Okay Geek Farm
Xenoblade finally making its way to North America, exclusively at GameStop
Ricardo Trejo
Well, lookie here! It would appear that after much griping from JRPG fans, Nintendo has actually caved in and will be releasing one of the titles from Operation Rainfall’s demands list in North America after all. Xenoblade Chronicles, which up until a few months ago was a Japanese exlusive (which then branched out with localized versions in Europe), is finally getting ported over to the states and its north and southern neighbors as well. And when we say ported over, we mean “ported over” — as in we’re getting the British voice track. Not only that, but you’re only going to be able to buy the store at one place. Can you guess where?
It’s official, Nintendo’s facebook page confirms…
… the US and the rest of North America will finally be getting their hands on Xenoblade Chronicles. Not only that, but it’s also interesting to note that the game will only be available through GameStop retail stores or through Nintendo’s own online store.
If you aren’t up to speed as to why this is such a big deal then let us recap the situation: Turn your history books back to 2009 when it was first announced that Xenoblade Chronicles was being developed, and would soon be released the next year exclusively on the Wii.
Now turn a page forward to Hironobu Sakaguchi, the original creator of the Final Fantasy series, who announced that his Mistwalker studio was busy working on a new project dubbed The Last Story, again… exclusively for the Wii. Are we seeing a trend?
Finally, we then saw some delicious artwork, screens, and gameplay videos of a new hack and slash adventure called Pandora’s Tower, that mimic’d a lot of the same styles seen in games like God of War and the Devil May Cry series. But what made this game so sought after? Well, how about the fact that it would be another exclusive for the Wii.
But why is this such a big deal? Well, in the past couple of years the Wii has been lacking in quality titles outside of the usual first-party Mario games. So Wii owners were delighted and excited to hear about promising games that could breathe some life into their dust-collecting Nintendo systems. However, that joy was shortlived with Nintendo straight out said that they had no plans of releasing any of the above titles outside of Japan.
This then caused Operation Rainfall, which sounds more serious then what it actually was. Simply, it was an attempt by members of the IGN and NeoGaf message boards, as well as others from all across different gaming communities, to try to bug Nintendo enough to force them to see how much money they would be losing out on. In a reply, Nintendo acknowledged the outcry but could only answer their plea’s with a blunt, “there are no plans to bring these three games to the Americas at this time.”
At the time, everyone seemed to think the project was a failure… that is until Nintendo of Europe announced not only Xenoblade, but also The Last Story would get localized versions. Though North America was still absent from receiving any of these titles. That is… until today. Fast forward to December 2011 and Nintendo has finally given gamers a glimmer of hope that we’ll see the rest of the trifecta of JRPG/J-Action games that Operation Rainfall members have wanted so badly.
And with The Last Story rumored to see release in spring 2012 in Europe (and also receiving a name change to The Last World), there’s even more of a chance that the Wii will get one more final push before it goes the way of the dinosaurs for hardcore gamers ready to pick up the Wii U next year.
