Baten Kaitos Eternal Wings and The Lost Ocean (2003): One of the most underrated RPG’s that you should play

Around a month ago, it was announced that the famous company Bandai Namco renewed trademarks for Baten Kaitos Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, as well as its prequel Baten Kaitos Origins in the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), this could mean great news for the ones that love these games, but why almost no one knows about them?

Baten Kaitos Eternal Wings and The Lost Ocean (2003) tells the story of Kalas, an orphan living in the floating continent of Mira with his little brother Fee and their apparent grandparent, a bright scientist named Georg, who was working for the Empire. As with many Empires and Governments, a disagreement must be solved with murder, for that reason officers of the Imperial Army are sent to eliminate Georg and his family. The scientist in his attempt to defend the kids sadly dies, but Kalas manages to escape along with his brother Fee, who is severely injured.

Soon after that, Fee dies in Kalas’ arms, leaving him devastated and enraged. Kalas promises Fee that he will find The Whale one day “A legendary and powerful creature said to have lived in the ocean”, which is referred to as a God, basically this game relies on its existence. Also, he swears to avenge Fee and Georg and fight against the Empire. But how can you find The Whale in a world where there’s no ocean? As its name says “Eternal Wings and The Lost Ocean”, Baten Kaitos has vast floating continents (like islands) where people of different cultures live, the Ocean is inexistent and it is only a legend told by the elders.

“A long long time ago, it was. Before people began to dwell in the Sky. A terrible war was waged between us humans and the Wicked God. After the horrendous battle, our ancestors entombed the Wicked God and left the polluted and barren earth to find a future in the Sky”… These are the first sentences appearing as soon as your Gamecube starts running the game. As you can imagine, the Ocean and The Whale after this ancient war were protected by ancient wizards, making them disappear and become a legend for the people.

Going back to Kalas, soon after Fee dies he loses his memory (telling you how will be too much spoiler) and wakes up in a village called Celbarai, where you will meet the other most important character in the game, a girl named Xelha. As a Mexican, I was so proud of this character having a Mayan name, “Xel” (spring) and “Ha” (water), this also means “where the water is born”. Xelha becomes your first partner in the game and at first you do not know why, but just like you, she is being hunted down by the Empire.

Kalas, Xelha, you (yes, literally you) and the other four amazing characters Gibari, Lyude, Savyna and Mizuti will join and fight together in this adventure. About fighting… the battle system in this game is so unique, interesting, but complicated and awful to some, I personally love it!. This is a turn-based game where you choose between different types of cards with each character called Magnus (these can do regular damage, elemental damage, support, or nothing!) and each one has different numbers you can combine and play with. You can increase your deck of cards in battle by finding these Magnus around the places you go, doing quests, buying them at the shop, creating them in battle and by going to church (don’t worry, Jesus has 0 protagonism in this game).

You can also grab some Magnus you will not use in battle, but you will use them on quests, this system is interesting cause Magnus can age in the game. For instance, you can have green bananas during a battle that will turn into regular yummy yellow bananas, and an hour later you’ll find out that they’re now overripe, also the effect will be different. Or you can be excited finding a powerful fire sword to use during battle only to find out two hours later that fire is gone, and your sword is only a piece of a bamboo stick. This system can make the game easier or harder, sometimes annoying.

I mentioned earlier that you can join the characters in the game and this is true. Kalas is a “Spiriter” so you become his “Guardian Spirit” an inner voice that he can speak to and where he acquires his powers from, because you are the person choosing the Magnus in battle and also making decisions in the game!. Some questions will be asked to you sometimes, I recommend not to be rude to the characters ’cause this actually affects your performance in battle. Also in this game, you’ll find lots of references to other Namco’s games, acquiring the Magnus Pac-man that you have to be careful with because it will eat all of your quest Magnus. Later in the game, you’ll also enter the world of Tower of Druaga (NES) and even talk to the Golden Hero.

The art and picture of this game are astonishing! This is such a beautiful work made by the director and designer of the game Yasuyuki Honne, who is a super friendly person as well. You’ll find different scenarios, from deserts to jungles, developed cities, forests, and even weird magical sites: places full of mirrors that will reflect your character, cities and people made of origami, frozen villages, and my favorite one Parnasse, which is a village made of desserts. In this one, the walls are made of chocolate, colorful candy, heavy whipping cream and people wear hats made of bread.

The plot of this game is one of the most interesting things I’ve ever experienced, it is full of mysteries and references, starting with the fact that almost every place you visit has the name of a star or a constellation. In fact, the whole game is a reference to the Cetus constellation, that’s why The Whale is the “main” God, and Baten Kaitos is actually a K-type giant star (ζ Cet). The story is unique and beautiful, twisted as well.

You’ll find yourself disappointed because of a huge betrayal, mad, desperate, sad (I even cried the first time I finished this) but you also will be happy and laugh so much at certain parts. Not only you’ll find yourself avenging your family, helping out your friends and random people, out of nowhere you’ll end up fighting some kind of crazy/psychopath/pedo Emperor and an evil badass God, the game keeps surprising you all the time.

This game is 0% boring, even grinding will never get odd, considering that you don’t need to level up your characters and spend a lot of time on that if you manage and understand the battle system well.

A warning I would give you, the battle system is extremely slow in my opinion and the voices suck (I always joke with one of my friends and mention that the English voices in this game were recorded with a coke can), but hey this game was one of the first 10 games released for the Gamecube system, so you must understand this is kind of primitive for its time. Anyways, if you’re an RPG lover give this game a chance please, you won’t regret it and will probably be one of the best games you’ll ever play in your lifetime.

PD. A God called Motoi Sakuraba made the soundtrack for this game!