Baten Kaitos: Мәңгілік қанаттар мен жоғалған мұхит

2003 video game

Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean is a role playing video game developed by Monolith Soft and tri Crescendo and published by Namco for the GameCube. In it, the player assume the role of a "guardian spirit" – an unseen player avatar – who guides protagonist Kalas and his party of companions in an adventure across an aerial floating island based kingdom in the clouds. The game is focused around the concept of "Magnus" – magical cards that capture the "essence" of items found in the in game world. The concept is used as a plot device, for in game item management, and as a basis for the card themed battle system. The game was noted for its unique battle system, which included aspects of turn based and action based battle systems, collectible card games, and poker. Developed specifically for the GameCube due to its lack of JRPGs in its game library, the game was generally well received by critics, but received lukewarm sales. Despite this, a prequel, Baten Kaitos Origins was green lit and released at the end of the GameCube's lifespan, receiving a similar reception itself. Outside of the cancelled Baten Kaitos DS, no further entries have been announced or released, with the team largely focusing on other projects, like the Xenoblade Chronicles games. In the years following, Monolith Soft staff have mentioned the desire to return to the series should the opportunity ever arise. On February 8, 2023, Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster was announced and eventually released on the Nintendo Switch on September 15, 2023.

Baten Kaitos plays as a Japanese role playing video game. However, the player does not directly play as the game's protagonist as in most JRPGs, but rather, as a self named "guardian spirit" that directly interacts with the protagonist through preset text dialogue tree response options. Over 1,000 different Magnus exist in the game. Magnus are used in a multitude of ways; Magnus containing food or medicine may be used to heal or temporarily invigorate characters, Magnus containing weapons or armor may be equipped to strengthen characters, Magnus containing battle moves may be put into the players deck and used as attacks in battles, and Magnus may be used to interact with non playable characters to reveal new conversations or complete various quests. Additionally, a camera Magnus may be used in battle to take photographs of enemies, which can in turn be sold for varying amounts of money, based on picture quality and rarity of image captured. Prior to a battle, the player must assemble a deck of Magnus for each party member to be used during combat, from which random hands are dealt from during battle. Doing so allows the player to "level up", leading an increase in the character's primary attributes such as health points, attack strength, or defensive ability, or occasionally "class up" which increases the character's magnus deck capacity.

The world of Baten Kaitos is centered around magic cards called "Magnus", which allows humanity to store the essence of objects or powers in them for later use. The player assumes the role of a player named, unseen "guardian spirit" who directly communicates with, and guides Kalas, the game's protagonist. Kalas is considered a bit of a hooligan, and an outcast due to only have one wing, with the other being replaced by a mechanical wing.

Kalas, in his travels to avenge the death of his grandfather and brother, joins Xelha, a good willed but naive traveler. Frustrated, Takahashi decided to start his own company, alongside other Squaresoft employees who had previously worked on Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, and Chrono Cross, to further work on the Xeno series. The game's initial concept was created in 2001, with development beginning six months later. Monolith Soft, at the time only really known for the Xenosaga games, The GameCube was chosen as the game's platform due to the general lack of JRPGs in its game library; the team wanted to offer a "true RPG" for the userbase, and eventually establish it as a franchise for the system. The game's story was written by Masato Kato, a prior Squaresoft staff member who had left the company around the same time many of other people had left to form Monolith Soft. He was selected because he having experience working with many team members, such as artist and game design director Yasuyuki Honne, on past projects like Chrono Cross and Xenogears, and for his ability to "write passionate dialogue that doesn't sound weird or embarrassing". Over sixty songs were created for the game.

In a February 2023 Nintendo Direct, an HD Remaster of the game, Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster, was announced for the Nintendo Switch for release in mid 2023. The release bundles Baten Kaitos and Baten Kaitos Origins (originally released as Baten Kaitos 2 in Japan) together as one release. The remaster does not add or remove any story content from either title, although it only features Japanese voice acting; the English voice acting has been removed. The game features improved graphics and resolution, widescreen display, and a stabilized framerate of 30 frames per second.

The game was generally well received by professional critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the game has an average score of 80 out of 100, which indicates "generally favorable reviews" based on 48 reviews.

While the game was generally well received critically, it wasn't seen as having sold very well. Publisher Namco had set a sales goal of 500,000 copies sold worldwide, and initial sales figures fell well short of it; it had sold only 80,000 copies in Japan after 2 weeks, and only 161,000 copies in North America after its first month and a half on the market. It also sold poorly in comparison to Tales of Symphonia, Namco's other JRPG released along the same time period for the GameCube; which had sold 290,000 copies in Japan,

The game was initially created in hopes of making it a franchise, Initially, the only other releases came in the form of two separate novelizations of the game released in Japan; Baten Kaitos: The Destruction of Truth and the Lie of the Promise and Baten Kaitos: Castle of Storms. However, work on a video game followup was eventually green lit; in September 2005, a direct prequel, Baten Kaitos Origins, was announced. It was released late in the GameCube's life cycle in 2006, garnering a similar critical and commercial reception as the original.

Prior to Origins release, in December 2004, another title, Baten Kaitos DS, was on Nintendo's list of upcoming games scheduled for their then upcoming Nintendo DS platform, alongside a Xenosaga DS. While the Xenosaga title was later released as Xenosaga I & II, the Baten Kaitos DS title was never further detailed, and later disappeared from Namco's own list of upcoming games in October 2005. In August 2006, when Monolith Soft's president was questioned about the title, responded that the team was "strongly willing to develop [it]", but that questions on the project needed to be directed to their publisher, Namco. A Namco representative further clarified that "The Baten Kaitos DS project has been stopped once. Further development
is currently undecided at this point." The game was not mentioned further by either company outside of a brief listing almost immediately taken down on Namco's Japanese website in 2008, and is generally not believed to be in production. In 2011, Eurogamer published a report of a number game titles rumored to be in development, including a Baten Kaitos 3 being in development for the Nintendo 3DS. The game, with the subtitle Silence of the Mechanized Son, was said to feature leaked promotional artwork featuring a blue haired male character with a mechanized wing, and was thought to feature a continuation of Kalas's story from the original game. In 2018, Honne revealed that a Baten Kaitos 3 had entered pre production planning shortly after the conclusion of development on Origins/2, though his details differed greatly from the 3DS reports. The game never entered production, but game design documents and concept art had been created.

The series has largely lay dormant since the release of Origins in 2006. In Nintendo's transition from the Gamecube to the Wii video game hardware in 2006, Monolith Soft stated they had no plan to support the Wii with a Baten Kaitos title, instead focusing on other projects, namely what would turn into Disaster: Day of Crisis and Xenoblade Chronicles. Monolith Soft employees would continue to mention the games on occasion. In 2008, producer Tadashi Nomura stated that "We [ ] are still willing to start developing a new Baten Kaitos when the time is ripe." In 2010, in an interview, Honne spoke fondly of Baten Kaitos, calling it his favorite game to work on, and then transitioned into a comment about working on a "secret project", in a way that lead some publications to suggest he may be referring to further Baten Kaitos entries. In 2014, the Baten Kaitos Origins music track "The Valedictory Elegy" appeared in Nintendo's cross over video game Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. In 2015, developer Kensuke Tsukanaka revealed in an interview that while the game series was considered for inclusion in the cross over video game Project X Zone, the developers couldn't figure out a way to work it into the game's story. In the same interview, he also stated that while it would be possible to bring back the series, it would require substantial fan feedback encouraging Bandai Namco Entertainment to use the franchise again. but no further entries have been released to date.