So i gave Baten Kaitos a second go and i’m into it. It’s engaging. The battle system is really where it’s at, because the voice chat certainly is not. I’m contemplating turning the voice clips off. The animations are really sketchy as well. There could be a speed up button, too, for fights and lengthy dialog. Also, there’s not as much cutscenes as i thought there’d be, the only one so far being the longwinded intro before the main menu. Seems like they put all the talent to that cause even the intro’s voice acting is better than in the actual game. The voices are really problematic, only one of them being bearable so far. Lots of characters speak way slower than the text displays, which is never fun cause when you cut a guy off mid-sentence so that you can read the next line, you hear only part of what he said before and what he says next. This can be confusing since i tend to recall what i heard more than what i read.

The battles salvage this game so far, and the magnus system is very absorbing. It keeps me playing. Safe to say that this is the game’s crux. Without it, i wouldn’t be playing. But they make most fetch/side quests tempting because every reward in the game’s world is a magnus card. Also, i have to say that i like leveling up at the church. It might grow tedious once you’re in a dungeon somewhere and enemies and troublesome, but i like that you have to initiate level ups. It makes you focus on battling right and mixing up your magnus cards right, rather than grinding for levels. Classes, it seems, are more important anyway.

So, this is turning into an ongoing review. Live with it. I’m tempted to get GTA IV, getting more tempted by the day, but my principles won’t let me get it. I must finish BK. I hate leaving a game for another because i know i will never go back to it. In this case, GTA will still be fresh in a month or two, whereas most of Kaitos got outpaced by its genre compatriots probably in the same year. Time is not kind to it.

Any of you got GTA IV? Thoughts?