Stray Baten Kaitos thought

One of the smart things about the game is that while it actually is one of the first prominent uses of the twist I was discussing in the previous post, it doesn't take it as a be-all end-all - and I don't mean solely in the sense of using the device to explore a theme. In most other games, the twist is the endpoint of the narrative; in Baten Kaitos, it's only the midpoint. The plot develops considerably past the point where the twist is sprung, exploring why the hero made the bad choices he did and giving the other characters - and the player! - a chance to work past where things went wrong. (It even uses this tack to escalate the player's meta involvement in the plot, as it eventually asks you to forgive a character who has personally betrayed you.)

As I said earlier, the twist has been used to good effect in a number of games, but it's near-necessarily dismissive in a way; it's asking players to feel ashamed of themselves, to go to their rooms and think about what they've done. Baten Kaitos is too interested in its characters and people in general to throw them away after one mistake, and while it's a bit less critical than is perhaps advisable in regards to its all-encompassing forgiveness, it's a richer plot for that decision.
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