WiiNoob

Nintendo Fans Come Together To Localize Wii Japanese RPGs

See how a simple IGN message board thread started an internet call-to-arms to bring 3 Japanese role-playing games to North America.

One collected group of gamers might actually force Nintendo into doing something it has never done before in it’s history of being a gaming global giant — give in to fan requests and release a previously unavailable game in North America.

Quickly over the past couple of days, a dedicated group (born from the IGN message boards) have banded together across the internet from multiple forums and gaming sites in what has been labeled Operation Rainfall. The mission — to get Nintendo to listen up and localize Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Pandora’s Tower in the U.S.

“Listening up” is surely a hard thing to accomplish in this digital age — especially online petitions where they’re ignored like last week’s tuna casserole. Knowing this though, the plucky members of Operation Rainfall devised a cunning ploy beyond just spamming Nintendo’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, one that involved Amazon.com.

Basically, what the members of Operation Rainfall are doing, and its rather amazingly smart, is putting down pre-orders on “Monado: Beginning of the World” from Amazon. Sharp internet sleuths might instantly recognize this title listed on the website as the name for Xenoblade before it was changed to honor Tetsuya Takahashi, who’s work is greatly tied to that of the popular Xeno series from Square Enix.

Monado was announced back in 2009 at Nintendo’s E3 event, where as with every announced game, Amazon puts up a pre-order listing on their site. Focusing on that one abandoned listing, the unified Operation Rainfall collation has shot up the game to #1 on the “Amazon Bestsellers” list for video games, a upsurge in interest (and dollars) that has unbelievable caught the attention of Nintendo’s Official North American Twitter.

With a response which read: “Hey fans, we appreciate your enthusiasm. Look for more updates to come soon!” Whether or not this means that the dreams of Operation Rainfall will be accomplished is still far from clear, but it’s really fantastic how a plan so genius has leaned Nintendo to take notice.

It’s honestly impressive — and so impressive enough it even has the creators of the games listed above twitting about it too! Yuichiro Takeda, a key member of the development staff for Xenoblade, had this to say about his game reaching the top spot on Amazon:

“Xenoblade has achieved the the #1 ranking in the videogames sales category on the North american amazon website. For one of my titles (that I’ve worked on) to achieve such a rank. . .I’m happy,” and later added “To all North american users, Thank you! #Xenoblade”

If you wish to join in the campaign to help bring over Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Pandora’s Tower to North America — three beautifully imagined RPGs that should be on the Nintendo Wii, because heck they’re not too many on the system to begin with — follow the link below.

Via: Operation Rainfall