Topic: Baten Kaitos and Xenosaga on the DS

[TheYoungerPlumber]

An update to Nintendo NCL's online games list reveals some exciting DS RPG games.

Today Nintendo updated its complete Nintendo DS games list, adding thre notable games.

Most significantly, Namco's Xenosaga and Baten Kaitos are headed to Nintendo's new handheld.  The Xenosaga saga has a firm foundation overseas on the PlayStation 2, and Baten Kaitos was just released for the GameCube in North America.

[Deguello]

Yahoo!  With Xenosaga on the DS, the DS proves it can play movies, just like the PSP!

[Artimus]

That's a MAJOR title to have on the DS. Now...Final Fantasy please

[Bill Aurion]

Where have you been?  Final Fantasy III is being remade for a DS release...

[PaLaDiN]

"That's a MAJOR title to have on the DS. Now...Final Fantasy please"

You do know that Crystal Chronicles is coming to the DS.

Personally I'm more excited about the whole gamut of Dragon Quest Monster stuff than any new piece of garbage Square's FF team can think of.

[Savior]

1.Will Xenosaga be a port of the PS1 Xenogears game?

2.Will Baiten Kaitos be more of a Wireless card game ... id buy that.

[Artimus]

I'm talking about FF non-CC and not a remake. Duh?

[Bill Aurion]

Is it my fault you weren't specific? =P

[ruby_onix]

Quote
1.Will Xenosaga be a port of the PS1 Xenogears game?

No. Xenogears was made by Monolith while they were working for Square, and it was supposed to be "Chapter 5" (I think) of a planned 6-chapter epic, presented out of order, sort of like Ogre Battle.

When Monolith broke off from Square and joined Namco, they decided to make Xenosaga: Chapter 1 for the PS2, which is the first chapter of that story (as well as Xenosaga: Chapter 2, which was recently released in Japan).

But Square owns Xenogears, so Monolith can't touch it, so they decided that when they eventually get to Xenosaga: Chapter 5, they're going to write an entirely new Chapter 5 for the series that won't be Xenogears.

So no, whatever "Xenosaga DS" is going to be within the Xeno storyline, it can't be a port of Xenogears.

[JonLeung]

Quote
Originally posted by: Artimus
I'm talking about FF non-CC and not a remake. Duh?

Yeah, even though the Final Fantasy series isn't exactly going uphill, I still do like the more traditional turn-based FFs.  I've played like 60 hours of FF:CC, but still...  Either way, a new Final Fantasy, like it or not, would certainly be a huge selling point.

I love Baten Kaitos (gotta rent it again next weekend to finish it off), and Xeno- seems to have its fans, but mention FF and all the casual gamers and still quite a few of the hardcore gamers have got to turn their heads in the direction of the DS.  

[Djunknown]

What an odd move to put XenoSaga to the DS; you'd think Sony would be all over this. Oh well, it'll be interesting how that turns out. Maybe they can really put a lot of stuff (Cutscenes) in these game cards after all...

I wonder what this incarnation of Baten Kaitos will be like? Hopefully it'll give this franchise a second chance in a less crowded field, I'm guessing that Baten Kaitos for the 'Cube will have low sales for this season. I wouldn't mind being proved wrong though...

[Gamefreak]

Personally I think they are going to make the FMV's real time, or at least most of them... but then again, it really depends on how much space the game cards can really hold. Nintendo says "over 1 gigabit" which is 128 megabytes. In comparasin, Mario 64 on N64 was 4 megabytes, Perfect Dark and Ocarina of Time were 32, Conker was 64 (the biggest N64 game, along with a couple others), the GBA pokemon and FF tactics games are 16.... GBA carts can hold about as much as N64 carts, as in, anywhere from 2 MB to 64 MB, I'm guessing the DS cards are up to 512 MB, maybe more depending how much you can really get out of the technology. Most retail CD's are 640 MB, and DVD's are thousands of MB.

Oh, and it wouldn't surprise me if it shipped on more than one game card. The DS has enough RAM to keep a game running while you switch game cards, and if the RAM still isn't enough it could ship on two DS cards and a GBA cart, with the GBA cart being permanently inserted and holding the most crucial game files and keeping your game saves, so that the DS cards can be switched with the GBA cart keeps the game running. This of course depends on if the DS can read both drives at once. To a lesser extent, it also depends on if it can detect a new game without restarting. I know if you load up the main menu for the DS and switch games it won't recognize it, but this can easily be solved in software. card 1 just needs to put coding into the RAM that will allow the DS to realize there has been a game swap.

[Kulock]

What if this is like ZoE or Silent Hill for the GBA, though? Not really the same gameplay style at all. It's nice to imagine the DS will exclusively get a Xenogears saga in line with the PS2 titles, but that does seem like a better fit for the PSP, doesn't it?

But I probably shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Thank you, indeed, Namco.

[Gamefreak]

By the way, no one has said this is a DS exclusive. Namco is putting Ridge Racer on PSP also, although I'm not sure how that is going to work. They must be two different games since the DS version is being made by NST.

[Knoxxville]

w00t!

[Mario]

Quote
Originally posted by: Gamefreak
By the way, no one has said this is a DS exclusive. Namco is putting Ridge Racer on PSP also, although I'm not sure how that is going to work. They must be two different games since the DS version is being made by NST.

If it uses the touch screen, or both screens, or the microphone, then it's DS exclusive.

[ruby_onix]

Ridge Racers (that's the proper new name) for the PSP is a widescreen port of Ridge Racer V (aka: the poster-child for "jaggies" on the PS2) with tracks from that game as well as recreations of various tracks from previous RR games. I don't know if there will be any "new" race tracks in the game. It would be easy enough to make some new tracks, but there's no shortage of classic tracks to borrow from. Oh yeah and, it will presumably have new cutscenes which will star one of Namco's usual virtual idols.

Ridge Racer DS is presumably an all-new RR game made by NST, with a port of the NST-developed Ridge Racer 64 as it's base. Or maybe it's just a port of RR64, with the added touchscreen steering wheel. I wouldn't know.

Hey, maybe Xenosaga DS and/or Baten Kaitos DS are going to be all-new games made by NST. That'd be cool.

[Infernal Monkey]

Yeah, I was under the impression that Ridge Racer DS was just RR64 with a horrible control method. Good news about the RPG's, a XenoDrama game on a Nintendo system instead of a Sony system is odd to the max. Maybe it'll require you to keep rubbing the touch screen so you stay awake during the seven hundred hours of text.

[PaLaDiN]

I'm interested in seeing BK's graphics on the DS, just to see what it's capable of.

They're absolutely gorgeous on the GC.

[JonLeung]

Baten Kaitos would be awesome.  I rented it last weekend and might do it again this weekend to finish it.  It seems like it'd fit well on the DS, a bottom screen for the cards and the top screen for the action.  It'd make it quicker to get to the cards you need by touching them (I've lost opportunities to continue a combo when I stall while thinking).

I suppose many other RPGs could be similarly designed, with the touch screen for issuing commands.  That's almost a given.  But the touch screen could also provide new ways to execute commands, like using it to fire slingshots (like with a pulling-back motion), swinging slings, targetting weak points, etc.

But Baten Kaitos is a very beautiful RPG, as often stated, the most beautiful GameCube made.  If they are going to make another game in the same vein on the DS then its visuals should try to equal it.

[Urkel]

This is actually some pretty huge news since it shows Namco giving preference to the DS even though your first instinct would be that these games would be better suited on the PSP. Xenosaga especially. I guess having the portable that doesn't have a sh!tty battery life supercedes the portable with prettier graphics and larger storage in the eyes of Namco. It's great to see that a lot of devs aren't really taking a wait and see approach with the DS.

And I don't really see the possibility of these games being ported to PSP, even if the games don't make use of touchscreen. The PSP's main draw is that it can play at or near current generation graphics in portable form. Its target audience wouldn't be interested in playing games with N64 quality visuals.

Of course, I never thought RE4 would get ported, either...

[AGENTDICKLAURENT]

I'm guessing these will both be turned into 2D for the DS -- which should be fine. The DS can pull of some spectacular 2D stuff, N64 quality 3D is a bit unexciting for sprawling RPGs anyway -- so here's hoping. Either way it was huge news strategically one day ahead of the Japan launch.