Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean remake coming to Switch

One-winged angels of JRPGs are making a comeback. That’s right, an HD remaster of Baten Kaitos. Eternal Wings, and the Lost Ocean is in development for Nintendo Switch, Bandai Namco announced today during Wednesday’s Nintendo Direct. This is the Baten KaitosA remaster can also be included with a prequel remaster. Baten Kaitos Origins.

Published in 2003 by Nintendo GameCube Baten Kaitos – Eternal Wings & the Lost OceanThis is both a classic and a Mad Libs collection of JRPG tropes. It’s set in the wake of a devastating apocalypse, where humanity has emigrated to the clouds and now lives among a series of floating islands.

You have to band together a party of Final Fantasy archetypes (grizzled fisherman, straight-laced bureaucrat, rebellious young woman who’s maybe royalty) on a quest about sealing five whatchamacallits so God doesn’t destroy the world again. Twists and betrayals abound — and no, many of those twists don’t make sense. However, the absurdity and sheer madness of Baten Kaitos is precisely why it’s stuck for so many fans.

Baten KaitosAlso, a card-game mechanic could be folded into turn-based combats. The battle mechanic is similar to that seen in Marvel’s Midnight SunsSecretly, this is the best JRPG game in 2022. The cards that you draw from a deck determine which moves can be made on any given turn. But the system stood out thanks to its gimmick: Cards would “age” in real time. A milk card that was in your deck would turn into a yogurt card and then a cheese card. (You Definitely don’t want to check on what those cards from your mid-2000s save file look like today.)

Remastering Baten Kaitos I/ II HDwill be available for Nintendo Switch in the summer 2023.