Topic: Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster

I couldn't find a forum for this so I figured I'd make one since it's releasing in less than 2 weeks! Is anyone planning on picking this up on release? Initially, I was a little disappointed with the lack of an English dub but I find myself still pretty excited as the game gets closer to release. I've never played either of these before but I've heard nothing but good things!

I’m thinking about picking it up since it was made by Monolith and I’d like to play more of their games outside of Xenoblade. I’ll try to play a bit of the first one before the remasters release to see whether I like it or not

I'll definitely pick it up at some point. But it might not be soon, since I have two Xenoblade games left to play on the Switch.

Interesting thing about this game to me, is I remember kinda rolling my eyes at it. It came out during the era where card based systems in games was such a huge thing (or at least it seemed that way to me) and I was disappointed with how both Kingdom Hearts and PSO went in that direction (though I still liked Chain of Memories for what it was). Just when I heard about this Baten Kaitos game it seemed so much not for me, especially when I really didn't get into PSO episode 3. But I'd be way more willing to give it a chance now, especially after they made one of my favorite games.

It's actually great for me its being re-released because its one of the only Gamecube games I never played but am still interested in. (the other notable ones being Cubivore, Eternal Darkness, Mario Strikers and the Burnout series)

@kkslider5552000 A lot of people skipped these games back in the day because of the cards. It's unfortunate because they don't really play like and traditional card game. Baten Kaitos is it's own unique thing, and even the two games have pretty different battle systems compared to each other. Here's to hoping more folks get to see that this time around.

As for me, I kind of want to get this collection to support the series, but don't really have enough free time to add two more RPGs that I've already played to the backlog.

is Baten Kaitos I and II HD Collection only on the eshop or what? there been any news about the darn game at all?

@Stamina_Wheel yes I know about the HD collection not having English audio. all i asked was if its going to be on the eshop only

@XandertheWise
As far as I know, there will be physical releases for Europe, Japan and Southeast Asia, but not for America.

any game features that been added like EXP boost or invincibility feature to turn on or off? Just wondering

There's no English dub, no physical release in North America, and probably the bare minimum production run in Europe.

They must have decided very early on in the process that only a handful of weebs were going to buy it outside of Japan, so it's not worth sending out review codes or even doing much marketing at all.

I know. I've played the GameCube version.

Unfortunately, when there's no dub, and no real attempt to market it, that's the overriding impression that most people are going to get.

@Stamina_Wheel instant KO feature? Thats pretty cool. useful against bosses probably which would be really helpful.

@Stamina_Wheel I just don't hope that they don't take it to heart when the game inevitably doesn't sell that well, and feed that into making even less of an effort with their next re-releases.

Ah well, it's not like sales will be their only metric. They'll also go by the review scores (assuming there ever are any) and how much people play it. With those adjustable parameters there's no excuse for not finishing the story now.

i still think that one sidequest in Baten Kaitos Eteran Wings is annoying since its time based. that sidequest where you do some family a favor and try to track the family members down in different places.

I never did get to finish it. I did like half of that sidequest and gave up on it

@Stamina_Wheel Yeah, there really hasn't been any marketing for this game. I wonder if that means it will go on sale a few months after its release.

I'm still pretty salty they removed the English dub, mainly from Origins. I loved the voices of the 3 main characters and a lot of my nostalgia comes from the battle voice lines. I'll still pick this up to support for the series, but I'll still just stick with the originals when I replay them.

Bandai Namco remasters have been so disappointing for me recently, and it's really unfortunate because Baten Kaitos Origins is one of my favourite games of all time. I'm still clinging to the small hope they'll add the English voices as DLC at some point, though I know it won't happen.

It's got enough reviews for a Metascore now, and it's a pretty good one, currently standing at 80. It turns out the Bandai Namco would have had little to fear from sending out review copies after all.

The consensus seems to be that, although the remaster was a minimum effort job, the qualities of the original games still shine through.

Anyway, how are people finding it? I played through to the end of the first chapter yesterday and it's very much the game that I remember. Most of the art upscales to HD beautifully, although a lot of the 3D model work is showing its age.

There's now a mod to put the voices back into the first game, with a work in progress for the second. Forum rules preclude me from going into any more details, but if people want to play the remastered versions with them, there's now a way.

Personally, I'm enjoying the games with the Japanese voices. I'm about half way through Mira now.

@Matt_Barber Oh wow that's pretty good to hear! I still haven't picked up the game myself yet but when I do, I may look into that!

A physical copy of this will be the focal point of my next import order from P-A.

Also waiting for my physical copy from PlayAsia, but I ordered it with the Pikmin Rement figures so I'll have to wait for those to release in November. Baten Kaitos Origins is still one of my favourite games of all time, and it's been a long time since I've replayed the first game.