What Does God Need With a Magnus? Let's Play Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean [VLP]

[Artix]

Part 41: Gemma Village

Following our escape from the harrowing labyrinth, we're getting some R&R in Mizuti's home base. There's not much going on here, but for once that might be a good thing?

[Shei-kun]

Gotta love games that think "let's just have obnoxious sounds in the background over this plot-important dialogue" is a great idea.

I hope you can get a magnus that's some sort of food derived specifically from cluckers.

Also I love The Great Mizuti's family.

[LPFinale]

I thought The Great Mizuti was supposed to be non-binary this whole time, but I guess the game had other plans since they decided to throw pronouns in there in bright red.

Also I'm with ya, I have absolutely no idea what the logistics on The Great Kamroh's chair are supposed to be. You can't just explain that away with "We wear masks"

[Kibayasu]

That first guy would have told you about the Very Important Lore Item in another room but it turns out that extremely loud clucking is part of the lore.

I'll ditto the Mizuti is just Mizuti thing and its kind of amazing that comedy can be extracted from text box headers.

[Artix]

Part 42: Capella, the Garden of Death

Capella could have been so much worse than it actually is, but let's not let it off the hook just because it's only two screens long. Those are a miserable two screens, after all.

[Kibayasu]

Is that really it for that dungeon? One agonizingly slow wade up a river of definitely mud? No side quest returns? Nothing? What a world.

[Bebere]

Kalas was a secret child of destiny, Xelha was a secret queen, Savyna was a secret war criminal, Lyude is basically a fascist collaborator, Great Mizuti is from secret civilization, Gibari is... good with oars?

I wouldn't say that's much of a secret regarding Lyude: I mean, he was an official of the local warmongering empire when you met him. Not many other choices than him having been somewhat on board with the whole mess. Also quite in the scale of normal, given Alfard's existence and all...

[Artix]

Updates coming once we can actually record again, had a session fall through at the last minute last week and well, this week is Christmas. Got a whole bunch of em ready though, everything straight through to the endgame sidequests is ready to go. I'll have a poll up for that soon-ish.

[Artix]

Okay so the next time we'll be able to record is probably some time next week, so in the meantime I'm gonna get started on recording the endgame. The next two videos will cover the remainder of the Children of the Earth's plot, and after that, we'll be in the big endgame sidequest hunt. Kalas's is mandatory, but the others can be taken at your leisure, up to and including skipping them entirely (do not do this, they have Class 6 items for everyone among other goodies). I'm opening the floor to you guys to decide the order we tackle these bad boys in, and you can vote here. I'll close this once we get the next video out and we'll do them in order of votes. I am not going to reveal whose sidequest is which, but they should be fairly obvious.

See you next week!

[Artix]

Part 43: Zosma, Tower of Stones

Sorry about the delay, folks! We're back, just in time to tackle the best dungeon in the game. I hope everyone is ready for the greatest block pushing puzzle ever made.

[LPFinale]

I've been rather curious about this for a while, but do Xelha and Mizuti have any differences in combat besides their Finishers and Accessories? They seem to use the exact same spells in their Magnus otherwise.

[Artix]

Their stats are very slightly different (off the top of my head I think Mizuti has higher magic and worse everything else), but not to any serious degree. They are functionally the same character, and if you have the spells to spare you can field both of them to decent effect.

[Espella]

In defense of that last room I do conceptually like the idea of them throwing an easy puzzle at you in the end of the dungeon where you can see that you are letting the boss out as you complete it, it both makes sure that you know the boss is coming if the save point wasn't a clear enough indicator and it also can be used as a bit of a plot point to explain why the boss is there, maybe it was sealed up or something and now you're unsealing it to finish it off.

Of course they didn't attempt to do any of that here, and the puzzle was less a puzzle and more just tedious time wasting, but points for effort I guess? Maybe if they had just made it two steps it would have been okay (one step where you can see the heads of the boss and one more step to unlock it) but designers with that kind of restraint probably wouldn't make this dungeon in the first place

[Artix]

Part 44: Algorab Village

We've escaped from the Tower of Zosma, only to run face-first into Malpercio himself. It'll be fiiiiiine, what's the worst that could happen?

[Kibayasu]

I'm just going to be grateful that the elevator blocks in 43 actually did sync up at some point.

Between Malpercio being just off screen the entire time in the village and the autonomous throne arms/legs there's some premium background comedy going on here.

[Artix]

Part 45: Larikush's Confession

We're back from dealing with the Children of the Earth and turned loose in the sky, at least for now. The Doc has letter for us though, promising some truly shattering revelations. They are...not, to put it mildly.

[Kibayasu]

Baten Kaitos, game with two dads years before MGS4.

Also

You just know at least one person has put themselves into a card.

I knew it!!

[Artix]

Part 46: The Celestial Alps

We're off to the mountains to find out what Georg has left for us in the world's dumbest inheritance bequest.

[Sagey]

Hey, it's Baten Kaitos! Man, I've missed these games. They've got their clunky points and some bizarre design decisions, but the plot and setting are still among my favorites ever, and I don't think any games have ever quite dethroned this or Origins as my favorites. Also it's I don't know how many years later and I will maintain that The Great Mizuti is the best character.

Also thank you for being on point with the editing, at least in what I've watched so far. This game has such great visuals and music and...uh, voice acting that also warrants experiencing, but also the randoms and even bosses drag on way past their welcome in a VLP, and it looks like you've landed a good compromise. Looking forward to catching up, though we'll see if I can actually manage that before you finish the game.

[Kibayasu]

Hoo boy you weren't kidding about that save point. Plus not only did they not earn the "respect for your vanquished foe" moment but the "reluctant face turn by former villains" moment as well.

[Artix]

Part 46.5: A Teaser of What is to Come

This is...not an update. Not really, anyway. This is where I WOULD have polled to see which sidequest we were doing but I uh, already did that. So this is the little bit of context that gets us from what Kalas was doing to the start of the next video, where Lyude is up to bat first.

[Kibayasu]

As awkward as it can be to just tell the player, in character or out of character, I've always preferred when games just outright state "Go do some stuff now and come back when you're done, nothing important will happen until then."

[Artix]

Part 47: The Phantom Goldoba

Our first stop on the grand sidequest tour is Mira, or more specifically the Trail of Souls. Lyude won't be happy about it, but no one seems to care what he thinks regardless so I'm sure it'll be fine.

[Kibayasu]

Well that was sure a series of attempts. Attempt at spooky, attempt at pathos, attempt at character development, attempt at voice acting...

[stormyeyed]

I guess the ghosts figured Lyude would freak out at whatever they said, so why bother putting the effort in. And hey, it worked for the most part, just needed to do better at sticking the landing.

[Shei-kun]

If it wouldn't have been clearly obnoxious and tedious to do, I think having a supercut of all the ghosts dunking on Lyude would have been great.

But I'm not about to ask you to suffer through even more of this game's skeleton combat just for that.

[Artix]

Part 48: Nihal Desert

One war criminal down, one to go as we head for Alfard for Savyna's sidequest. This area has an...interesting gimmick which probably goes on a bit long, but at least it's not very difficult if you know where everything is from the start. If not...well, I can imagine this would be a lot less fun.

[Kibayasu]

Gimmick aside I like the cut of that boss' jib.

[Artix]

Part 49: Revenge of the Tower of Zosma

That's right baby, it's time for round 2 of everyone's favorite dungeon. Marvel at the sights, take in the puzzles, and embrace the special surprise awaiting anyone foolish enough to get all the way to the bottom.

[LPFinale]

I fucking forgot the flames can go out

And then you got to the last floor and all the Magnus were blank and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

[Kibayasu]

Setting aside the block pushing I can't believe I finally saw a character literally tell the boss to hold on a second while they had their emotional conversation.

[Artix]

Part 50: The Illusory Fortress

Xelha's sidequest takes us to a new and exciting setting of "inside a book" and uh...well, an attempt was made, I guess...?

[Artix]

Part 51: Greater Celestial River

The final sidequest takes us back to Nashira and the most important sidequest of all: fishing.

[Kibayasu]

I suppose its fitting that Gibari's loyalty mission is just some thing he'd do anyways without the world saving adventure. He doesn't need to solve any emotional crises.

[Artix]

Part 52: The Plan

We've gone through everyone's quests, which means it's time for the main event. And boy, do they have a doozy of a plan to get into Cor Hydrae.

[Artix]

Part 53: Cor Hydrae Castle (Part 1)

I don't blame anyone who was overwhelmed by how incredible last video's plan was, but don't stop now because we're about to face a foe far scarier than any boss the game can throw at us: The Level Designer.

[LPFinale]

When this all started, I wondered how they were going to put spins on this combat concept and throw in curveballs to keep things interesting.

Now that we're here in the endgame, my observations indicate the idea was, uhhhhhhh



Edit: Also probably a hell crunch so that part's oof

[Artix]

I mean, on one hand you're not wrong, but I don't know how much higher they can realistically tune the battle system to require that sort of input. It's not like you have the ability to like, draw extra cards or a specific card or something to craft more advanced strategies, and the deckbuilding is fiddly enough that it would be a massive pain in the ass to actively require it on a regular basis. Like, hell, this very sequence where we fight a series of five minibosses in a row each of whom all completely nullify a different element would be a design disaster if it was tuned to such an extent that you *had* to work with it and try and hit that weakness.

[LPFinale]

I mean, on one hand you're not wrong, but I don't know how much higher they can realistically tune the battle system to require that sort of input. It's not like you have the ability to like, draw extra cards or a specific card or something to craft more advanced strategies, and the deckbuilding is fiddly enough that it would be a massive pain in the ass to actively require it on a regular basis. Like, hell, this very sequence where we fight a series of five minibosses in a row each of whom all completely nullify a different element would be a design disaster if it was tuned to such an extent that you *had* to work with it and try and hit that weakness.

Yeah, it... honestly, the system seems way more restricted than it sounds in concept. I can't really think of anything they can do to fix it. They made their combat system and were kind of stuck with it. A shame the greatest curveball it can throw in terms of new features is being able to play a full hand of 9 cards at the highest Class.

[Kibayasu]

The whole card changing thing feels like it could be involved in the combat but then it probably couldn't be just a time based thing like it is for the cards that it does affect. Maybe they realized the limitations and spent all their time on stuff like the light/dark spells affecting the camera card