The apple hasn’t fallen very far from the tree. Or the tree hasn’t fallen so far from the apple, since Baten Kaitos Origins is a prequel, not a sequel. The second of these unusual Gamecube-exclusive RPGs takes a step or two back on its fictional timeline, while moving its card-collecting gameplay a few steps forward.

Players of Baten Kaitos will find Origins very familiar. That might be the biggest problem – while it builds on the first game’s world and story, it doesn’t make many sweeping changes to its visuals or gameplay. Some aspects are different, and sometimes for the better, but it’s an awful lot of game to spend seeing mainly familiar sights.

Not Quite Original

Origins usually operates on the assumption that players are up to speed from the previous game. It promptly dives into a plot with several links and call-outs to the un-subtitled Baten Kaitos, and it doesn’t waste much time introducing its card-driven combat system.

Even for curious newcomers, though, that system’s basics are pretty intuitive. Kaitos has nothing like a conventional scheme of equipment, skill development, or magic spells – instead, every item and possible action in combat is reduced to a collectible card. The party packs a deck of skills, spells, and items that deal out into a “hand” for the party to use.

Though the system has some elements from conventional collectible card games – building a deck, finding complementary card effects – it doesn’t play like one in practice. When a battle gets going, it’s not impossibly distant from any other active-time RPG. The cards feel more like a form of command shorthand. Instead of fishing spells and skills from nested menus, you play whichever card.

Combo Combo Combo

Of course, it’s not quite as simple as that. Fitting out a deck determines the probabilities you deal with when waiting for the cards you need. Origins also adds a different spin on that theme with a new combination system. Ascending levels of physical and magical attacks can combo from lowest to highest.

An especially effective combo might use several cards – four linked attacks, say, plus a fifth equipment or element card to give it some extra mustard. Getting all those cards in your hand takes luck and careful deck construction, since you’ll also need healing items and other one-shot cards.

The difficulty level in combat is fairly high, battles are on the long side for a modern RPG, and there’s an inevitable amount of trial and error to designing a deck, especially when you’re up against enemies with elemental defenses. One of Origins’ kindest features is a continue option for boss battles. If you happen to die in a crucial confrontation, the game provides a chance to work up a specialized deck and go back right away for another try.

To make way for the combo system, Origins has a lot less emphasis on elemental affinities in combat. In the original Baten Kaitos, deck-building revolved around diverse or specific sets of elemental attacks, as well as tailoring individual decks for every character. Now all three characters draw from a single deck, and while anyone can play basic attacks and item cards, the vital special attack cards are exclusive to a single party member. Waiting for combos to come up is the key now, which seems to make luck a bigger part of the equation.

The cards you draw are not completely random – some actions can work the draw in your favor a bit – but in a tough battle it’s maddening to wait for the right cards. Active-time initiative means the bad guys keep swinging while you frantically burn through your deck.

Wish You Were Here

Stat freaks, of course, may still enjoy learning how to manipulate the deck-building scheme just right. More artistically inclined gamers might simply enjoy the view, looking over a succession of impressive pre-rendered backgrounds. Origins continues the detailed, painterly style that Yasuyuki Honne displayed in Baten Kaitos, as well as the classic Chrono Cross, and if it looks an awful lot like the original game, that still means it looks awful pretty.

The story, unfortunately, is a pretty slow starter, a problem shared by the story it precedes. It’s not as conventional as it seems to be at first, but it still tends to rely on some pretty familiar clichés. Someone should someday try writing an RPG where the expansive militarist empire is not up to no good.

It’s not helped by event sequences that often bog down into counter-intuitive conversation chasing. When the plot is just starting to go somewhere interesting, the last thing you want to do is fetch some kid’s hat, or light out in search of a villager’s lost sheep. A few crucial event triggers are painfully easy to miss, too, which leads to redundant chatting with every NPC in sight.

The dungeons tend to lay out their challenges more clearly, but they’ve got their own problems in the form of nasty respawning enemies. It’s never fun to fight the same bad guys over and over while trying to puzzle through a nagging brain-teaser, especially when combat takes as long as it does here.

Out of Stock

It’s telling that Nintendo stepped up and published this game itself – Namco, which released the original, was unable or uninterested. The Gamecube, of course, is famously short of RPGs.

Its English translators gave Origins the royal treatment. The new script is unimpeachable, and the new voices are top-notch. Lip-synching isn’t a problem (the characters are never viewed from that close a distance in conversations), so the actors are free to deliver their lines in a smooth, believable rhythm.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to shake the notion that this game wouldn’t stick out on a more crowded console. Given how much it shares with the original Baten Kaitos, it has a hard enough time sticking out on the Gamecube.

Article by: D.F. Smith
Video produced by: Michael Leffler