Baten Kaitos

I've been having a hankering for a good old RPG lately (having nearly burned myself out with RTS after Starcraft 2 and a replay of Warcraft 3 before that) So I stopped by my (not so) local Gamestop and came away with an acquisition (or three).

I was initially turned off by the whole JRPG aspect, but I was intrigued enough to give it a shot (and it was 6 bucks.  It nicely rounded off my third game for their buy 2 get 1 free sale).  I do not regret that decision, and could very well be my favorite of the games I bought it with (Megaman X 7 and 8).  I was also put off by how long it took me to start playing the game, which actually wasn't so bad by JRPG standards and was much faster than, say, Final Fantasy XII.  I'm also a little put off by how much time I'm spending by forcing myself to backtrack for the sidequests.

What really got me hooked on this game, though, was when I got to my first battle, and I heard their battle music:

Yeah, the music for the game is awesome.  The graphics for the game are surprisingly eye-pleasing.  Their vaunted card-battle system is well implemented, and surprisingly intuitive, unlike other card battle set-ups I can think of.  There's no inventory, no menu to select attack, defend, magic, run away, etc. You just play the cards that come up.

The story is nothing to write home about, I haven't gotten far, but I can tell it's pretty traditional JRPG stuff.  There's an evil god sealed away, the evil empire (who has guns and airships) is out to free it, and I'm sure he's the final boss fight.  I'm fairly certain that the main character is evil in a good body; he does, after all, have only one wing *cue Sephiroth music* 

This game might have a few surprises for me yet, though.