My reviews for each individual game in this collection can be found on their original GameCube release pages, here I'll go through what the HD remaster brings to the table.

The HD remaster makes two GameCube classic games more widely available, with Baten Kaitos Origins getting it's first ever European release. Along with updated visuals, a handful of options have been added:
The ability to turn off encounters (very handy for when you just want to explore a dungeon, especially when enemies respawn every time the screen reloads)
The ability to one hit KO enemies (very handy to stop battles dragging on for standard encounters)
Increase game and battle speed (I wish this was a button toggle rather than a menu option you have to constantly adjust because it isn't fun to use despite how handy it can be for certain sections)
An auto battle function (never used this in my playthrough but I can imagine it having its uses)

The games run ok on Switch though some sections do see the framerate drop unfortunately which is kinda disappointing for GameCube remasters. Elsewhere the English voice over is not included in this release (presumably due to cartridge limitations more than anything else) and European language options are not included in Origins (presumably because it never released here and Bandai Namco didn't want to fork out on translations)

While it does fall short of its potential as an HD remaster and fails to include everything that it should, at the end of the day the two games included here are goof to great games and being able to play them on a more available format is greatly welcome

Reviewed on Nov 13, 2023


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