Frustratingly close to being really great
Baten Kaitos is one of those games where the flaws are amplified by greatness in other areas, making them seem glaring and unacceptable by contrast. It's become a signature feature of Monlith Software's RPG output that their games can reach heights genre contemporaries like Tales Of or Dragon Quest could never hope to achieve, but never consistently. For all that this game achieves in combat mechanics, beautiful places to explore, and music it is equally deficient in storytelling, level design, and skill balance.
Baten Kaitos is a turn based JRPG, and it brings with it all the baggage you might expect. Long, somewhat convoluted plot with limited player agency within it's structural confines? Check. Hundreds and hundreds of similar (and even identical) combat encounters most of which serve no significant purpose beyond that all encompassing quest for experience points? Check. Utterly ridiculous outfits on all the characters? Check. If these things don't strike you as appealing, stop reading right now. This game achieves some great things, but it always works within the ancient JRPG genre framework. With the genre falling out of favor of late, I feel like this sort of fair warning is warranted. This game isn't going to change anyone's mind about the genre, it doesn't go out of it's way to be immediately exciting or accessible... this is a game for existing fans only. You know who you are.
The central mechanic of any JRPG is it's combat. These games force the player into countless mostly meaningless repeated battles, so if the system by which bad guys are thwarted doesn't hold up then that breaks the game right there. Fortunately, the combat is one of those aforementioned high points in the game. Within the fiction of the game there are magical magnus cards that most any object can be trapped within for ease of transport. What this means for combat is that you fill out decks of cards for your heroes, and then are dealt a usable hand from that deck randomly. Each card represents an attack of some sort, an item, or a piece of armor. Come the player's turn he can play 3 or more cards from his hand to deal damage or use items, and when he is attacked he can play armor cards to mitigate the damage dealt to him. Pretty basic framework to build on, and the most basic strategy is managing your hand to make sure you have armor when you need it and damage when the enemy is weak. But as with any JRPG combat mechanic, that's only the start.
Every card is assigned at least one number in it's upper corner, but can potentially have a number in each. If the player on offense or defense uses multiple cards of the same number in a row or is able to form an ascending or descending straight the effects of the cards will be multiplied. The player uses the left analog stick to hover over a card in his hand, then uses the C-stick to specify which corner's number should be used. Later in the game when hands hold 6 or more cards each having 3 or 4 numbers on them combos are no longer nice bonus damage, but essential. Add in a time limit on making your picks, and things get hairy. Add in status effects that can reverse your C-stick directional controls, or set your card numbers to slowly marching around in a circle, and things get really hairy. Add in a system of elemental properties wherein damage from opposing elements within the same play will cancel each other out and... well, there's a lot going on. That hands are distributed randomly means that there is no easy attack to memorize and spam and even against easy foes you're at the mercy of the cards not to get a bunch of armor when you least need it. No matter how many fights you grind through in the game, the combat is never predictable, so never dull.
Good thing too, because these fights go slow. To keep all these variables in order and making sense for the player, after every single attack the game pulls up sort of a "review" screen clearly showing what cards were used, exactly what effects they had, and what modifiers were in effect and why. Though this is great for keeping the otherwise incredibly dense combat making sense... well, it's too slow. Way too slow. The only thing more frustrating than fighting your way through a corridor of slightly too easy enemies for the third time is doing so with every single turn (friend or foe) broken down for you after it happens. It's also possible that you may need to repeat any given battle if you just don't get the cards you need. The game doesn't kick you to game over on failure, it simply prompts you to try the battle again. This sounds modern and forward thinking for a 2003 release, but really it was a necessity. Random card distribution means that sometimes no matter how skilled the player might be, you can't pull a battle out. The randomness that keeps the combat fun can also screw a player over royally. So even better than tons of slow battles, you'll be fighting tons of slow battles any one of which you may need to repeat at no fault of your own.
It's worth it though. The combat remains unlike anything else I've encountered and serves well as the game's main method of interaction. There is other content though and three paragraphs was quite enough description for that single aspect of the game. There's also a story! It's not great. The interesting setting of flying islands inhabited by people with wings is quickly bogged down in an evil empire, an insane emperor, and an evil dark god of destruction. Typical genre fare. The rote storyline is dragged down further by how it's told. For a game released to the post FF X and Xenosaga market, the little mannequins standing around as their melodrama is fleshed out in text boxes simply don't cut it. The camera rarely cuts to take advantage of the fact that the graphics have moved beyond isometric sprites. The voice acting is so bad turning it off in the options menu is non-optional. It boggles my mind how this could have come from the same studio that created Xenosaga after they made Xenosaga! There are Nintendo DS games that make their storytelling more exciting than this.
It's not that the whole game is cheap though, just the narrative. The environments you wander around are imaginative and look beautiful. This game throws back to the PS1 strategy of creating pre-renedered environments that the player can see but not touch, usually just leaving narrow pathways for the player to navigate. This decision paid off in a big way, as every new area looks distinct and inspires a spirit of exploration to drive the player forward. It's worth knowing what's on that next screen. Also contributing to this is the game's soundtrack. It's great. JRPGs are regularly vehicles for some of the best music in video games but this stands out even among that company. The music is possibly the best Motoi Sakuraba ever contributed to a game (though there's an argument to be made for Golden Sun I suppose) and it has a very definite positive impact of the game. The music and landscapes of Baten Kaitos inspire the imagination such to fill the void left by the narrative.
Unfortunately, there's also the part of the levels you walk on and interact with to consider. Those aren't so great. Some levels are simply get from point A to point B, but most contrive some sort of "puzzle" to waylay the player and force another eight fights with the local wolves. These aren't puzzles that make the player think really, they exist only to get more playtime out of the existing content. You're gonna need to run to every far flung corner of these places collecting things or flipping switches or whatever, so do yourself a favor and don't scour a new area thoroughly when you first arrive. Go to the roadblock at the end of the path first because you aren't going to have a choice in the matter.
I realize that what I've described so far sounds like an average game. That's on purpose. When I looked at my bullet points, this game broke down with about as many noteworthy triumphs as failures. But what plain old bullet points don't communicate is that the good things in this game aren't just a little bit good... they're best in class. When the game gets out of it's own way and the good parts start clicking into place together the game is phenomenal. Boss fights force the player to show off much combat mastery as they've accrued, and are hard enough that the turn breakdowns are totally warranted and welcome. The boss music is pretty crazy too, and not in a typical brass and strings one winged angel sort of way. You'll know it when you hear it. Those battles are always highlights. Or when the player visits a cathedral to rebuild constellations - that combines the game's spectacle and musical prowess really well. Ties in to player advancement too, which means more deck building and experimenting which is also great. These moments that isolate the great from the bad are what linger in memory after the game is done and are the reason to track the game down still even a decade after it's original release.
It is up to each individual player whether they're willing to put up with the bad for the good, and this game has such extremes of both that I thought it was worth breaking down which parts are which. For a specific audience, this game deserves to be remembered as a classic. I hope I've helped you figure out if you might belong to that group yourself!