The latest issue of Nintendo Power magazine has confirmed the earlier rumor that Nintendo will be publishing Baten Kaitos II in the United States.
The title is a prequel to the Namco-published Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, which brought lush, pre-rendered worlds and a unique story married to a card-based battle system that emphasized real-time defense and poker-style combos to the GameCube back in 2004.
Baten Kaitos II is set twenty years before the original game, and has as its main character Sagi, a special-ops soldier given a mission to assassinate the emperor who finds himself running for his life when the plan goes wrong. Not content to just mix up the story, the battle system is also changed up significantly as all party members now draw from the same deck and pacing is said to be faster than the original title.
Nintendo Power currently has the title listed for a June 2006 release in North America, though the date is of course subject to change; print deadlines have left Nintendo Power in the position of giving inaccurate information before.