It’s almost hard to believe that Xenoblade Chronicles, a relatively new Nintendo series, has quickly become such a household name in the JRPG space. The Switch has blessed the world with more entries in this series than any other, and Nintendo assuredly has this IP in their good graces now, much like Fire Emblem. But it wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows. To see how this series fought so hard to get the recognition it rightfully earned, we need to travel back to the twilight years of the Wii era.
The year is 2010. After a strong first few years delivering high quality first party titles, the Wii’s library slowed to a crawl and gave way to more casual games and mountains of shovelware. While there were still a handful of big titles planned for that year like Mario Galaxy 2, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, and Sonic Colors, most of the heavy hitters had come and gone by this point. Meanwhile on the other side of the pond, Japan was priming up its holiday season with a trio of role playing games exclusive to the Wii: The Last Story (developed by the folks behind Lost Odyssey), Pandora’s Tower (developed by a studio primarily known for licensed Shonen Jump titles), and finally Xenoblade Chronicles.
All three games would release in Japan from late 2010 though early 2011. European localizations of all three titles would also be confirmed (courtesy of Nintendo of Europe), and they would all be published by Nintendo in the region. Xenoblade’s director Tetsuya Takahashi was under the impression that the games would naturally all be localized in North America… but that didn’t happen. Nintendo of America stayed tight-lipped on the situation for most of the year, and they even actively stopped Nintendo of Europe from showing off Xenoblade themselves at E3 2011. After seeing all these attempts by NOA to sweep the games under the rug, it was up to the fans… to end the drought.
Born in an IGN message board post in mid-2011, a group of passionate volunteers announced they were galvanizing into a movement to bring more hardcore titles (not just RPGs) to North America. Their campaign, dubbed Operation Rainfall, focused their efforts on the three RPGs already mentioned, and they were damn persistent. They sent emails, signed petitions, and bombarded their Facebook and Twitter accounts demanding that NOA release the games in North America. They even managed to force the Amazon preorder listing for Xenoblade, then only known under its placeholder name “[Monado](https://youtu.be/CPI4WLEQ5as)”, all the way to #1, beating out Ocarina of Time 3D. Another important detail to note was that if Nintendo wasn’t going to publish the games themselves, the campaign would pitch them to another Japanese publisher that would, like Atlus or NIS America. Nintendo did get fans’ hopes up with a generic “never say never” post on Twitter, but didn’t say another word until that holiday season.
Thankfully this story does have a happy ending after all. On December 2, 2011, victory was achieved as Nintendo finally announced that Xenoblade would be released in North America on April 6 as a GameStop exclusive. And this wasn’t the end, as on the same day as its European launch, The Last Story would also be confirmed for North America courtesy of XSeed Games. These two titles finally coming over was a great sign surely, but there was no word of Pandora’s Tower getting an American release. But then out of the blue in early 2013, XSeed Games announced they would publish Pandora’s Tower in the States later that April, much to the campaign’s bewilderment. After nearly two whole years, Operation Rainfall was declared a success, and the original website has since been disbanded. We won.
by Asad_Farooqui
26 Comments
I remember helping spread the word about this back in the day. I’m very happy, things turned out so well.
Especially the English voice cast, we need more, now anime set in england or in medieval setting have no excuse but to use the Xenoblade, Pandora’s tower and Last Story’s actors.
Glad I got Adam Howden/shulk, to sign my game.👍🏾
I’m really surprised that the first Xenoblade Chronicles being a Gamestop exclusive game didn’t bite the whole operation on its ass considering I have seen pictures and read stories on how GS was gutting and selling new copies as “used” and charging more than MSRP.
So glad this operation was a success. Only gave the franchise a chance recently, and geez is it good!
Now if we can get the other two titles into the Switch it will be amazing… This year played and beat the last story and was pretty amazing story and gameplay… Need to catch up with Pandoras
…..as someone part of these campaigns, seeing a history post about them makes me feel sooooooo old
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Bit nostalgic for me, it was around the time I started to scout for a 3DS truly make my jump from Sony to Nintendo. Funny that the other two were the ones that got my attention, but it was Xenoblade that lasted.
I remember Nintendo published an official statement after the games released in the west, which was in response to the fan outcry. Their stance was that they were aware of Operation Rainfall, but its existence did very little to influence the release of Xenoblade in the west. It is not known if this is true or just Nintendo trying to downplay fan campaigns, but it feels arbitrary to dwell on at this point. They also did not mention either of the two other games that Project Rainfall was campaigning for.
And that’s why almost everyone in Xenoblade sounds British in the dub.
Cool the same story that’s been shared for a decade plus now
I was not a JRPG fan during the Wii era, but even I heard about Operation Rainfall with little to no interest in what they wanted to bring over. Nowadays, JRPGs are one of my favorite game genres of all time, and Xenoblade is partially to thank for that. I firmly believe Xenoblade 2 and 3 are among the best JRPGs of all time.
I appreciate those hardcore few in the early 2010s that stepped up to give these games a wider audience.
I have a hard time believing Nintendo wouldn’t have released Xenoblade Chronicles given the need for innovative titles at the end of the Wii era.
Proud to say I bought all 3 games. Not so much that I only played Xenoblade… *one day, one day*
Pandoras tower is a stylish interesting game, but the last story is such an amazing unique RPG that too few played.
Not a part of OpRainfall but heard about and knew enough to tell a Nintendo rep I ran across in a Best Buy that I really wanted The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower.
I also had to send in my Wii to Nintendo because the game would crash it. I can’t remember what the issue was, and Google is failing me, just that Nintendo fixed it. Since I was about halfway through the game, it was a terrible wait to get the console back fo4 me.
I remember how hard everyone pushed for Operation Rainfall. It was a hell of a ride.
I don’t think I was ever able to get Pandora’s Tower. But I did get both Xenoblade and The Last Story
I love these games and own all 3. At one point, you could order an awesome slipcover case for all three Wii games.
I have been looking for this slipcover for many years without any luck. If ya happen by some miracle to have 1 you’re looking to sell or trade, please hit me up!
I can definitely see Xenoblade becoming Nintendo’s Final Fantasy series if they do decide to expand the property
If you spice this up a little, could do well on /r/HobbyDrama.
In fact I think just like this it would be a good post (better than half the shit they post there anyway).
It’s the weekend too, I think they “allow” history posts on the weekends. How ridiculous; talking about a subreddit like it’s some sort of club with rules.
I wish Last Story and Pandora’s Tower would make a comeback, even as remasters.
I ended up playing the European version of XBC early as I got tired of NOA pissing around.
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Why was NoA so hesitant in the first place?
For me, operation rainfall is the story of what happens when the american fandom, for once, doesn’t get nice things when we europeans do.
There were a lot of interesting games that werent coming to the west, but they chose EXACTLY those that we’re confirmed (oficially or not) for EU, wich left behind gems like Zangeki no Reginleiv.
It was a flawed movement because It focused only on what EU was getting that the US wasnt, instead of the actual issue of games being trapped in JP.
I’d love to see The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower remastered for Switch 🙂
Pandora’s Tower came out in the US… with a random game-breaking bug that occured at the last tower: if you had to come back to give something to Elena, there was a chance that the game refused to load a cutscene that let you continue. You had to reload your save and hope for the best. I’ve encountered that bug once… thank the Lord. What was distressing is that XSEED Games, the people behind the localization, acknowledged the bug, but couldn’t patch, as they didn’t know *why* it happened. As a result, the game wasn’t re-released or patched. I don’t know if the Wii U version (on the eShop) had that bug…
The Last Story was good, but I feel like a remastered version would be better, because you could miss some chapters, and the visuals could be greatly enhanced. Wii games often looked grainy and blurry, so a touch-up would be welcomed 😉
It’s hard to believe that in 2010 JRPGs were considered a risk to release in the west. Especially compared to now where most JRPGs release internationally simultaneously