Games Happy

Launched nearly 20 years in the past, the unique Baten Kaitos: Everlasting Wings and the Misplaced Ocean and its prequel Baten Kaitos Origins had been much-needed boosts to the comparatively missing RPG library on Nintendo’s Gamecube. Due partially to their distinctive card-based fight, the collection attracted a passionate fanbase that has been crying out for the collection’ return, and in the end, Bandai Namco has answered with this launch of the Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster on Nintendo Swap. Whereas this assortment has its share of blemishes, they will’t fully dim the glint that these video games nonetheless have.

In case you are not already acquainted, the Baten Kaitos video games, developed in partnership between Monolith Smooth (recognized today for Xenoblade Chronicles) and Tri-Crescendo (of Star Ocean fame), happen in a world the place the inhabitants lives on giant floating islands within the sky. The unique Baten Kaitos places you in command of Kalas, a mysterious youth with a mechanical wing who has to cope with the approaching revival of an evil god, whereas Baten Kaitos Origins sees you as Sagi, a spiriter trying to find the culprits who framed him. Sagi and Kalas are every paired with a particular Guardian Spirit appearing as your voice of purpose, letting you lend your recommendation to would-be heroes. With ample surprises and devilish foes, the tales instructed on this assortment had been a number of the finest on the Gamecube.

Having performed via the unique Baten Kaitos on authentic {hardware} earlier this yr, I discovered this new remaster to be a way more comfy and interesting solution to take pleasure in these video games, even with this port’s points and faults. That is thanks partially to various the quality-of-life options and choices that add in additional trendy sport conveniences, with skipping cutscenes and autosaves as examples. That being mentioned, even with the welcome new choices that assist take away a number of the extra tedious parts of the unique releases, every constructive addition comes with a “yeah, however…” scenario that you would be able to anticipate to deal with.

Arguably, the most important addition to this assortment are the fight settings, accessible through a particular pause display menu, which permits gamers to regulate the gameplay velocity inside and outdoors fight, permitting your assaults to immediately kill enemies, letting the pc management your social gathering with auto-battle, or just turning off encounters altogether. These settings can solely be adjusted exterior of fight (aside from the auto-battling, which may solely be turned off through a button press), which is a bit of odd. If you’re within the temper to mindlessly grind a bit on easy enemies, there is no such thing as a doubt that these settings can streamline the method, however right here is the place the “yeah, however…” is available in – the auto battler is fairly dumb.

The brand new autobattle AI is competent sufficient to know to make use of offensive playing cards throughout your assault part and defensive ones while you’re being attacked, however don’t anticipate a lot previous that. This poses an even bigger situation within the first sport, the place you will get extra bonuses relying on the numbers on the playing cards you play (enjoying matching numbers, enjoying in an ascending or descending order, and many others.), in addition to when coping with elemental affinities on playing cards. The pc will play fireplace playing cards proper alongside a water one, which is able to cancel one another’s harm out, leading to minuscule quantities of harm completed in your facet. Except you may have tailor-made your Magnus deck to be mainly idiot-proof, don’t anticipate the auto-battle function to be beating bosses for you.

The problems with this are much less detrimental within the sequel, Baten Kaitos Origins, as a result of refinements and changes made within the card battling system itself, most of which come from the modifications to how bonuses and elemental assaults are dealt with. In Origins, you’re required to string a collection of playing cards alongside in ascending order of worth. The longer a string, the higher the bonus, which helps to power the auto-battler to carry out robust combos. That mentioned, it nonetheless by no means tried to arrange the longer counts both by ditching weaker playing cards to drag higher ones that had been simply out of attain to make use of. It additionally reveals no desire for sustaining a selected piece of apparatus (the first methodology of lowering harm and including a component to your assaults in Origins), and can overwrite what’s there merely so as to add one other card on the present assault stack. The performance simply isn’t there to depend on the autobattle to effectively cope with any enemy exterior of the random mobs you are feeling like grinding on, no matter which of the 2 video games you employ it with.

One of many extra standard additions with RPG remasters these days is the addition of a speed-up ‘turbo’ perform, a function that the Baten Kaitos assortment has carried out as effectively, with various ranges of success. In these video games, you’ll be able to set the velocity out and in of fight between 2x or 3x the traditional velocity, with every with the ability to be adjusted independently. The settings exterior of fight I had no situation with, I discovered it extremely welcome throughout these moments I needed to backtrack via areas, particularly once I additionally turned off encounters. Issues get a bit extra troublesome, although, in fight. Whereas it succeeds in doing simply what it guarantees and – you’ll be able to in all probability guess the place I’m going – this function additionally suffers from “yeah, however…” syndrome -, the 2x and particularly 3x makes fight nearly unattainable to regulate instantly.

In fight, as anticipated, the velocity enhance applies to the velocity of the animations (that is good), however it additionally impacts the timer you’re given to behave throughout your flip (that is unhealthy). Meaning the quick window the place it’s a must to choose your assault playing cards, arrange combos, and select which enemy to assault or which ally to heal is diminished to roughly a blink of a watch. You could (and that’s a fairly large might) have the ability to deal with it within the early ranges when set to 2x velocity. Nonetheless, while you start to cope with bigger hand sizes and the flexibility to combo with extra playing cards, that each one goes out the window, leading to you having to depend on the brand new auto-battle setting or else lose whole turns standing there (standing nonetheless very quick although). Altering the velocity again to regular throughout your flip to arrange after which rushing again up once more throughout animations would repair all of the gripes I’ve with it, however as it’s now, you can not do that. Except this transformation is patched in, the turbo mode should stay strictly as a grinding device paired with the auto-battler, or used completely alongside the brand new No Encounters toggle for backtracking.

From a visible standpoint, Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster’s pre-rendered backgrounds stay breathtaking. The improved decision helps them shine, particularly when seen on the OLED Swap’s display. The extremely stylized and numerous designs of the islands you journey to have at all times had such a character. Having not too long ago performed the unique customary definition, checking them out within the improved decision was like seeing them for the primary time once more. Sadly, a number of the beautiful overlaid results take fairly a toll on efficiency, resulting in a really variable and borderline unstable framerate. 

I by no means skilled a drop so intensive that it made the sport unplayable or anyplace close to it, however from one display to the subsequent, typically you possibly can see a definite distinction in how issues had been performing. Not often would the focused 30fps be maintained for too lengthy, with specific dips occurring in areas with some kind of overlay, comparable to clouds within the foreground or ominous mists swirling round. Admittedly, body drops aren’t fairly as huge of a deal for me as I do know they are often for others on the web. Nonetheless, this situation, particularly on ports of such outdated video games, is disappointing and shouldn’t occur on trendy {hardware}, no matter their severity.

The entire menus and dialogue bins have been fully redone and are available throughout clearly even when enjoying the video games within the Swap’s handheld mode. Even the fonts felt proper, which appears to be one of many hardest issues to get proper today in remasters and rereleases, showing crisp and simply readable on the solid-color backgrounds of the dialogue home windows. The primary menus on this assortment really feel extra sterile and generic in comparison with the originals, however I bought used to them rapidly.

For all my gripes and “yea, buts…”, Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster continues to be a beautiful assortment that has been a very long time coming. Would it not have been good if this included an English voice choice? Positive. do I would like them to launch a patch that stabilizes efficiency and improves the auto-battle function? After all! However on the finish of the day, I nonetheless love that this assortment exists. Followers initially fell in love with these video games not due to any ‘autobattle’ or ‘turbo mode, or due to the video games’ framerates; they fell in love with the characters, the story, the world, the gameplay, the visuals, and a lot extra. All of this stuff stay right here within the Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster. There’s a purpose that these video games sit comfortably at 88 for Baten Kaitos and 75 for Origins on Metacritic.

The Baten Kaitos video games deserve higher than this remaster offers them, however for brand new and returning gamers alike, it’s nonetheless an amazing addition to any RPG fan’s Swap library. Hopefully, this assortment isn’t the final we see of the Magnus-slinging collection and is as an alternative the start of a vivid future forward for the collection.

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