Baten kaitosu: Owaranai tsubasa to ushinawareta umi

Baten Kaitos is a wonderful game full of twists and turns which will leave you wanting more. It's developed and produced by the same two companies that brought you Xenosaga Episode I and II. There are plenty of cutscenes but only one FMV. This is at the beginning of Baten Kaitos. The story is incredible, but the Voice Acting isn't too good. Monolith could have chosen a much better Cast or Director for Baten Kaitos.

Baten Kaitos is an RPG, where the battles are played through Card. Don't get me wrong, this is nothing like Yu-Gi-Oh, or Pokemon. This has all the elements and RPG should have and does not get repetitive. The story continues and there is very little backtracking. You use the Magnus Cards to select how your turn is to be played.

The battles can be somewhat tedious at times. They can become quite challenging. However, if you lose in a Boss Fight, you do not return to a Save Point, but can select whether you would like to try the Boss Fight again. This saves the work of having to go from a Save Point, through the same cutscene again, to the battle.

My Rating: 7/10

I am a role playing junkie, I love almost every role playing game of this type there is...however, I never cared for free playing ones where you create your character and stuff, not my style. This role playing game follows a band of travelers trying to find the mystery behind these strange seals and an ancient god. The world they live in consists of island continents floating in the sky each one representing a country. The main players seemingly on the side of evil come from a land with more technology than the other islands...they are also a ruthless empire intent on ruling the other lands as well. Our heroes come from varying islands themselves as is typical of a role playing game of this type. There are some interesting plot points, one in particular, but the story is pretty basic. Most of the characters can sprout wings, but this really did not seem to serve a point to anything other than to give our characters really cool wings during the fights. You are sort of a character yourself as you play the guardian spirit to our hero Kalas, from time to time you can make choices and suggest things to him. The most unique part of this game is the fighting. I am not the type of person who wants to fight and fight, I play role playing games more for the story, and don't get me wrong this one is more story based, still the fighting was an actual plus. It consists of offensive and defensive turns and utilizes a card based system that when used correctly can yield great amounts of damage or make an enemy's attack virtually useless. It is a great fighting system. One of the flaws of the game is the voice overs, I didn't mind their voices so much as the fact it sounded as if they were talking through a coffee can or something. Other than that, and a couple of other minor points this one was rather fun to play and enjoyable.