Nintendo

Still on Baten Kaitos! Currently progressing with a snails pace due to other stuff getting in the way.

I'm still heavily invested in the game, however, a few cracks in its systems start to show.

For starter, you only ever use 3 characters at a time. Each with their own deck. Setting them up and planning their decks feels like too much investment to ever switch them up, which means the other 3 won't ever get used. Even worse, unused characters only get half EXP.

Speaking of EXP, there's a system in place where you just collect it. To actually level up, you need to visit a church. And you can level up multiple times at once! Now, here's the kicker: The more level you gain at once, the more stats you get as a bonus! (Up to 10 levels.) That's fun in theory, but if you've learned anything about me by reading these posts, you can probably guess that I never a batch with less than 10 levels.

There's also a class level, which you can increase by finding certain items for each character. They often get dropped by bosses. Using them increases the cards you can put in your deck, the cards you can hold in your hand, and how many you can play per turn. As a trade-off, your timer to actually play your cards in a turn decreases. Here's a second crack: The built-in crafting system is still fun, but you don't have much time to think about it while actually fighting. Even worse, they waste a turn. Even if you can play 6 cards, the crafting combo is only activated if you play exactly the cards mentioned and no others. Also, since your deck can't have fewer cards than your actual maximum amount, you need to stall until you draw all combo pieces or fill your entire deck with otherwise useless cards.

This, combined with increasingly convoluted combos, leads to the crafting system being sidelined for the most part. I used to craft stuff organically while crawling through dungeons, now it only happens when I start an encounter with the specific goal to craft. The most convoluted combo I've seen yet involves 4 items, three of which you have to craft themselves beforehand. A doll, a monkey statue, a dog statue and a pheasant statue. Playing them all, as a reference to the legend of Momotaro, creates a treasure you sell for a lot of money.