Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster Review Summary

Enhanced graphics, music, and art: The remaster enhances the original's graphics, music, and art style, making it visually stunning and more detailed. The game features beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds, detailed character designs, and a unique world with floating continents. The soundtrack, composed by Motoi Sakuraba, is also highly praised.

Evokes nostalgia, childhood memories: The game evokes nostalgia and fond memories, with reviewers enjoying revisiting a childhood favorite. The game is considered a classic JRPG and a personal favorite for many. The original games are good and have aged well.

Helpful quality-of-life improvements: The remaster includes quality-of-life improvements such as game speed adjustments, encounter nullification, auto-battle, skippable cutscenes and plentiful save points. These features streamline the experience, save time by skipping grind, and make the game more accessible.

Unique, strategic card-based combat: The game features a unique and engaging combat system that combines turn-based mechanics with card battles, requiring strategic deck building and adaptation. The battle system is fast-paced and allows for creating combos. Strategic blocking and attack management become engaging in the endgame.

Interesting characters and story: The game features interesting characters and locations, with likable characters and engaging stories. The stories, characters, and world create a fantastic adventure. The game also has great plot twists.

Missing English dub, censored content: The remaster controversially omits the original English dub, offering only Japanese audio with subtitles. Some perceive this as censorship due to script changes, such as replacing alcohol references. This decision disappoints fans seeking a faithful recreation of the original experience and impacts nostalgia.

Slow, tedious combat system: Players find the combat in Baten Kaitos 1 slow and tedious due to lengthy animations, frequent stat displays, and reliance on RNG. The card-based system, while unique, feels unpolished, restricting player agency and leading to frustrating battles. Limited speed control options exacerbate the issue.

Poorly implemented control scheme: The game suffers from poorly implemented controls, especially on PC. Key bindings are problematic, with in-game prompts not reflecting remapped controls. This leads to frustration and difficulty in navigating the game.

Low-quality, minimal effort remaster: The remaster is criticized for being a minimal effort port with inconsistent upscaling and visual bugs. Some graphical elements appear worse than the original, and status effect indicators are less clear. The high price point is not justified by the quality of the remaster.

Inconsistent game pacing: The game's pacing is inconsistent, with slow walking speeds and limited speed adjustment options. The absence of a dash feature in the first game makes traversal tedious. These issues contribute to a feeling of unrefined gameplay.

Monster photography earns money: The game features a unique money-earning mechanic where players take pictures of enemies during battle using photo cards and then sell them. Bosses are worth the most, making photography a lucrative way to earn money.

Real-time defense, strategic card use: The game incorporates real-time defense mechanics where players must use guard cards to block enemy attacks. Healing cards require selecting a friendly character in advance, and attack cards can sometimes be used defensively.

Optional combat skipping features: The game provides options to skip combat, including a one-hit kill mode and the ability to disable normal enemy encounters. This allows players to bypass challenging or tedious battles.

Cards change/age over time: Cards change over time, such as food spoiling, which is part of the collection aspect. This aging process adds depth to card management and combos.

Manual, randomized character leveling: Experience points earned from battles do not automatically level up characters; players must visit blue save points and pray to level up. Character growth is randomized within a certain range each level.

Stable performance across platforms: The game generally runs smoothly across various platforms like Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and PCs with RTX 4070ti, often achieving high frame rates (120FPS). Some reviewers specifically noted the absence of bugs, crashes, stuttering, or control issues. The PC port is functional and stable.

Controller recommended over keyboard: The game is better played with a controller due to complaints about keyboard controls. This suggests that the keyboard control scheme may be poorly implemented or less intuitive than using a controller.

Frame drops during combat: Some players have observed frame rate drops and stuttering during combat. This indicates that the game's performance may not be consistently smooth, particularly during demanding scenes.

Optimize settings for Steam Deck: Limiting the framerate and lowering TDP on the Steam Deck can improve performance and battery life. This suggests that while the game runs well, users can optimize settings for a better experience on handheld devices.

Graphics too clean (subjective): One reviewer lowered the resolution because the graphics were too clean. This is an unusual complaint and may reflect a personal preference rather than a widespread issue with the game's visuals.

Recommended JRPG for genre fans: Many reviewers recommend the game, especially to JRPG fans, citing its unique combat and story. Some consider it a hidden gem and a must-buy for genre enthusiasts. However, some suggest waiting for a sale.

Appeals to fans of classic JRPGs: Reviewers draw comparisons to classic JRPGs like Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and Legend of Mana, suggesting that fans of those games will likely enjoy Baten Kaitos. The game is considered a worthwhile experience for those who appreciate story-driven RPGs.

Origins more polished, bugs present: While Baten Kaitos Origins is generally considered more polished, some find the first game more charming. However, Baten Kaitos 2 has game-breaking bugs that reviewers hope will be fixed in a future update.

Emulation may offer superior experience: Some reviewers recommend emulating the original GameCube version due to the lack of English voice acting in the remaster and potential stuttering issues. They suggest using mods to enhance the experience.

Wait for a sale: Several reviewers suggest waiting for a discount before purchasing the game, especially for those who are short on money. Getting two games for the price of one is considered a great deal, but the timing of the release may not be ideal for everyone.

Japanese audio only: The remaster only includes Japanese audio, despite a North American version existing with an English dub. Some players may find this disappointing, and suggest using the original dub by swapping audio files.

Unique world and collectibles: The game features a unique world with floating continents, magic, and creatures, blending biological and mechanical elements in its art style. Both games contain various collectibles and side quests.

In-game switching unavailable: The game uses a launcher to switch between the first and second game, which cannot be done after the game is already running. This is different from the Switch version, which allows switching between releases from within the game.

Guardian spirit affects bond: The player embodies a guardian spirit who communicates with the protagonist, influencing their bond through dialogue choices. The protagonist sometimes breaks the fourth wall by speaking directly to the player.

New Game+ and New Game-: The addition of New Game+ for the first game and New Game- for both games is a welcome surprise for players looking for replayability.