Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster Reviews

Maybe the best RPG I ever played

its a great game and story

As good as I remembered, and with several QOL features/cheats to help out. Only real complaint is the lack of both voice tracks (only the original Japanese is used) and the classic Japanese A/B (X/O) button swap.

Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean Extremely fun and semi-unserious game. Not that the story isn't serious, but sometimes the English dialogue (and it's accompanying voice over, via mods) rolls off as a fun, cheesy, light hearted 90s anime, complete with killing a dead corrupt god. The visuals are still amazing to behold - all beautifully detailed pre-rendered backgrounds from the GameCube era that make exploring the world fun and mesmerising that transitions to it's sequel. Hearing Kalas shout "Say Cheeseburger!" when playing the Camera card never fails to get a laugh out of someone when streaming this game for others to watch. Combat is a bit more complex, but unrefined, as someone who played Origins (2) before playing the first game. Scoring a combo of spirit cards in either 'x of a kind' or a 'straight' feels extremely rewarding and tends to out-scale assorted attack card strings later in the game. However, the game's inherit Trust system tends to break your combo often by either rolling you the wrong set of spirit numbers, taking your compatible combo finisher, or even giving you an element the enemy is resistant to. Sometimes the combat can feel 'grindy,' because a majority of your attack magnus will be from enemy drops, or you roll into a new area resistant to the element of your attack cards, or you forget that using opposing elements reduces the amount of damage you'll do which makes climbing the learning curve feel a bit bloated. Overall an extremely fun game that has a lot more to love than to hate. The story may not measure to modern standards, but the journey through the first game is truly unforgettable. A very unique experience, both in visuals and story telling, complete with an extremely fun and cheesy 90s dub. Baten Kaitos II: Origins (Wings of Beginning and Heir of the Gods) An extremely fun experience and the one I recommend playing if you ever get frustrated while playing Eternal Wings. You don't need to know the story of the original, as it's all sprinkled in as fun cameos since the story stands on it's own legs away from it's predecessor. The English voice overs (also via mods) are a lot more grounded, and tend to work off each other extremely well. The writers did a great job balancing interactions with a smaller party of 3 rather than an ensemble cast of 6, and the visuals are still as timeless as the first with some changes and additions if you've played the first that keeps the game feeling fresh despite using similar locations. Combat is a lot easier to get into, and still retains a lot of depth with the retooling of SP Combos, and addition of follow-up attacks and their associated game mechanics. Nothing is more satisfying than watching those crazy long combo strings go off, or triggering your Guardian Spirit multiple times in a combo string. In the end we end up with an extremely fun game that only improves on the first. I find that it's way more fun to get into than Eternal Wings, but either way you're going to have fun in each of the journey's these games provide, regardless of which one you choose to play first.