Baten Kaitos (Series) | HD Remasters Rated for PC

[Maniakkid25]

So, as it seems to be building a little more steam online than I would have anticipated, I thought why not have a topic to discuss the upcoming remasters of the Baten Kaitos games. As well, this first post can serve as a primer for those that might otherwise be interested, but have never played the game themselves and are wondering what the hell is this all about.

• What is a "Baten Kaitos"?
  

Baten Kaitos (Pronounced "Bay-tuhn Kay-tos", if I'm reading the IPA correctly) comes to us from Arabic, translating as "Belly of the Sea Monster". It is now used officially to name the star WDS J01515-1020 Aa, which is one half of the binary star Zeta Ceti, in the Cetus constellation.

• What is the game "Baten Kaitos"?
  

Baten Kaitos is a turn-based combat RPG that uses cards in combat in an analogous way to poker. I'll be honest, Baten Kaitos and Baten Kaitos Origins' combat systems are slightly different, but most of the principles involved can be transferred without too much difficulty. I will largely be talking from the perspective of the first game's combat system, however, as I am more familiar with it. An image is very illustrative here.



In combat, you are dealt a hand of cards from your deck that you set up ahead of time. These cards contain your attack options, your defense options, and your other items. In the first game, when you are attacking or defending, your goal is to chain together cards such that you get combinations of the numbers on the corners (you can choose one with the C-stick on the original Gamecube, otherwise it defaults to top-right) into standard poker hands: pairs, sets, and straights. A pair is when any two numbers match up. A set is when more than two numbers match (so, three of a kind, stuff like that). A straight is when you have a set of sequential numbers in a row, either up or down, all in the same direction (So, 2-3-4 or 4-3-2, but not 3-4-2). While you can have multiple combos at once (say, a three of a kind and a pair), you must have a fully valid combo through out the card chain for the combo to count (so, 2-4-4-2-4 would count, as that's a three of a kind and a pair, but 2-4-4-2-5 would not, because the 5 is not paired with anything).

Note that the preceding paragraph is only true in the FIRST game. In the second game, the only valid combos are sequences of numbers that are going up (they do not have to be sequential), if I am reading the booklet correctly.

On top of this, certain cards are also colored, which corresponds to the element that the card is tied to. In the first game, there are 6, but Origins only has 5 (and a pseudo sixth one, but it's largely not important). I have more experience with the first game, so I will talk about that game's element system, but know that this is thrown right out the window when switching to Origins. In Baten Kaitos 1, the elements are each in pairs of opposites. So, you have Fire and Water, Light and Dark, and Wind and Time. If an element is responded to by its opposite, they will subtract from each other and cause less damage to be dealt. In defense, this means that Fire attacks must be responded to with Water-element armors to fully defend against them. In offense, this means that if you attack with a Fire weapon, and then a Water weapon after that, you will end up dealing less total damage than either one separately. On top of this, enemies have built in weaknesses and resistances, which will also affect the total damage dealt at the end of a card chain.

The third mechanic to be aware of is age. As your play time gets larger, your cards can age into new cards. As an example, a set of Green Bananas you get early in the game will, as time goes on, ripen into Ripe Bananas, and then turn into Rotten Bananas. This is not tied to progression, but actual hours of play time. This can be used to your advantage to get quest items early, or it can slow you down by causing your item to have aged into something useless when you need it.

• What is the setting of "Baten Kaitos"?
  

I won't talk too much about the stories of the games, as I am not informed enough on the second one to attempt to summarize it. However, as Baten Kaitos Origins takes place within a decade or two before the first game, describing the setting is still widely applicable between games. The world is Earth, but humanity has taken to the skies along with the land. The oceans, many many years ago, dried up, and chunks of the earth ripped themselves from the ground to form a few islands floating by literal magic. Humanity has taken this in stride, eventually evolving so that they have wings formed from the dreams of the human in question. While these wings do allow the human to fly, it is not far enough to reach any other landmasses. There is also a "Great Celestial River" that is literally a floating river of water coming from space.

This is very much a "just go with it" setting; it's not worth asking too many questions, and you'll eventually find answers to most of them as you play the game.

Hopefully this answered a few things for those that don't know about this underrated set of gems. When the remasters do come out, I highly recommend playing them if you have a Switch (though knowing Nintendo's pricing, they'll probably end up being 60-80 bucks for both of them, so that might be off-putting for some).

[Moonface]

The card mechanic reminds me of something like Slay The Spire, where you have a deck and that gets used to do the fight. I've not played that game mind you but I have always found it an interesting looking mechanic so if this one is like some sort of progenitor to that I'm certainly intrigued by it. The "aging" mechanic of cards definitely looks to be unique; I can't say I've seen many other games have items change based on time and if they do it isn't ever in a game where it could really hurt you because it'll just be some consumable item that you can easily get more of.

[Monocle]

I definitely don't love the aging mechanic that much. took forever for items I needed or was too fast for items I was trying to save. and I'd always forget about it until I needed it lmao. the card battle system was a ton of fun and made even regular battles something different every single time

[queenzelda]

I'm a huge fan of the series myself. My only issue was Origins where you had to build 1 freaking deck for three freaking people!! I liked being able to build individual decks cause I could balance them out with healing items, defend cards, etc.

[Moonface]

Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster | Release Date Trailer
A new trailer for the upcoming HD Remasters of Baten Kaitos I & II has revealed the games will be released on September 14, 2023.



I won't be surprised to see this trailer gets shown during the Nintendo Direct due to air in 30 minutes from now for anyone who isn't aware this trailer dropped yet.

[queenzelda]

I plan to get this whenever it releases. I love those games, so seeing them remastered will be a treat. <3

[Moonface]

Bandai Namco have said this game among others will be getting updates at Anime Expo next week so maybe a release date will come about then.

[Maniakkid25]

My biggest issue that I found out about the games is that it's going to be Japanese audio only. Granted, for Baten Kaitos 1, that's an improvement, because the English dub of that game is GARBAGE! But the second one is apparently fine, and there will be no way to change the language. Personally, I think having the option for English would be better than cutting it out entirely.

[Dragon Lord]

Hopefully we'll hear something about a physical release for NA soon. I keep looking around and can't find any news about it or retailers that have it for pre-order (it seems that Asia and Europe have been confirmed for physical releases, but not NA). That'll be a big determining factor on whether or not I get this or wait for it to be massively discounted in a sale.

No English dub is already a huge plus though. Hopefully this is a sign that Bamco is going to start going the Koei Tecmo route and cut terrible English dubbing from more of their RPGs.

[queenzelda]

Uh, there was already a release date trailer released on Nintendo's youtube page sometime ago:

Sep 14 2023

I will never forgive Kalas. -Me

[Moonface]

Uh, there was already a release date trailer released on Nintendo's youtube page sometime ago:

Sep 14 2023

I will never forgive Kalas. -Me

Yeah, I also realized my original post about the HD remasters had the release date in it too. Guess I just forgot it had been announced. Not that Bandai actually shared anything worth a heck in that AX panel anyway and was a complete waste of time even doing one.

[Moonface]

Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster | Rated for PC by Multiple Ratings Board
Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster recently released for Nintendo Switch, but it looks like the game will be coming to PC as it has been rated for the platform by the Australian Ratings Board and the Film and Publication Board of South Africa.

---

Seems to be kinda old news given both ratings were done in April and May of this year respectively, but I hadn't seen anything on this before and nobody had mentioned it in this thread yet so thought I'd share it for anyone who would want to double dip or just get the HD Remaster on a platform other than the Switch.

And yes, I made sure this time this was actually about Baten Kaitos and not Suikoden.

[queenzelda]

Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster recently released for Nintendo Switch, but it looks like the game will be coming to PC.

Wait, so I can also get this game on pc?? I have someone I need to gift this game to besides myself. XD Unless it's just releasing to Australia for pc, which would suck.

[Moonface]

Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster recently released for Nintendo Switch, but it looks like the game will be coming to PC.

Wait, so I can also get this game on pc?? I have someone I need to gift this game to besides myself. XD Unless it's just releasing to Australia for pc, which would suck.

The game was also rated for South Africa, plus can PC games even be region locked like console games are?
It would be funny though if somehow the game did only release in Australia since usually that country is one that will be one of the few to not get a game because their ratings board didn't approve it.

I wonder if the PC version will release this year or if it'll be next year because of having a timed exclusivity on Switch. With how early the two boards verified the rating I wanna guess it'll be this year but with only three months of the year left any announcement would probably be very close to the actual release date.

[queenzelda]

My guess would be next year, since usually with 'most games' being an exclusive usually it's available for the one system first then other systems later. Idk, I was just curious. haha