A fine crafted RPG that's worth your time and it deserves its place as one of the Gamecube's finest.
Some people went on to buy the game. And they were pleased. Simply, Baten Kaitos (which mean 'belly of the whale' in arabic) is one of the best RPGs there is, for any system. It uses a different game system. In it, you use cards to select your moves. You can buy and earn these cards through fights and challenges. Sometimes, you can even find them hidden in the scenery. These cards gain levels along with your characters, so if you got a milk magna (that's how the cards are called), sometime later if you keep it in your inventory, it will turn into sour milk and later, cheese. In cases like these, you'll be able to trade this magna with someone and get some kind of item. Magnas like this can be easily be accessed while playing. And once you use these, they are gone forever until you find another one like it.
There is another kind of magna - the battle kind. These can be used as much as you want, but only in battle. So if you combine these with the attack magnas, the enemy will get its benefits, for ex, if you use some sword cards then but a herbal tea, the enemy will get the damage from the weapons, but the HP regeneration of that item will deduct X points from the whole damage total.
And this brings me to one of the game's problems: you get a random hand in each battle, so if you end up with only defensive cards, you'll need to open up the way for the attack cards and vice-versa. This can be quite annoying in a boss battle, as some of these can take a while and normally are very difficult to beat if you don't get good hands for your characters.
In term of characters, this game has all of your typical types: the lone assassin, the aristocrat, the humble and happy fisherman, the mysterious sorceror type, the bratty kid and the 'I-don't-care-about-nothing' guy (yes, kinda like Squall from FFVIII). It doesn't really stray from the RPG formula of cast and story. The story of the game is good but don't expect to eb blown away. Some good turn-arounds will happen by the 80% mark of the game and throughout the ending, but before that, it's your typical travel-there and kill-that-so-you-win-that-tem kind of adventure. I'm not saying it is bad, but more work could've been done.
In this game, you'll be acting like an spirit guiding the main character, so the sounds of voices sound like coming from inside a shell. The effect is interesting, kind of hinting you are listening through the ears of Kalas, your 'partner' in the game. The voice acting is O.K, but will get annoying over time, since most lines will be repeated over and over again in the battles. If you choose to do so, you can turn them off. I never did that, so I don't know if this option effects the in-battle voices.
Graphics-wise, Baten Kaitos is a beautiful game to look at. All of the enviornments are hand drawn and the character models look fine, complete with moving clothes and all. Unfortunately, you won't get any FMVs like the nice opening one. That one has some scenes that happen in the game, along with the acting of the voice-overs, so you'll recognize those as you play.
It is pretty easy for me to recommend this. It is a great RPG, it takes quite a while to finish it all, including side-quests and the two discs are full of hidden stuff, such as many lines of dialogue between NPCs that are a treat to listen to. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did. It is really worth your time and effort.
Thanks for reading!