After years of disappointment, Japanese RPG fans have banded together to save The Last Story, Xenoblade and Pandora's Tower. This is how you can help.
As a fan of occasionally obscure Japanese games, I've had my share of disappointments over the years when it comes to western releases. Game Center CX 2, 7th Dragon, and yes, Mother 3 have all stayed firmly in Japan, and it's looking like Valkyria Chronicles 3 will experience a similar fate. But I was genuinely surprised when The Last Story, Xenoblade and Pandora's Tower--better known as the Wii's "Big 3" JRPGs--failed to turn up at E3.
Apparently I wasn't alone.
Over the past several days, a campaign called "Operation Rainfall" has spurred gamers to contact Nintendo by any means necessary and urge them to publish these titles. It is the brainchild of IGN user "themightyme," who conceived as a letter writing campaign similar to the ones that have saved shows such as Star Trek, and over time it has expanded to include Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, snail mail, and most significantly, online retailers like Amazon.com. In Canada, online retailer VideoGames Plus has even gone so far as to fully endorse the fan-driven campaign.
The results have been stunning: pre-orders drove Monado (the North American title for Xenoblade) all the way to #1 on Amazon. Nintendo of America and even Xenoblade developer Yuichiro Takeda quickly took notice, the former promising "more updates to come soon." As it turns out, online petitions are easy to dismiss; but when actual money starts getting thrown around, publishers sit up and take notice.
Speaking personally, I think this could end being one of the feel good stories of the generation for Japanese RPG fans. With the exception of Valkyria Chronicles and maybe Tales of Vesperia (if you're into that sort of thing), we've really had very little to hang our hat on this generation. Even the major titles like Lost Odyssey and Final Fantasy XIII have been largely disappointing.
The relative drought of quality console JRPGs have left us grasping for anything that looks remotely interesting; and as it happens, Pandora's Tower, The Last Story and Xenoblade all fill the bill. The Last Story is Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's "statement game"; Xenoblade combines lovely art with a battle system that expands somewhat on the territory forged by Final Fantasy XII, and Pandora's Tower combines a unique premise with some fantastic graphics. They are the sort of games that we've been waiting to play for five years now.
So you can imagine our disappointment when all three were missing in action during E3. It felt like a fitting capper to a generation of disappointment.
To my surprise and delight though, fans are refusing to simply let this one go; and when I pinged my contacts at Nintendo about it, they told me that they have definitely taken notice and should have an official comment soon. Who knows, this may be just the push these games need to get out of Europe and make it over here to North America. And if that's the case, it will be proof that fans do indeed have some power so long as they put their money where their mouth is.
So if you haven't put money down at VideoGamesPlus or Amazon yet, and you want to see these three worthy RPGs make it to North America, I urge you to go and put down some money (assuming that you plan on actually purchasing the games in question, of course). Keep sending (polite) letters, Tweets or Facebook message to Nintendo's official outlets. You can find more details in the rather expansive NeoGAF thread.
Who knows, we may yet pull this off.
Source: Daily News from GamePro.com
Tuesday, June 28, 2011