The first Baten Kaitos game was a bit hit and a miss at the same time. It delivered in spades when it came to having a refreshing battle system, but at the same time the game lacked fairly sorely in the overall plot structure and its characters. Still, despite mostly solid scores in magazines, the game completely failed to sell in Japan and most thought a sequel would never happen. But now a few years later, Nintendo has stepped in and allowed developers Tri-Crescendo and Monolith Software another at their card based battle rpg with Baten Kaitos II.

Story
Thankfully the biggest complaint of the original title has been addressed in BKII. Rather then telling a story about a bunch of teens going from island to island looking for the elemental crystals...oops...special cards, the game is now paced like a standard quick moving rpg. The lead character in the game, Sagi, is an assassin and the game uses this to its advantage by opening the story with an exciting plot device of assassination and betrayal Sagi is ordered to sneak in and kill the emperor that rules the imperial continent. Of course things don't go as smooth as planned, and through some twists and turns he ends up on an adventure with two other strange individuals. Overall BK's story fares closer to games like Final Fantasy VIII or Xenosaga, where the cast is always pushing forward through new scenarios rather than running around collecting items. It's a dark, mature tale, and it brings some nice variety to the GC.

Characters
One of the strangest design choices in Baten Kaitos II is that there are only three playable characters in the entire game. Whereas most rpgs (The original BK included) have 5-8 characters that grow and change throughout an adventure, BKII takes the pacing up a notch and removes the extra baggage of having to deal with the background stories of multiple characters. Instead with only a cast of three, Baten Kaitos II is able to focus on the story at hand and constantly be developing the group through the experiences they encounter along the way. Another nice change is that unlike Kalas of the original, Sagi is actually a character players can care about and like.

Battles
Battles in the game have been changed dramatically, but not necessarily for the better or worse. Ditching the offensive/defensive turn system, BKII has instead opted for a new battle system focused mainly on attacking with defense mixed in through "equip" cards. Equip cards are weapons and armor that can be equipped during battles, but they're limited to a slot that can only hold one equip card at a time. This means players will quickly have to juggle between having strong defense and doing good damage. The system, combined with a new MP system where the strong attacks costs MP that builds up during the round, gives the battles a completely different feel than the first. Still the battles aren't all roses. One stumbling block this time around is that the battles take quite a bit of time because enemies tend to have high HP. There's really no justification in the system for this and it only makes battles take twice as long as they should, often lasting up to 3 minutes per battle. In a dungeon with plenty of enemies, this can add up to lots of time spent in a single section.