Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean

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. ==Synopsis==

Setting and characters 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. Plot Kalas, in his travels to avenge the death of his grandfather and brother, joins Xelha, a good-willed but naive traveler. Together, they inadvertently release the first of the "End Magnus", which is quickly seized by members of the Alfard Empire, a hostile nation on one of the islands. The two chase after them to the Empire's capital, stopping at Diadem along the way, where they meet and team up with Gibari, a fisherman, and Lyude, the Empire's ambassador to the Diadem. Upon arrival, they learn there are five End Magnus in total, and the Empire wishes to locate all five of them, which together, will unseal the power of the evil god Malpercio. The party begins an unsuccessful effort to obtain the End Magus to keep them away from the Empire. One is found in Diadem, but is stolen from them immediately. They travel to Anuenue, where they team up with Savyna, an ex-mercenary from the Empire, but are stopped from obtaining an End Magnus by the Empire's emperor, Geldoblame. They travel to Mira, Kalas's home nation, where they meet Mizuti, a strange masked being who joins the group. A temporary arrest for being suspected of kidnapping Miran resident Lady Melodia causes them again to lose the only End Magnus they had obtained there. The group escapes to Alfard to stop Geldoblame, but in the confrontation, it is revealed that Kalas had secretly been working for Melodia all along to find the End Magnus and revive Malpercio for her benefit. Melodia takes control of the Empire from Geldoblame, and his former soldiers drive him to the depths of Alfard's Lava Caves. Kalas absorbs the power of the five End Magnus and falls under Malpercio's control. The other members are captured and imprisoned, though Xelha escapes and frees them. They travel to Wazn, an island covered in snow, where they learn that Xelha is its queen. She obtains the Ocean Mirror, which allows Xelha to restore Kalas's free will. Malpercio and Melodia refuge themselves into Cor Hydrae, an ancient fortress also unsealed by the five End Magnus. Kalas, guilty over his deception, vows to reseal Malpercio. Mizuti directs the group to her homeland, a village in the lands below the Taintclouds, a poisonous layer of gas below the floating islands. They venture down to seek the power of the "Sword of the Heavens" to aid their quest; however, Malpercio and Melodia show up, and the two sides clash. The party is able to ward them off, but the Sword of Heavens is broken in the process. The party then learns of one last hope of stopping Melodia and Malpercio: the Magnus of Life. Kalas learns the truth about his origins; Kalas's scientist grandfather, Georg, under the direction of Emperor Geldoblame, used this power to artificially create life – namely Kalas and his brother, Fee. Geldoblame felt Kalas was too human, and only had one wing, and ordered his death. Georg instead fakes his death by blowing up his laboratory, and secretly flees to Mira with Kalas and Fee. Because he was created by the Magnus of Life, however, Kalas can use its power, though he does not yet know how to tap into it. The party breaks through into Cor Hydrae for a final showdown with Malpercio and Melodia. Malpercio is defeated, Melodia receives free will again, and Kalas, Melodia, and the Guardian Spirit use their powers to release Malpercio's spirit from his body. The energy needed to break the shield around Cor Hydrae drains the energy that allows the five major floating islands to float in the sky, and the islands fall toward the Earth below. However, the planet has now become habitable again, and with the help of the five ancient gods, the islands safely fall into place on the planet as continents. While the general population celebrates a bright new future, Xelha privately confides to Kalas that she is an ancient ice queen, and that her death is required in order to restore the oceans of water necessary for humanity to exist again on the planet. A final battle with Geldoblame ensues, and Kalas and Xelha defeat him, but the battle uses the last of Xelha's strength and she dies in Kalas's arms just after confessing her love. All over the world, a rain begins to fall, accumulating into the long-lost ocean. With resolution found, it is deemed time for the "guardian spirit" to leave, with Kalas and the others congregating to say their goodbyes. The guardian spirit sticks around just long enough to see an area boy give Kalas a pendant Xelha had worn throughout the game, saying that he can hear Xelha's voice in it; Kalas puts it up to his ear, and Xelha reappears in a flash of water. == Development ==

The game's developer, Monolith Soft, was initially founded in October 1999 after its founder, Tetsuya Takahashi, left his previous employer, Squaresoft, after the company refused to green-light funding for a second entry of Takahashi's first major project, Xenogears. 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". The soundtrack was composed and arranged by Motoi Sakuraba, with Sakuraba personally performing on every track. Over sixty songs were created for the game. Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster 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. == Reception ==

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. ==Legacy==

Impact and other releases While the game was generally well-received critically, it did not reach commercial expectations. 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. Cancelled entries Baten Kaitos DS and Baten Kaitos 3 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. Future The series has largely lain 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. Game journalists have expressed desire for sequel, but no further entries have been released to date. ==See also==