Baten Kaitos - GC

[Sane]

I have to agree about the battles being a bit tedious. When I first heard this was going to be a card based battle system I was expecting it to be really deep and involving. As it is it's a good system, it's well thought out, but it had much more potential.

Firstly, most of the battles are way too easy, this is soemthing most turnbased RPG's are guilty of, but in this game where the battles take quite long to play out it hurts even more (thank god they didn't go with random encounters). There were a few exceptions though, some boss encounters were exceptionally good and challenging.

Secondly, I wish they had fleshed out the system more. Now you only have strights and pairs to work with, there would have been so much more possibilities for unique combinations.

Thirdly, I wish they wouldn't have used the timed defense turns. It's a nice idea, but the time you have to pick a card is just too short. In the later part of the game I found it pretty much impossible to check the properties and numbers of the cards and come up with a combination. There's simply no time, you end up simply racing for the first defense card you see.
I wish they had done away with the timer and instead made the battles much harder, basically forcing you to make strategic decisions but also giving you the time for it.

Aside from these points I think it's a reasonably enjoyable game, although nowhere near as good as Tales of Symphonia. The bad voiceacting, unlikeable characters and very linear gameplay don't really help things either. Still, I hope a sequel will be made that will adress these points, because there is a good game in there somewhere.

[Corrosion]

Anybody pick the PAL version up this week? Admittedly I was hesitant due to the card-based battle system, and more specifically the sometimes-random nature of it. So far I've found it to be okay but increasingly repetetive and there are issues which may become more prominent as the enemies become tougher.

Nevertheless the art is simply beautiful in places and the story mildly engaging. Special mention to the voice acting, which is the worst I've heard since Shenmue II (though still not in the same league of badness) and had to go off. I'm someone who can appreciate and enjoy a reasonable English dub but this was offensive to my ears.

[Oh! My Car!]

from what I've heard it's a given to turn off the voices straight away, otherwise it sounds good though. As far as Shenmue II - do you mean the Xbox version, or was there a DC version in English?

[Zapp$ter]

I must be the only person who can stand the voice acting and has left it on. It's not the best I've heard and save for one npc in the opening village it hasn't really been cringeworthy for me. The game has some beautiful backdrops, some of the environments look stunning. I'm not so sure about the battle system though. I've already come across an instance where I had no cards to attack with in my offensive phase but aside from the randomness of it, it's not too bad. Certainly the card based system hasn't put me off as much as I thought it would and I'm starting to enjoy it now that I'm figuring out how it works. Looks to be a pretty in depth system as well.