the closely-guarded castle of Elnath in the northern part of the continent.