History YMMV / BatenKaitos

* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs: SceneryPorn + a hefty dose of crack = the island of Mira.
** The whole game, really. The world once was whole, with gods ruling the land and the Whale ruling the ocean. However, an evil god rebelled against the other gods, massacred them, and swallowed the ocean, killing the great Whale. The men killed the evil god, but the blood of the dead gods tainted the world beyond recovery, so the men used the body parts of the dead god to send continents into the sky. The design team was definitely on ''something''.
** [[spoiler:Of course, as ''Origins'' revealed, this opening myth is truth, but certain crucial parts were lost to time. Specifically, the "evil god" was neither evil nor a god, but a group of five human friends who had great power and through circumstance made a DealWithTheDevil to stop the truly evil Wiseman, the "gods" were all brainwashed humans who served Wiseman, and the "men" were the Children of the Earth, who stepped in to stop the war.]]

* CompleteMonster: [[TheManBehindTheMan Wiseman]] and [[AbusiveParents Quaestor Verus]] from ''[[VideoGame/BatenKaitosOrigins Origins]]''.

* CompleteMonster: [[TheManBehindTheMan Wiseman]] and [[spoiler:[[AbusiveParents Quaestor Verus]] from ''[[VideoGame/BatenKaitosOrigins Origins]]''.

* AngstWhatAngst: Sagi, from ''Origins''. In stark contrast to [[{{Jerkass}} Kalas]], Sagi is upbeat and cheerful through most of the game, although he does have a few moments.
* AntiClimaxBoss:
** The PostFinalBoss of ''Eternal Wings''; despite having a mountain of HP, has weaker attacks than most regular enemies and no defensive capacities whatsoever. And if you know the OneHitKill trick ([[spoiler:use a Spirit Attack magnus]]), [[ZeroEffortBoss well]]!
** [[spoiler:Quaestor Verus]], despite being a tricky PuzzleBoss, goes down in a few good hits once you expose his weakness. His death is somewhat anticlimactic too [[spoiler:unless you jumped through a few hoops in the story...]]
* BaseBreakingCharacter: Some players consider Xelha a likeable character (or just don't have anything against her), while others consider her a CreatorsPet for having more screentime than anyone else and for having a spectacularly obnoxious voice in the dub. Her garish outfit doesn't help, either.
* CatharsisFactor: As annoying as his BossFight can be, [[spoiler:Angel of Darkness Kalas]] can be greatly satisfying once you've prepared enough, and want to [[spoiler:wail on him for being such an ass before his FaceHeelTurn]].
* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: [[GameBreaker Frigid Queen's Festival]] is so overpowered that there's seldom any need to use anything else.
* CompleteMonster: Both from the prequel;
** [[TheManBehindTheMan Wiseman]] is a raging psychopath, with a purely sadistic edge and a LackOfEmpathy for all living beings. Wiseman, a millennium before the series began, began to believe existence of the body was flawed. He fell to evil and began devouring the energy of his followers before embarking on a war of conquest that look the lives of men, women and children. To spite a group of heroes who stood against him, Wiseman killed near everyone in their hometown, and left only two survivors. He attempted to convert the world to energy and absorb it within himself. Despite failing, Wiseman was not destroyed and possessed [[spoiler:the [[EvilAllAlong willing Verus]]]], influencing all of the latter's atrocities, causing mass death and the torture of his former lover. When forced to reveal himself, Wiseman declares his intents to devour the heroes' hearts and rule over their world for eternity.
** [[spoiler:[[AbusiveParents Quaestor Verus]] himself, while acting under the guise of a ReasonableAuthorityFigure,]] coldly masterminds the plot to [[spoiler:become the Emperor]] by taking advantage of everyone else. Before the game's events, [[spoiler:he uses a just born baby Sagi--whom he may have [[ChildByRape fathered through rape]]--in a lethal experiment that fuses pieces of dead evil gods with living beings]]. During the game, he orders [[spoiler:Shanath--no angel himself--to take Sagi's mother Gena's wings off in the public election speech]], just to smear the reputation of someone getting in his way. Later on, just as Baelheit is about to consider a HeelFaceTurn, [[spoiler:Quaestor Verus shows up, murders him, and starts [[EvilGloating gloating]] about all his deeds]].

* DemonicSpiders:
** There's a bunch in ''Origins'', but Machina Auto-Turrets take the cake. Fast, resilient, powerful, and that Fusillade special is devastating. Enjoy losing over an hour's progress through [[ThatOneLevel Tarazed]] every time you run into one of these.
** The last levels have several that fit the bill, but the most dangerous one is ''by far'' [[OurDragonsAreDifferent the Hercules Dragon]]. Remember those powerful Dragon enemies you fought in [[spoiler:the Battlefields of Atria]]? Well, these guys are [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot super cyborg versions]] of those! They retain the party-wide normal attack, get the ability to [[StatusBuff pump up]] their already high attack and defensive power, get the ability to heal themselves, have a ton of health and also get an extremely strong WaveMotionGun special. Normal encounters with these guys are often solo-encounters, and for good reason: a single one can utterly ''ruin'' your day if you're unlucky or aren't careful enough around them. Thankfully, they always appear asleep in the field, so if you tiptoe around them, you can safely avert their encounters...which means you have to deal with the ''other'' {{Demonic Spider}}s nearby, who'll rejoice at the chance to jump you because you don't want to fight that Hercules Dragon. Good thing Hercules Dragons are ''never'' paired with Machina Auto-Turrets, or the insanity would know no bounds. '''BUT.'''
** '''It can get''' '''''worse!''''' [[ShmuckBait Want to know how it can get worse?]] All the hardest rounds in the Colosseum, save one, feature Hercules Dragons paired up with the other most dangerous {{Demonic Spider}}s in [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon the Tarazed Core]]. The hardest of these even has you fight ''two'' of them at the same time! Only one of the battles is actually necessary for Completion...which is the last round of the Championship Battle, which is already a tough enough string of battles as it is without having one of these thrown at you. What's that? [[ShmuckBait What's the one round we mentioned before?]] Why, that's [[BonusBoss The Wicked Gawd]], of course! The already extremely tough BonusBoss ([[spoiler:Arma Machina M]]) who [[CurbStompBattle can easily kill you in fifteen seconds on its own]] [[OhCrap is accompanied by none other than]] [[DemonicSpider Machina Auto-Turrets!]] Their party-hitting Fusillade, combined with the BonusBoss's extreme attack power and relentless assault, means that a TotalPartyKill is not only ''extremely likely'', but nigh-inevitable without some fast smart thinking, a very strong deck and a good helping of luck. There's a method to cheese it and every other encounter in the game, but that's a LuckBasedMission in itself.
* EndingFatigue: ''Eternal Wings''. There's several places where it feels like the story is wrapping up (the Lava Caves, the Imperial Fortress, [[spoiler:Algorab Village]]), but there's always something more. Granted, the game does manage to pull everything together beautifully, but 60+ hours is an extremely long time.
%%* EnsembleDarkhorse: Palolo II.
%%** The Great Mizuti for a less obscure example.
* EvenBetterSequel: ''Origins'' expanded on the backstory of ''Eternal Wings'', explored the setting much more, revamped the battle system to remove the more frustrating luck elements, had better voice acting, and had an even better soundtrack.

%%* FashionVictimVillain: Geldoblame.
* GameBreaker:
** Wonder Momo Magnus in ''Eternal Wings.'' Second-best healing in the entire game, 100% cure on every status (including death) in offense, 100% resistance boost to every status in defense. Best of all, unlike Deluxe Sushi and many other recovery Magnus, it never wastes away, eliminating the need to go make more. Even better, you can get these as soon as you hit Anuenue, since they evolve from the Momotaro Magnus, which evolves from the relatively commonly dropped Peach Magnus in the Ancient Library. Get a handful, leave your game turned on overnight for a few days, and barring a stroke of the worst luck possible, you'll have to actively ''try'' to lose. Hell, just having one or two on each character makes even the otherwise really tough FinalBoss a joke.
** The Apotheosis and Frigid Queen's Festival combos in ''Origins'' border on this. Their incredible damage is offset by the difficulty of effectively assembling the combos without getting the party wiped, as it usually means a few turns either discarding useless cards or attacking sparsely to build up MP. Mind you, this is ''without'' factoring in the many possible ways you can chain this up with Relay attacks. In fact, with enough setup and with a good enough relationship with Sagi, the Guardian Spirit can stack the deck enough that on an MP Burst, you may end up chaining one of said {{Game Breaker}}s ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill into the other one]].'' We guarantee that ''nothing'' in the game will survive it[[note]] Except [[spoiler:Verus]], but only if you do it while they're protected[[/note]], but for added hilarity and overkill, make sure to equip each character's respective InfinityPlusOneSword beforehand to further increase the damage you deal. When the dust settles--well, that dust WAS your opponent, a few seconds ago.
* GoddamnedBoss:
** Wiseman, who steals your HP and MP with his basic attacks and uses it to spam his specials, one of which breaks any Magnus you have equipped and knocks the whole party down.
** The Gnosis you fight in the Outer Dimension in ''Eternal Wings''. It has -100% to Darkness and -50% to everything else; despite not having much in the way of offense, its defense means the fight takes ''forever''.
%%* IronWoobie: [[spoiler:Ayme]], [[spoiler:Folon]]
* LesYay: [[spoiler:There is a period where the player is in control of Xelha in Anuenue. The KleptomaniacHeroFoundUnderwear message for checking the locker in the magic school doesn't change.]]
* MemeticBadass: Mizuti. [[InsistentTerminology The GREAT Mizuti]].
* MoralEventHorizon:
** Shanath leaps over it when [[spoiler: he kidnaps main character Sagi's beloved mother and orders his men to "Tear this heathen woman's wings off!" And he does it right in front of Sagi, specifically to torment him.]]
** If [[spoiler:Verus]] didn't cross it by [[spoiler:killing Baelheit]], he sure as hell does so when he [[spoiler:retroactively claims responsibility for the above-mentioned event. And reveals he was behind Sagi being a part of the malideiter project. And to cap it off, calls Gena a whore.]]

* {{Narm}}: ''Eternal Wings'' is a beautifully written game marred by badly animated character models and hilariously bad voice acting.
** What's even worse is that there are different voice actors for the game's intro, who are far superior to the voice acting in the game itself (with the possible exception of "DAMN! The BASTARDS!").
** Then there's this bizarre sound filter over the voice acting in the game that makes it sound distorted. While this is supposed to simulate being a Guardian Spirit, all it really accomplishes is just making the voice acting sound much worse than it actually would be without it.
** The whole exposition on the Earth Sphere, a serious topic, is kind of ruined with the clucking of the Cluckers in the background.

* TheScrappy: Wacho and Tik, two annoying kids that force you through a dull sidequest early on.
* ScrappyMechanic: ''Eternal Wings'' and the ItemCrafting system, which was time-consuming, irritatingly luck-based, and never explained very well in-game.
** ''Eternal Wings'' also had an irritating level up system, requiring you to visit a blue flower and talk to a priest to gain your hard-earned levels. The system can also render the game {{Unwinnable}} at one point if you're underleveled enough, thanks to the game trapping you on an airship with a red flower (which only lets you save) and one of the hardest boss fights in the game.
** In ''Eternal Wings'', because the deck is random from a pool which you set, it's *very easy* to have a largely offensive deck on defensive turns, and vice versa; unlike ''Origins'', where you can move a card to the bottom of the deck if it's not needed at the moment with the press of a button, there's no simple way of doing so in ''Eternal Wings.'' Selecting a card that will do nothing on an attacking turn will automatically end the turn and draw one card, meaning this is your only recourse and you wasted a turn.
* SequelDifficultySpike: ''Origins'' removed most of the luck and a lot of the FakeDifficulty from the first game, then got a lot harder to compensate.
* ShockingMoments: For those who have played the first game, the revelation that [[TheHero Kalas]] [[spoiler:was EvilAllAlong and TheMole, which was hidden from you due to you technically playing as the Guardian Spirit rather than Kalas himself]] is often cited as one of the most shocking plot twists in RPG history.
* SoBadItsGood: ''Eternal Wings''' cutscenes, with the terrible voice acting and stiff character models, tended to be quite amusing.
* {{Squick}}: [[spoiler: When Geldoblame goes OneWingedAngel.]] Hardly any enemy in the game matches this level of disgusting.

* ThatOneAttack: Geldoblame's [[OneHitKill Forfeit Your Life]], which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin.
** [[spoiler:Verus-Wiseman's Magnus of Life]], which hits the whole party and inflicts all status ailments.
** The Angel of Darkness' Binding Winds, which is practicaly guaranteed to paralyze you. Worse, he'll immediately follow this up with a combo ending with [[LifeDrain Fangs of Darkness]], which the paralyzed party member will be completely unable to defend against.
** Agyo's Seal of Agyo, which is a single attack that deals a ludicrous amount of damage. There's no way to tell if he's going to use this or a combo, so it's basically impossible to effectively defend against.
** Fadroh's Orb of Magical Offense. It turns a rather tame fight into a CurbStompBattle... in which ''you'' are in the receiving end of. Worse, ''it's use is completely random.'' It's a LuckBasedMission: Either he doesn't use it and you kick his ass, or he uses it and obliterates yours. If he uses it early on in the fight, you might as well restart.
** His counterpart, Sowzana, has the Orb of Magical Defense. The thing is that this one gives him a milder power boost...in exchange for ludicrous defensive power, turning this into a DamageSpongeBoss that hits rather hard. The fight comes down to who can eat the most damage before keeling over. He also seems to always use it, so it's basically coming down to how soon he gets it.
** [[spoiler: [[FinalBoss Malpercio]]]]'s skills. Dark Arrow inflicts all status effects, Enchanted Blade is a LifeDrain that heals back a lot, which he'll later use on the entire party in sequence to heal a ton of damage, and finally, Seal of Entropy, which defines this fight as a BarrierChangeBoss, meaning you're forced to include every element into the fight in order to optimize you damage output or chip away at him until he decides to use Seal of Entropy again, hopefully to an element you can exploit.
** The Black Dragon's Crimson Catharsis, which will almost always kill one or two of your characters. If you're underleveled, weakened or particularly unlucky, it may even cause a TotalPartyKill. By the time you can have a rematch with it in the Coliseum, you can kick it's ass fairly quickly, but this attack will still deal a lot of damage.
* ThatOneBoss:
** [[LuckBasedMission Fadroh]]. Will he start off with his empowering orb, increasing his attack to a ridiculous level and ''attacking twice in a row'' [[note]]dealing over 1000 damage at a time when most players have around 2000 HP per character without grinding[[/note]], or will he give the player a chance?
** Giacomo, Ayme, and Folon, which is a fight that seems to be designed to screw the player over as much as possible, not least because they're fought shortly after you lose access to a blue flower. How do you access a blue flower to level up? Beat them and move on to the next area.
** Geldoblame, who heals himself nearly every round and combines paralysis (removing defensive ability) with a OneHitKill attack (which seldom hits ''unless you're paralyzed'').
** The Angel of Darkness, who combines a paralysis attack with one that steals HP. The reason this boss is so hard is because he can stun you, which prevents you from being able to use defense magnus, thus he gets a full combo off, which allows him to steal for as much as possible. He can deal over 1100 damage to one party member (party members have around 1600-2100 at this point in the game), steal 550 (a decent combo at this point of the game will deal 400-600 damage most of the time), and it leaves a character stunned to boot.
** The Holoholobird, a hard-hitting FlunkyBoss whose flunkies love to heal the big bird for tremendous amounts of HP. It's also fought immediately after a PointOfNoReturn, which can screw you over big time.
** The Godcraft, who is ''tremendously'' overpowered and has devastating specials that can destroy your whole party if you're unlucky. Doesn't help that the cutscene beforehand is about five minutes long, so if you RageQuit (which you will), you have to sit through it all again.
** The Black Dragon, who has so much power it can kill your characters simply by using a full combo on them. Not to mention its special attack, which can damn near cause a TotalPartyKill if you're unlucky.
** The Goddess of Ice and the Wizard Shadow, both of which follow a completely different set of rules from the rest of the game's fights and are [[LuckBasedMission completely luck-based]].
* ThatOneLevel:
** The Tower of Zosma in the first game, Tarazed in the second. Zosma Tower had irritating block puzzles that had to be completed in a certain amount of time, Tarazed featured mazes of identical corridors and four aggravating puzzle/maze rooms.
** The Labyrinth of Duhr, thanks to a serious EventObscuringCamera that made navigating the maze confusing. Just to add to that, the labyrinth comes shortly after the fights with [[ThatOneBoss Fadroh]] and [[ThatOneBoss the Angel of Darkness]], and is followed by [[ThatOneLevel Zosma Tower]], which is topped with [[ThatOneBoss Ugyo and Angyo]].
** Not too many people are fond of Nekkar, which teems with [[BossInMookClothing Queen Alraunes]], is covered in irritating pit traps, and has a ''maddening'' sidequest involving pushing humanoid rocks through the level.
* ThatOneSidequest:
** The [[ShoutOut Pac-Man]] sidequest in Origins is more time-consuming than everything else in the entire game combined (it requires at least of two playthroughs!). Also, have fun spotting every single potential {{Permanently Missable|Content}} quest magnus, cause you need to feed Pac-Man 147 to finish the sidequest.
** As if Zosma Tower wasn't bad enough, Mizuti's sidequest reveals it's got a basement. Five more floors of sheer pain, and a luck based boss fight at the end.
** 2 weeks of leaving the game on for the Shampoo to change? Way to screw with completionists, Monolith!
* TheyChangedItNowItSucks:
** Some players couldn't get over ''Origins''' revamped battle system which took out much of the luck and fake difficulty elements.
** Many fans weren't thrilled when it was revealed that the 2023 HD rerelease removed the English dubbing for both games. While the first game had a contentious dubbing, the second game's dubbing was rather well received.
* TooCoolToLive:
** [[spoiler:Sir Rambari, the badass leader of the Diadem Knights who takes a sword to the chest to save King Ladekhan]].
** [[spoiler:Guillo]].

** The Labyrinth of Duhr, thanks to a serious CameraScrew that made navigating the maze confusing. Just to add to that, the labyrinth comes shortly after the fights with [[ThatOneBoss Fadroh]] and [[ThatOneBoss the Angel of Darkness]], and is followed by [[ThatOneLevel Zosma Tower]], which is topped with [[ThatOneBoss Ugyo and Angyo]].

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Some people couldn't get over ''Origins''' revamped battle system.

* {{Speedrun}}: The OneHundredPercentCompletion ''Baten Kaitos'' speedrun is hailed as one of the most notorious speedruns in possibly the entire history of the practice, due to how insanely long it is. The world record? '''338 hours and 55 Minutes.''' This is mostly because getting 100% requires getting an item called the Splendid Hair, which requires ''two real-time weeks'' to evolve from the Shampoo item you get within the first hour of the game.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' - both games share several staff members including the same art director and writer, both sport the same unique visual style, and both have vaguely similar battle systems which place emphasis on multi-hit combos, customizable command sets, and elemental affinity.

** '''It can get''' '''''[[UpToEleven worse!]]''''' [[ShmuckBait Want to know how it can get worse?]] All the hardest rounds in the Colosseum, save one, feature Hercules Dragons paired up with the other most dangerous {{Demonic Spider}}s in [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon the Tarazed Core]]. The hardest of these even has you fight ''two'' of them at the same time! Only one of the battles is actually necessary for Completion...which is the last round of the Championship Battle, which is already a tough enough string of battles as it is without having one of these thrown at you. What's that? [[ShmuckBait What's the one round we mentioned before?]] Why, that's [[BonusBoss The Wicked Gawd]], of course! The already extremely tough BonusBoss ([[spoiler:Arma Machina M]]) who [[CurbStompBattle can easily kill you in fifteen seconds on its own]] [[OhCrap is accompanied by none other than]] [[DemonicSpider Machina Auto-Turrets!]] Their party-hitting Fusillade, combined with the BonusBoss's extreme attack power and relentless assault, means that a TotalPartyKill is not only ''extremely likely'', but nigh-inevitable without some fast smart thinking, a very strong deck and a good helping of luck. There's a method to cheese it and every other encounter in the game, but that's a LuckBasedMission in itself.

* UncannyValley:
** The shopkeepers, all of whom have one facial expression that they always maintain. It's much creepier than it sounds. Also, in ''Origins'', some of them have badly-implemented JigglePhysics, which leads to big FetishRetardant.
** The character models in ''Eternal Wings'', all of which move like puppets with the strings cut off. ''Origins'' made them quite a bit more fluid, although they're still a bit off.
** The creepy CGI opening to ''Eternal Wings''.
** All in all, however, the game mostly averts this; cutscenes take place with the same camera angles as normal gameplay, so you seldom get close looks at their faces - it's the same thing ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' did, just with voice acting.

** Shinath leaps over it when [[spoiler: he kidnaps main character Sagi's beloved mother and orders his men to "Tear this heathen woman's wings off!" And he does it right in front of Sagi, specifically to torment him.]]

* FoeYay: Some of Valara's conversations with Sagi hint this.
** In ''Origins'' Giacomo for Sagi full stop. Except that [[UnknownRival Sagi gives Giacomo little importance aside from being a enemy commander]] while [[StalkerWithACrush Giacomo is completly obsessed with defeating Sagi]]. Lampshaded by Guillo:
-->'''Giacomo''': Just when I thought my career was finished, I look over at the stairs [[LaughingMad aha ha ha]], and it's [[NarmCharm YOU]]!\\
'''[[DeadpanSnarker Guillo]]''': Are you obsessed? A koa monkey in heat wouldn't be this clingy.

* WhatAnIdiot: Ladekahn, who believed TheEmpire, which had just attempted to besiege his nation based on flimsy, baseless claims, would honor their ceasefire agreement.

* {{Speedrun}}: The OneHundredPercentCompletion ''Baten Kaitos'' speedrun is hailed as one of the most notorious speedruns in possibly the entire history of the practice, due to how insanely long it is. The world record? '''321 hours, 20 minutes, and 3 seconds.''' This is mostly because getting 100% requires getting an item called the Splendid Hair, which requires ''two real-time weeks'' to evolve from the Shampoo item you get within the first hour of the game.