With Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster launching this September, we’re getting more and more details on these card-based RPGs from the GameCube era. And series director Yasuyuki Honne recently revealed that Baten is Kaitos almost was not called Baten Kaitos (thanks to our sister site, Extension of time!).
Sharing the details on Twitter, Honne revealed that (Translated by Simon Griffin and SatsumaFS for Nintendo Everything) “there was a lot of opposition” to the name in Namac. Honne doesn’t specify what Namco, now known as Bandai Namco, was thinking at the time or why they changed their minds, but we’re glad they did.
Here’s Honne’s twitter (translated via Nintendo Everything):
“Thanks to the kindness of Bandai Namco, the world I worked so hard to create and the maps I worked so hard to draw twenty years ago have been resurrected! By the way, I was the one who called the title ‘Baten Kaitos’, but there was a lot of opposition from the higher ups manager in Namac’s name… we still accepted it!”
Baten Kaitos is an unusual name at first glance, but anyone who has played the game may have done a little extra digging to find out what it means. Baten Kaitos is actually the traditional name for Zeta Ceti, a binary star in the constellation Cetus. It is an Arabic term that translates to “belly of the sea monster”. Cetus is also known as ‘The Whale’ and is named after a sea monster from Greek mythology.
Both constellations and sea monsters – especially the sea whale – are featured prominently in Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean and Baten Kaitos Origins. Several different locations, weapons and moves are named after other Arabian star constellations. An entire side quest is dedicated to collecting star constellations and rebuilding the map. A porpoise is a little more spoilers, but he is an important figure in the lore of the series’ world. So ‘Baten Kaitos’ is a very intentional name.
