Xenoblade Chronicles

[Chosenoneknuckles]

This brings up a question I've had. Will Wii games running on WiiU work online, assuming that the servers are still running, which for several games they should be for next few years at least. Let's say I buy Xenoblade & a few months later buy WiiU, will I be able to play it online on my WiiU?

Xenoblade is a single-player RPG, there's no online features.

This.

Surely MH-Tri would've been more appropriate a game to name-drop?

[ddddd]

Im going to guess that nintendo will keep their old online service running for some time and then take it down

[the_nintendo_screw]

Hooray! Thanks for the good news.

[cortjezter]

mod note: merged in unnecessary extra thread about a release date.

[chris_the_wing]

This brings up a question I've had. Will Wii games running on WiiU work online, assuming that the servers are still running, which for several games they should be for next few years at least. Let's say I buy Xenoblade & a few months later buy WiiU, will I be able to play it online on my WiiU?

Xenoblade is a single-player RPG, there's no online features.

This.

Surely MH-Tri would've been more appropriate a game to name-drop?

Color me embarrassed, I thought it was online, I guess I got parts of it mixed up with The Last Story. Thanks for not jumping down my throat.

[Gulshog]

It is coming, so I am happy. Not happy about how the situation has been handled, but that goes without saying. And, those that hate Gamestop, like me, can order directly from Nintendo, win-win.

I wonder if Nintendo direct will offer a CCPro bundle, let Gamestop have it, or not do it at all?

[TheLastBlade]

While I'm not gonna buy the game, at least people can end with a game that they wanted.

[The_Dude1212]

I wonder if Nintendo direct will offer a CCPro bundle, let Gamestop have it, or not do it at all?

I hope they do offer the controller somehow, be it direct or GStop/EB games. If not...guess I'll hope someone in Europe is willing to part with theirs on Ebay on the cheap

[Devil_Rising]

Too little too late NoA... Well still is something to look forward to the remaining year of the Wii.

Just to make the OpRainfall guys not to brag about this, they havent brought the other games, which is probably not a big deal anyway.

I'd hardly say it's "too little too late". In fact, I'd say that while this game certainly should have come out in 2011, it looks to me like 2012 will send the Wii off with a bit of a bang. 2, hopefully 3 major (and probably all excellent) rpgs sounds fine to me. Xenoblade and DQX are confirmed for next year. Sure, a lot of people will likely want to wait and get the WiiU version of DQX, but I think it'll sell decently on Wii anyway, and I find it intriguing that the online stuff will be compatible between versions. Pretty cool on Square's part (or should I say on the DQ team's part).

Then there's The Last Story. It went unnoticed by a lot of people, and it hasn't been officially commented on yet, but last I heard, NOA has registered a trademark for The Last Story for North America. Kind of a waste to do that if you don't plan on bringing it out. So I'm willing to bet we'll see all three major rpgs in 2012. Not a bad way to go out. Certainly not with a whimper. And I'm still guessing we'll see one or two last little Wii titles from Nintendo before all is said and done. The drought in mid-2011 was pretty bad. But I never once thought Nintendo had "forgotten the Wii".

They'll send it off right, and they'll have learned from their mistakes with the (rushed) 3DS launch, and push Wii U out with a strong line-up as well. All will likely be fine in Nintendoland.

[TANK]

Just thought id let you yanks know,im buying this game tomorrow and ill let you know how it plays.

[Hamr]

This one

Lol, I like how I figured something like that was coming.

Funny how the timing on this worked out, though, as Thursday was when I finally got around to going back to my level 76 save and beating Xenoblade's final boss (120 hours for 100% completion on the level 99 save.) Then Friday rolled around and

go ahead.. get this off-topic stuff out of your systems.

sorry cort, just concluding a friendly wager about xenoblade being released in america.

[KingBroly]

Operation Rainfall didn't cause Xenoblade Chronicles to be released here. Nintendo's only making you think it did.

[ddddd]

I'd hardly say it's "too little too late". In fact, I'd say that while this game certainly should have come out in 2011, it looks to me like 2012 will send the Wii off with a bit of a bang. 2, hopefully 3 major (and probably all excellent) rpgs sounds fine to me. Xenoblade and DQX are confirmed for next year. Sure, a lot of people will likely want to wait and get the WiiU version of DQX, but I think it'll sell decently on Wii anyway, and I find it intriguing that the online stuff will be compatible between versions. Pretty cool on Square's part (or should I say on the DQ team's part).

Then there's The Last Story. It went unnoticed by a lot of people, and it hasn't been officially commented on yet, but last I heard, NOA has registered a trademark for The Last Story for North America. Kind of a waste to do that if you don't plan on bringing it out. So I'm willing to bet we'll see all three major rpgs in 2012. Not a bad way to go out. Certainly not with a whimper. And I'm still guessing we'll see one or two last little Wii titles from Nintendo before all is said and done. The drought in mid-2011 was pretty bad. But I never once thought Nintendo had "forgotten the Wii".

They'll send it off right, and they'll have learned from their mistakes with the (rushed) 3DS launch, and push Wii U out with a strong line-up as well. All will likely be fine in Nintendoland.

I just think that they took soooo long to bring it to the US that is not going to have the same success it would had have if they had been announced say, months ago (or better yet, launched within the same time frame of the other regions). Lots of imports and hacked wiis, this may have also increased the piracy of other wii games.

[Ngamer01]

OT: Dragon Quest X Wii probably won't happen in America or Europe considering the Japanese version has gone into beta testing now and the fact localization takes so much time. At most America and Europe will only get the Wii U version of DQ X. Now if the Wii U gets delayed into 2013, then it's possible for DQ X Wii to come stateside (with Europe being the question mark).

Now back on-topic, I am interested in Xenoblade. I mean the game does look beautiful for a Wii game and the battle system looks interesting. It's definitely a game that is long overdue in America and hopefully Pandora's Tower and The Last Story can follow suit here. I'm interested in Pandora's Tower for it's story (different than the usual save the world fare) and The Last Story looks to blend RPG/action-adventure with a bit of third-person shooting.

[Serpent_Seed]

Reserved Xenoblade at Gamestop.

[Devil_Rising]

Operation Rainfall didn't cause Xenoblade Chronicles to be released here. Nintendo's only making you think it did.

I'd argue that point. I think if OR hadn't occurred, they wouldn't have known there was a big demand for this and Last Story, and would likely have used that as a major excuse not to bother localizing it. Keep in mind that it isn't just this. They copyrighted The Last Story for NA. They wouldn't waste time and money doing that if they weren't also localizing that for NA.

[PaperLink64]

The official trailer on Nintendo's Wii channel on YouTube has Operation Rainfall in its tags, so I'd think OR does deserve at least some credit for this.

[KingBroly]

Operation Rainfall didn't cause Xenoblade Chronicles to be released here. Nintendo's only making you think it did.

I'd argue that point. I think if OR hadn't occurred, they wouldn't have known there was a big demand for this and Last Story, and would likely have used that as a major excuse not to bother localizing it. Keep in mind that it isn't just this. They copyrighted The Last Story for NA. They wouldn't waste time and money doing that if they weren't also localizing that for NA.

Except Xenoblade and Last Story have been copyrighted by Nintendo of America for a LONG time. It's not like they decided one day after Xenoblade got released in Europe that it'd be good to bring it out here. They were both localized already (Last Story was localized here, btw). By saying nothing, they're letting fans have their "day in sun" so to speak, when in reality it was coming all along.

[Hamr]

Except Xenoblade [has] been copyrighted by Nintendo of America for a LONG time.

Well, yeah, companies tend to do that to games that they have announced and put on their official release calendar. And when they cancel those games, they retain the trademarks to keep other companies from using them, even though they have no intention of releasing the game. Unless you think stuff like Disaster is still coming.

By saying nothing, they're letting fans have their "day in sun" so to speak, when in reality it was coming all along.

The idea that Xenoblade was coming all along is one of those things that falls apart when you think about it at all for more than about three seconds. Here is the timeline: The game was officially announced for America in 2009 (and that was when the trademark was placed). Nintendo of America spent two years saying the game was coming. Then they quietly removed it from the company release calendar, had it leak from a Nintendo of Europe representative (who they later fired) that the game was not coming, and then released a statement reversing its previous official stance on the game to say that there were in fact no plans to bring the game to the US.

So it is not really a matter of 'saying nothing'. It is a matter of saying one thing, then saying the complete opposite, then saying a third thing and releasing a game (nearly three years after its initial official announcement and two years after its debut in another region) complete with full non-American VA and instances of weird British slang, apparently something NOA has never allowed before -- and doing all of this jerking around, instead of treating the game like they treat 99% of everything else they have ever produced, somehow knowing well in advance that there would be a miniscule-but-vocal fan campaign that after yet another turnaround they would enable to 'have their day in the sun'.

It's not like they decided one day after it got released in Europe that it'd be good to bring it out here.

And it is not like they decided to randomly and repeatedly lie to the fanbase and mutilate the extremely simple act of announcing/releasing a game beyond all possible recognition. The only scenario that makes even a little bit of sense is that they were telling the truth in each instance. 1. Game is announced. They originally intended to release the game. Hence the E3 showing, the placement on the official calendar, the constant assurances, etc.

2. Then they quietly canceled it. There are after all plenty of reasons why NOA canning the game is extremely plausible, which we should all be well-acquainted with thanks to all people who reflexively defended the move. 'Ooooooh, RPGs are a niche market. Oooooh, previous core Wii games have flopped. Oooooh, the game did not sell gangbusters where it was released. Oooooh, localization costs tons of time and money Nintendo has to use doing other stuff. Oooooh, the exchange rate. Ooooh, the game is ugly. Ooooh, the Wii is a dead system not worth even attempting to salvage.' Hence, removal from the release list, 'They have no plans', ''We have no plans', 'NOE is localizing it instead' 'We are watching Europe closely', etc.

3. And then they were convinced to reverse the cancellation. Now that does not mean that the European version meeting NOE's modest sales expectations several months ago or the letters or the people turning to Nintendo's archenemy the homebrew channel or the facebook campaign were the sole reasons for that reversal, or even necessarily reasons in and of themselves, but they form one of a number of factors that would have very plausibly contributed to such a decision. Other likely factors include the past two quarterly finance reports featuring a historic nearly-a-billion-dollar loss and collapsed Wii hardware/software sales directly attributable to one of the worst gaming droughts a console has ever seen, the absurdly-terrible release slate lined up for 2012 that was even worse, the game's exceptional critical reception everywhere it was released, and Nintendo being savaged on a consistent basis by our otherwise-worthless gaming press for claiming-but-not-actually-being sensitive to the needs of the fanbase it is specifically trying to cort.

All working together to hammer home how totally, purely, and indefensibly wrong it would be to not release the game.

[Rawky-Roo]

Except Xenoblade and Last Story have been copyrighted by Nintendo of America for a LONG time. It's not like they decided one day after Xenoblade got released in Europe that it'd be good to bring it out here. They were both localized already (Last Story was localized here, btw). By saying nothing, they're letting fans have their "day in sun" so to speak, when in reality it was coming all along.

I'm afraid your wrong in saying that Operation Rainfall didn't have any influence on Xenoblade getting a US release. Here is some evidence:

Firstly, why give it a limited GameStop exclusive release? Simple answer is to appease the fans demand for the game. They aren't planning on releasing it for the mass market, so to save money they're giving it a limited release so only the fans, that campaigned for it, can obtain it.

Soraya Saga, the wife of the creator of Xenoblade tweeted this: "Thanks for bringing the rain. I believe fan enthusiasm made this possible" (sic). Surely if anyone know about this game getting a release it would be the creators of the game, this is a decision that has been made recently.

Nintendo of Europe held a competition, where entries had to make a Xenoblade "Let's Play" video, the winner would receive FREE copies of The Last Story and Pandora's Tower. The other 2 games that OpRa are campaigning for. Coincidence? I don't think so.

I am in contact with someone who works at NoE and he says that they, NoE, are big fans and supporters of Operation Rainfall.

The official North American trailer to Xenoblade, has an extra scene added that isn't included in the European version. That scene is of one of the characters, 'Dunban', saying "Sorry, for keeping you waiting."

Finally, Nintendo of America, have added tags to their Xenoblade Youtube videos which say 'Operation', 'Rainfall' and 'Operation Rainfall'.

I think its pretty obvious that OpRa had SOME influence in making this happen.

[KingBroly]

Nintendo of America has had releases be retailer exclusive before. Saying otherwise is wrong. Also, if it were up to fans, it wouldn't be released exclusively at Gamestop either if it were retailer exclusive, since they hate Gamestop.

As for everything else, you're looking into things way too much. Until Reggie says 'Operation Rainfall caused this release' it's your imagination getting the best of you on the subject.

[Blue_Falcon]

since they hate Gamestop.

Are you kidding me? Exclusive preorder items, the latest event pokémon, game related events, and now Xenoblade. I wish they hated Gamestop.

As for everything else, you're looking into things way too much.

I can understand why people like TheBitBlock have a hard time making sense of things, but you as well?

-NoA president says Xenobalde is not coming
-Fan uproar
-Xenoblade is coming

What is it that some of you find so hard to comprehend about something so simple and evident? I read what was there in it's most literal sense, not even exerting a modicum or brainpower or deep thought. All it takes is a grand total of two seconds (three if you're being generous like Hamr) and putting you ego/Nintendo fanaticism aside.

[Steel Diver]

The only thing I have to say about Xenoblade is that I'm glad Nintendo listened to the fans.

[Hamr]

Nintendo of America has had releases be retailer exclusive before.

Technically true but ultimately irrelevant. How many of those releases were localized in full by other divisions? How many Nintendo games released period in America were versions that originated en toto from other regions? How many games has Nintendo of America officially announced, officially un-announced, and then officially re-announced? Oh, that is right. None.

"Also, if it were up to fans, it wouldn't be released exclusively at Gamestop either if it were retailer exclusive, since they hate Gamestop.

So what you are saying is that if Nintendo were listening to fans, there would be an alternative way to get the game that did not involve Gamestop? For instance, say, purely hypothetically, offering it from the Nintendo company website as well?

yeeeeeeah

"Until Reggie says 'Operation Rainfall caused this release' it's your imagination getting the best of you on the subject."

Weird thing to say, since you are operating off the bizarre assumption that everyone involved with Nintendo is a bald-faced pathological liar anyway. Soraya Saga saying it is because of OR? Liar. That NOE employee who said NOA had no intention of releasing the game? Also liar. The guy running the Facebook account who said they had no plans? Liar liar. All the customer service reps who said the same things in all those letters? Liars. Reggie when he repeatedly said they had no plans and when he said they were watching Europe closely? Wearing pants that are, in fact, on fire.

Oh, but now Reggie is the only one whose word can single-handedly confirm things.

[Blue_Falcon]

Weird thing to say, since you are operating off the bizarre assumption that everyone involved with Nintendo is a bald-faced pathological liar anyway. Soraya Saga saying it is because of OR? Liar. That NOE employee who said NOA had no intention of releasing the game? Also liar. The guy running the Facebook account who said they had no plans? Liar liar. All the customer service reps who said the same things in all those letters? Liars. Reggie when he repeatedly said they had no plans and when he said they were watching Europe closely? Wearing pants that are, in fact, on fire.

On a side note, while a release confirmation is grand and all, it's suckish that I'll have to wait four months to get my hands on it and another two for a chance to actually play it (no way I'll be able to squeeze in any play time during school).

@ Hamr

This something I've been quite curious about; how often (and for how long) does Xenoblade force you to grind? With all these reviewers touting it as the "revival of the Japanese RPG," and how it "points to a bold future," I'm wondering if these are genuine compliments, or if the praise is only aimed at story and graphics, or if this was all just an attempt at making NoA feel bad for not releasing it.

If there is grind, does the game do anything to reduce it to a bare minimum? For example in Pokémon you have type effectiveness, in Earthbound, once you've reached a certain level, weaker enemies are defeated on contact, and in the Mario RPGs you can equip badges and suck less.