{"id":107383,"date":"2020-01-15T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2020\/01\/feature_game_of_the_decade_staff_picks_-_xenoblade_chronicles"},"modified":"2020-01-15T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T18:00:00","slug":"feature-game-of-the-decade-staff-picks-xenoblade-chronicles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/01\/15\/feature-game-of-the-decade-staff-picks-xenoblade-chronicles\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: Game Of The Decade Staff Picks – Xenoblade Chronicles"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n
\"Xenoblade<\/a><\/figure>\n

Following on from our reader-voted Top 50 Games of the Decade<\/a>, Nintendo Life staff members will be picking their personal favourite Nintendo games<\/a> between the years 2010-2019. Today, Mitch argues his case for one of the Wii’s final big releases…<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

The year was 2011. After a long and successful run, Nintendo\u2019s Wii console was finally winding down and fans turned their hopeful eyes to the horizon, just over which rested a promising new platform called the Wii U. Nintendo\u2019s E3 2011 presentation received plenty of hype due to the unveiling of the new hardware, but the company also had millions of fans to please that still weren\u2019t quite ready to retire their Wii consoles yet. They, of course, had Zelda: Skyward Sword<\/a><\/strong> to look forward to in the fall, but aside from that and Kirby\u2019s Return to Dream Land<\/a><\/strong>, the Wii\u2019s upcoming lineup was looking rather disappointing considering that third-party support had all but vanished and Nintendo itself was clearly moving on. Nintendo fans in Europe, however, had one more notable release to look forward to that would be coming later that summer: Xenoblade Chronicles<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In the wake of considerable doubt that it would ever leave Japan\u2019s shores, the sprawling JRPG from Monolith Soft had been confirmed for Europe in March, with Nintendo of Europe picking up the tab for publishing duties. Though it was rather niche at the time, the universal acclaim, ambitious scope, and developmental talent around Xenoblade elevated it to an almost mythical status in the gaming community, and pairing this perception with the light release schedule for the year ensured that there was a lot of buzz around a game that \u2013 perhaps only a year prior \u2013 would\u2019ve come and gone with hardly much fanfare.<\/p>\n

European fans were understandably excited, but then there were the North American fans. They, too, were pumped by the March news, because certainly<\/em> it had to mean that Nintendo of America would be making a similar announcement. Nintendo had gone to all the trouble of translating this huge<\/em> RPG into English, so it stood to reason that the company would want to make back as much on the investment as possible.<\/p>\n

\"Xenoblade<\/a><\/figure>\n

And yet Nintendo\u2019s silence was deafening. Any mentions of Xenoblade would be either ignored or met with the ol\u2019 \u201cno comment\u201d. Not only did Nintendo of America seem wholly uninterested in bringing Xenoblade over, but it even went to the extent of actively suppressing<\/em> awareness of the release, as evidenced by one Nintendo of Europe marketing manager remarking how they wanted to show the game off at E3, but were specifically asked not to by Nintendo of America.<\/p>\n

At this point, the fans had a choice: they could either do nothing and allow their window of opportunity to pass, or they could try to do something about the decision that had evidently been made. Enough of them went with the latter option. Challenged by Nintendo\u2019s dismissal of the release and eager to play it for themselves, North American fans banded together in a grassroots effort to get the company\u2019s attention in a movement that came to be called Operation Rainfall.<\/a><\/p>\n

The movement was centred around three titles, with the other two being The Last Story<\/a><\/strong> and Pandora\u2019s Tower<\/a><\/strong>, and it was impressively organized. Thousands of fans came out of the woodwork to participate in a series of letter-writing campaigns and online demonstrations \u2013 such as getting Xenoblade to the number one spot on Amazon\u2019s multiplatform pre-order list \u2013 designed to make it all but impossible for Nintendo to simply ignore the issue any further. This went on for months. Even as the movement gained some substantial attention from gaming media, Nintendo continued to stonewall in the hopes that the fans would let it go. They didn\u2019t. And though it seemed unlikely, Nintendo finally caved<\/a> about six months after the formation of Operation Rainfall. Xenoblade then came to North America early in 2012 as a limited run, GameStop exclusive, and the rest is history.<\/p>\n