Baten Kaitos to be released in the U.S.

[Great Rumbler]

The much-lauded and critically acclaimed Namco RPG “Baten Kaitos” looks likely to be released in the United States before the end of this year.

This is excellent news for those non-Japanese speakers out there, as this title is well worth importing. No news of a European release to tag alongside with the English-translated version of the game, but now we all have another reason to dust off our freeloaders and get involved in some solid gaming!

For those of you who do speak Japanese, this is no great news, but could you answer one question for me: Honto no kohi desu?

More news as we have it.

Now I won't have to learn Japanese to play it!

Cube-Europe

[A Black Falcon]

Also nothing new. Okay it wasn't 100% confirmed, but it seemed very likely that we'd get it...

[Weltall]

Hmm. I would have been excited a year ago, but Xenosaga was such a supreme letdown that I'm loathe to anticipate another Monolith RPG.

[Great Rumbler]

Also nothing new.

Thank you for ruining my threads!

[A Black Falcon]

I thought of posting those articles, but then thought "we knew all of this months ago". :)

[Great Rumbler]

I was TRYING to get some new threads going, but NOOOO!! Mr. I-Have-To-Ruin-Everything had to step in miss EVERYTHING up!!

[OB1]

Thank you for ruining my threads!

He's the master of ruining threads.

[A Black Falcon]

Bwahaha!

[OB1]

Hmm. I would have been excited a year ago, but Xenosaga was such a supreme letdown that I'm loathe to anticipate another Monolith RPG.

Yeah but why was it a letdown? Because of the endless cinemas and not enough gameplay. Imagine a game without the hours of cinema and lots of gameplay and you've got Baten Kaitos.

[Weltall]

No. It was a letdown because it was the sequel to the greatest game ever made and it very much failed to live up to the standards of its predecessor.

My gripes with the gameplay isn't that there isn't enough, but that it's not nearly as good as Xenogears' was.

[OB1]

In what way? The lack of freedom?

[Weltall]

No, the awesome fighting engine was completely removed and replaced with something ridiculous. Gear combat was a thoughtless joke. It felt like playing a Final Fantasy game.

[OB1]

That's the only reason you didn't like it?

[A Black Falcon]

But is combat less frequent? It is pretty irritating in Xenogears...

[OB1]

Yeah, the only problem I had with 'gears was the frequency of the combat.

[Weltall]

That's the only reason you didn't like it?

Being considerably worse than what I expected from the sequel to my all-time favorite game is reason enough.

I didn't mind the combat frequency at all, since you had to fight a lot to learn your deathblows. Plus, combat is quick. Much quicker than Saga.

Then there was the issue that the environments were at a static angle, and you didn't have the same freedom of movement you had in Gears. The storyline was also quite inferior and the game felt much shorter.

[OB1]

Yeah, Saga is overall a lot worse than Gears, even if I found the combat to be a lot less annoying.

[big guy]

and i got irritated watching a game that's 90% cinematics with the occasional button push...and the developers didn't even bother to make the fingers on peoples hand moveable. i hated the mitton hands pointing at me...it weirded me out.