Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster Review
Baten Kaitos kicks off, as any good story does, with a desire for revenge. The main character, Kalas, is on an altogether too angry quest to kill those that killed his family. Where the complication comes in is when he bumps into the magic-user Xelha, who is on the run from the Empire after hearing their plot to resurrect and ancient evil – so far, so JRPG. Thus begins your trek across the known world, culling monsters and saving cities, all from the viewpoint as a benevolent Guardian Spirit.
Baten Kaitos Origins follows a similarly grandiose tale, albeit one that’s set before the narrative of the first game. Following an honestly far more likeable cast, it opens with Sagi, a new initiate of a military organisation, taking on a high priority mission alongside their seemingly mechanical companion Guillo. Once again you have lost a family member, because I don’t think it could even be a JRPG without someone dying or disappearing before the start of the game, but revenge doesn’t seem the initial motivator for Sagi.
Freshly remastered for the Nintendo Switch from their GameCube origins, both games proceed as typical JRPG fare; rock up to a city, talk to everyone, steal from their houses, maybe find a new ally, get into battles, defeat a boss, solve the cities problems, then onto the next location. To be honest, if this is all sounding tremendously typical of the genre, it’s because it is. In fact, it would almost fall into feeling overwhelmingly average, if not for the absolute wild nature of the mechanics they throw at you – at least in the first game.
Baten Kaitos feels like every conceptually simple mechanic has been tinkered with in some way. You don’t level from defeating enemies, for instance, but instead build a pool of
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