Baten Kaitos - Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean

Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, developed by Monolith Soft together with tri-Crescendo and published by Namco in 2003, is a JRPG set in a world where the continents float in the sky and solid ground is barely a memory. Its battle system, built around a deck of cards representing weapons, spells, and items, was radically different from the conventional turn-based RPG, and the silent protagonist turned out to be, in an uncommon narrative twist, a guardian spirit accompanying the story's real hero. Over time it earned a cult following among the generation's JRPGs: a remarkable art direction and a narrative ambition that still set it apart today within GameCube's rather scarce catalog of Japanese role-playing games.