Roundtable #4 – Our Most Anticipated 2012 Games

With 2012 upon us, Nester, Jason X and I ruminated on what games we were stoked about that are coming out this year.  I’ll get the ball rolling:

Wii

The Wii is on its last legs, but there’s four games I’m excited about, with one guaranteed to arrive in America (I’m banking on at least one other, Nintendo of America!).

THE LAST STORY (Nintendo/Mistwalker, February 24, 2012 [EU])

Let me put it this way – I’ve been considering importing this. I hope Xenoblade Chronicles sells like bananas and Nintendo of America can be bothered to bring over this game as well, but I’m very iffy on that circumstance, and if I can conjure up the price to ship it over by the time February rolls around, I’ll do it. I want this game that badly.  It’s tragic that that probably won’t happen, though.   So buy Xenoblade, everyone!

XENOBLADE CHRONICLES (Nintendo/Monolith Soft, April 2, 2012)

My pre-order is complete and I’m merely waiting for the game now.  I really wanted to support this endeavor, and I hope it helps get more titles like it out here. Doesn’t hurt it’s been so wonderfully reviewed.

DRAGON QUEST X (Square-Enix, ?)

Nintendo has, to its credit, been very kind to the Dragon Quest fandom the last two years, picking up Square-Enix’s slack and localizing Dragon Quest IX, VI and Monsters 2 Joker. I have a sneaking hunch that DQX will see American shores, but only the Wii U version. If NoA surprises me by doing the Wii one as well or instead, well, you’ve probably got my money.

PANDORA’S TOWER (Nintendo/Ganbarion, Q2 2012 [EU])

This action game from Ganbarion looks fascinating, and while it tends to be overshadowed by Xenoblade and The Last Story, it would be joyous if this too made its way across the Pacific to America.

PS3

Here’s the six games I’m most excited about for the PS3 this year.

NI NO KUNI: THE ANOTHER WORLD (Namco-Bandai/Level-5, TBA 2012)

Level-5 and Studio Ghibli’s beautiful RPG attracts my attention quite heavily. It’s lush looking, has quirky character design and sounds intriguing. I’m definitely psyched about having the chance of taking this for a spin.

TALES OF GRACES F (Namco-Bandai, March 13, 2012)

A new Tales title? Man, I am pretty jazzed about the prospect.  It’s coming out at an awkward time for me, but I do intend on picking it up posthaste.  I have enjoyed what little I’ve played of the franchise, and I hope this matches up to Symphonia in terms of enjoyment.

SLY COOPER: THIEVES OF TIME (Sony/Sanzaru Games, May 31, 2012)

I adore Sly 2 (and like Sly 3), so another game in the series is good news in my book. I hope Sanzaru can maintain the engaging gameplay and character relationships that Sucker Punch did so well – early indications are pointing towards yes.

RESIDENT EVIL 6 (Capcom, November 20, 2012)

This was a pleasant surprise!  I do love me some main series RE, especially when Leon is involved as a protagonist (RE2 and RE4 are my favorites by a long shot).  The mix of zombies, plagas and new enemies intrigues me, and I hope that the mix of three separate stories can combine into on cohesive package of goodness.

SOUL CALIBUR 5 (Namco-Bandai, January 31, 2012)

I haven’t been this interested in a new Soul Calibur title in quite some time.  This one seems to be swinging the balance back into what made the first game so good, and has some refinements and additions that seem to be evolving the gameplay.  Here’s to it being a solid sequel that fixes many of the issues I’ve had with the second and third chapters.

RESIDENT EVIL: OPERATION RACCOON CITY (Capcom/Slant Six, March 20, 2012)

Grace and I dug SOCOM 3 a lot on the PS2, and this seems to be a decent comparison to that series, but with ZOMBIES. :p  I don’t know if Slant Six is up to the task (little gameplay has been shown), but the premise is interesting enough for me to be curious.

 At this early point, my most anticipated game of 2012 is Xenoblade Chronicles. Nearly everything I’ve heard about it sounds like just the RPG I’ve needed to get back into the genre. And I would be equally looking forward to both The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower should they also make it across the ocean.

Next up is SSX (formerly SSX: Deadly Descent). After the amazing SSX 3 in 2003, the series got a little lost and ultimately went downhill. (Har har!) Hopefully this revival will bring the snowboarding series back closer to its original appeal.

Although there’s no official confirmation, based on rumors and the success of the original, I think it’s a fairly safe bet that Epic Mickey 2 is in the works. Whether or not it would actually be scheduled for a 2012 release remains to be seen, but in any event, I’m a big fan of the original, and I look forward to see where this series goes.

Finally, there’s Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II. I actually enjoyed Episode I, and as Sonic Team has directly addressed criticism of the first, the second could shape up to be even better.

Of course, who knows what other tantalizing games will be announced before year’s end.

2012 will either be known of one of two things: It will be the year that the world ends according to a completely arbitrary belief system, or Ron Paul will lose. It’s still too early to say for sure if any Ewoks would do their little victory dance after the latter, but I’m willing to put even money on it.

Aside from that, 2012 will also see a long list of new video game releases. People complain about the fourth quarter rush each year, but really, there’s never a “slow” time for games. I usually spend January – August catching up on whatever I missed from the previous year. The following are the games I’m interested in picking up over the next 12 months. Will my wife allow me to spend this much money on something as discretionary as electronic entertainment? Only time will tell.

Final Fantasy XIII-2

I’m not using hyperbole when I say that playing FFXIII was worse than all three of the kidney stones I’ve had in my life. Those caused me unimaginable pain that seemed to never end…but at least I didn’t pay $60 for any of them.

So why would I be excited about the sequel to such an awful, awful game? Well, mainly because it seems to have addressed most of the criticisms people had about the last one. The world is no longer composed entirely of a straight line from plot point to plot point. Supposedly the combat system opens up much more quickly, as well. By all accounts, it also features 100% less Hope and Snow, which really seals the deal for me.

We’ll see how it turns out in the end.

Soul Calibur V

Not much to say about this one. It’s Soul Calibur, so you know it’s going to be good. A lot of people bitched about SCIV, but aside from the Star Wars characters feeling entirely out of place, I didn’t see what the problem was. It was just more of the same stuff we’ve enjoyed in the past.

That’s really all I’m looking for with this one, though the idea of being able to play as Ezio Auditore is also interesting.

Mass Effect 3

Unless some huge announcement is made later in the year, I’m pegging this as my most-anticipated release in 2012. I can’t wait to see how the choices from the first two games import into the final entry in the trilogy. Will the Illusive Man get his comeuppance? Will Garrus learn how to smile? Will Ashley bust out my teeth for banging Miranda?

I need to know!

Street Fighter x Tekken

Truth be told, I really can’t stand the Tekken franchise. I’m really more interested in the fact that this is another Capcom vs Random Other Company game. Really, if they just dropped this entire idea and gave us Capcom vs SNK 3, I’d mail them my money today.

Silent Hill HD Collection

It doesn’t get much better than SH2 and 3, but when you add Achievements to them, my excitement goes to 11. I have to wonder how well the new voice actor for James will sound, but aside from that, I don’t see how this could possibly get screwed up.

And now I’ve jinxed it.

Silent Hill: Downpour

On the other end of the spectrum, we have SH: Downpour. I won’t mince words. Homecoming was absolute shit. I’m sure the people at Double Helix meant well, but good intentions aren’t enough to craft a solid experience in this series.

I want to believe. Honestly, I do. I’ve just been burned too many times by Konami to hold out much hope for this one. So why is it on this list? Because I’m a sucker that buys every game in a franchise once I get into it. That’s really part of the problem, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

People like to complain about how the RE franchise doesn’t change much from game to game. That’s certainly true, but I’m not sure I would know how to feel about something that appears to be Rainbow 6 + Raccoon City. I really enjoyed both of the Outbreak games, but you were playing as ordinary people in those. We’ll see how well this new idea plays out after it ships.

Devil May Cry Collection

By all accounts, DMC2 is the black sheep of the Devil May Cry family. It isn’t much fun, that’s definitely true, but I’m dreading a replay of DMC3 a whole lot more. That game was just vicious in its difficulty settings. Supposedly the Special Edition toned things down a bit, but I got the original when it launched in 2005, so I have no idea if the changes helped at all or not.

It’ll be interesting to see how well these three hold up by today’s standards when it comes out.

Tales of Graces F

It’s kind of annoying that we aren’t getting Xillia, but at least we’ll be receiving the improved PS3 port of Graces. Then again, I’m not exactly in a rush for this one. I still haven’t beaten Symphonia, the Abyss or Legendia.

Xenoblade Chronicles

I really didn’t think this was going to happen. Thankfully it did, though. My Wii has been making really pathetic coughing noises for over a year now, most likely from starvation.

I’ve heard nothing but good things about this one, so we’ll see if it lives up to the hype.

Max Payne 3

I have to admit to being somewhat skeptical about this one. It isn’t being developed by Remedy, and the original character designs had Max being bald and fat. Thankfully they’ve revised that so he looks a lot less infirm, but Rockstar isn’t exactly known for creating tight gunplay in its games.

Here’s hoping that this release ends up being a worthy entry in the series.

Whatever New Assassin’s Creed Game Comes Out This Year

You all know it’s going to happen. I can’t say I agree with Ubisoft making the AC series into an annual event, but it’s 2012. There’s no way they’re going to skip releasing a sequel this year when it’s so intrinsically tied to the franchise’s mythology.

All I’m asking for is a new era and a new ancestor. Ezio is a great guy, but I got bored with him back in Brotherhood.

Resident Evil 6

This is definitely the one game I was least expecting to hear about this year. I’m kind of iffy on the idea of having three main characters to play as, but hey. More Leon. That can’t be a bad thing, right?

So long as they don’t screw things up along the lines of RE5, this should be a sure thing.

2012?

There are a few other titles that are supposed to hit this year, but so far are lacking a firm release date. These are the ones that I’m most hoping will see the light of day this year:

Metal Gear Rising: Revengence

I really, truly have no idea of what to expect with this one. MGS has always been a slow-paced affair, so it’ll be interesting to see the action cranked up a notch. I have a lot of faith in Platinum Games and their ability to provide an entertaining experience. I only hope that the nonsensical plot twists are kept to a bare minimum this time around.

The Last Guardian

This fall will make it seven years since Shadow of the Colossus. Will we finally get to see that big, huge dino-bird in all its glory this year? Will we get to cry like babies when it inevitably dies? I sure hope so.

Grand Theft Auto V

I think it’s pretty lame that they’re taking this one back to San Andreas, but I’m sure the game itself will still be good. Just please, for the love of god, Rockstar. CHECKPOINTS.

The Simpsons Arcade

Word on the streets is that Konami’s other, 4-player, licensed arcade game from the 90s will finally be hitting XBLA and PSN at some point this year. Yes, please.

So in summary, 2012 looks to be mostly a holding-pattern year. You’d think that would mean I’d have more money, but you’d be wrong.

Roundtable #3 – HD Re-Releases

This one has been sitting in the LVLs. boiler for far too long (we wrote this in September to October, so some of the topics have come out, like ICO/Shadow of the Colossus, which Jason mentions seeing previews for in this article.  He did put up some post-purchase thoughts on it here) – luckily, what Jason and I have to say remains relevant. XD

Anything that makes money will always be subject to fads. Movies have been seeing an upswing in magical children’s franchises, thanks to Harry Potter, as well as vampire stories attempting to cash-in on the Twilight craze. Games are no exception to this approach, and it appears that the current trend these days is the HD re-release.

On paper, it makes a lot of sense. You take a big franchise that a lot of people enjoyed, improve the graphics slightly, then repackage the product and sell it for an easy $40. This essentially allows the publisher to sell existing work to a new audience, while also enticing the original players to buy the same product twice. It all sounds so brilliant, but I’m not entirely sure that I like the direction this is heading in.

Take the God of War games, for example. I remember when the original came out in 2005, and everyone and their brother was telling me that I simply HAD to play this thing. I never really got around to it, though, so the HD re-release sounded like as good a time as any to see what all the fuss was about. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very impressed. Some of this was due to the core gameplay, but a large part was definitely from the “HD” conversion. Or really, lack thereof.

When I think of the difference between HD and standard definition, I think widescreen, 1080p resolution, vibrant colors, smooth images, and high quality models. What you get with the God of War re-release is widescreen and 1080p. The textures look positively watered out, as though they’re still at the same resolution as on the PS2. It’s the same with the models, as well. Granted, I don’t expect a company to completely remake a PS2 game with graphics on par with something for the PS3, but it’s a bit much to label this an HD release when the characters still look this rudimentary.

The biggest problem, though, is the presence of jaggies. The PS2 always had an issue with these things, but they’re magnified ten-fold on these conversions. Has no one heard of full-screen anti-aliasing? You can’t tell me the hardware doesn’t have the horsepower to perform that sort of task, considering the fact that it’s running a game from the previous generation. This, combined with the low-resolution textures, is what annoys me the most about this sort of release. You would honestly be better off playing the original PS2 versions of these games on an old CRT than plunking down $40 – $50 for the re-release.

Resident Evil 4 suffers from a similar fate. It really feels like a quick and dirty conversion rather than a true HD remastering. Thankfully, previews for Ico / Shadow of the Colossus HD are much better. It appears that Team Ico has actually put some work into making these classic games presentable in HD, beyond simply updating the aspect ratio and calling it a day. Just the thought of being able to play SotC at a reasonable frame rate has me excited, let alone the ability to earn Trophies in a pair of games that I truly love.

And I think that’s where a lot of developers are going wrong. They seem to be taking the quick and easy route with these HD re-releases, rather than showing that they care about the products and the experience the end user has with them. I’m actually a little afraid of what the Metal Gear and Silent Hill collections are going to look like when they come out later this year. Konami has screwed up those franchises enough with the later iterations. It would be sacrilege to simply slap the letters “HD” to the end of MGS3 or Silent Hill 2 and expect people to pay honest money for them.

Maybe I’m just expecting too much out of the industry these days…(probably not, though)

Jason makes a ton of valid points – enough that it’s hard for me to add to them. I don’t have a HDTV, so the novelty of HD alone doesn’t really work for me. I don’t care to have HD versions of my games when SD works just fine (and I can read the goddamn text – give me an option for bigger text, developers!).

It especially doesn’t work when the game is HD in the most slapdash of fashions. The one HD port I do own, Beyond Good & Evil HD, retains what made the game so good gameplay-wise, and the overall world seems sharper, but it created more problems than it improved. Graphical glitches and tears, the lip sync being knocked off-kilter, the loss of additional languages…I am glad I bought it because I wanted to show UBI Soft there’s a fanbase for the (hopeful) franchise, but I didn’t buy it for the Hi-Def gloss it was splashed with (I say splashed because it wasn’t amazing enough to say painted).

The industry is in a weird way right now. HD rehashes can be farmed out to second-tier devs because the majority of the hard work is already there. Most publishers don’t want rehauling of the entire graphical engine because it would a) cost too much and b) take too long. Konami in particular seems awe-struck with the concept and half of their line-up seems to be HD ports of their more prominent series. Is the thought of Silent Hill 3 running slightly improved visuals and featuring a scant amount of trophies enough for me to sink money into it twice? Probably not.

Thankfully, there’s one factor that levels the playing field on the side of the consumer. That would be the passage of time. It’s a bit much to expect people to pay $40 to $50 for an HD collection (or even $80, in the case of MGS), but after a year or so, they’ll all be down to a reasonable $20 each. A lower price won’t undo the lack of attention given to some of the visual upgrades, but at least it helps make the overall investment easier to accept.

Naturally, there’s also the choice to avoid them entirely. By their nature, these aren’t new entries in any of their respective franchises, so no one would be missing out on any new plotpoints or character developments.

True, true.  While we’re on the topic of “enhanced” portage, has anyone tried Ocarina of Time 3D or Starfox 64 3D? These seem to be more than your run-of-the-mill rush job, with massive visual overhauls but maintaining the gameplay of the N64 classics. Could these be the standard to reach if you want to remake a game compared to lazily having your B or C-grade teams sort of pretty it up?  I suppose we’ll see how well these ports do and what next year brings.

LVLs. Roundtable #2 – Capcom’s Gone ULTIMATE Crazy

For this edition of Roundtable, Jason X and I ponder the recent behavior of Capcom the last couple of weeks.  Let’s begin, shall we?

Watching the horrors of Capcom’s recent actions last week was a nightmare, honestly. I’ve been a pretty avid fan of theirs for a very long time. Mega Man 3 arguably was the first game my young mind pieced together with an actual company outside of Nintendo – I never really paid attention to that kind of thing until I resonated with MM3. Since those early days, I tended to associate Capcom with quality, and with good reason – despite a few missteps here and there, several of my favorite games and franchises came from this third party powerhouse. Resident Evil 4, the aforementioned Mega Man 3, the Ace Attorney series and Bionic Commando I would take with me to my grave, and I adore Street Fighter, the Vs. series and, to a lesser extent, Resident Evil, Okami, Mega Man, Breath of Fire, Rival Schools, Strider and other franchises and titles. I really have loved Capcom – they’ve made some excellent games and tend to do so consistently.

However, despite being a big fan, even I have to question the ethics of their recent actions. Capcom as a whole are changing, and it seems that their direction is moving away from the company I grew up with and admired.  While quite guilty of rehashing in the past, this has intensified in recent years. Street Fighter IV has seen three iterations in three years, ULTIMATE Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 arrives under a year of the original release, Dead Rising 2 getting a recoated upgrade with Frank West, and the intense focus on DLC additions (and then releasing the game with DLC as a second retail release) have made purchasing games from them a dicey business for the consumer. I’m already going to hold off on Street Fighter x Tekken because I can almost guarantee they will be readying a follow-up once they shove the first out the door. How many times does Capcom think they can weasel their customer base like this before they realize they’re buying inferior product? Having not gotten entangled in this behavior until the announcement of UMvC3, I’m not allowing myself to be suckered again.

The Mega Man Legends 3 fiasco is another reason to show concern about one of my favorite companies. The project started out wonderfully – Keiji Inafune expressing the desire to create the game for years suddenly has the opportunity to, and for the 3DS, to boot! Fans who have clamored for a return to the Legends world were excited, and some bought the handheld without hesitation for the good times ahead. Unfortunately for them, this particular experiment quickly showed signs of going sour. Inafune left Capcom, and in his wake a Dev Room concept was pioneered for hype building and fan interaction but later confirmed the game was never greenlit for full production, a paid demo was announced but would not star Mega Man Volnutt but a new character named Barrett, Mega Man Universe was cancelled, the 3DS Shop opened and no trace of said demo appeared, and a removal of the link to the Dev Room on Capcom’s Japanese page all spelled trouble over the few months between its reveal to its sudden cancellation last week. The latest head trips are that Capcom Europe blamed the fans for its cancellation last week on its Twitter feed, and now the Japanese production team are yearning for a last-ditch effort to save the project with more Servbot sign-ups…is this earnest or an attempt to truly screw around their fanbase…AGAIN?

In the midst of ULTIMATING Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 and dicking around their Legends devotees, Capcom threw out one of their odder decisions which just iced the cake – a Street Fighter and Hello Kitty crossover merchandising deal. Yes, you read that right. Capcom isn’t keen on developing Mega Man Legends 3 due to financial reasons yet is willing to blow money on licensing Hello Kitty wearing Street Fighter clothing?

I look back on this last week and shake my head. This is not the Capcom I remember. I recall a company that made fantastic games, and while they did regurgitate some of their big properties a bit (Street Fighter II and Mega Man say hi!), they were unafraid of taking risks and trying out new concepts and ideas. Some worked, some did not. The Capcom of today would probably not have made Bionic Commando (NES) because of the radical notion of not jumping. Street Fighter II would be shelved because the first did not garner enough interest or play well enough to have a sequel made. Mega Man himself almost lost his chance in the 1980′s after the first game failed to meet expectations, but Inafune and a small group of devoted Capcom employees worked on a sequel by themselves, managed to get it greenlit and launched one of the finer games for the NES. Legends 3 was in a similar spot, but failed to pass that goal. Now, we didn’t get a chance to see how well it played (which we should have, since we were promised the demo!) compared to being able to buy Mega Man 2, but the point is still the same. The Capcom of today is no longer the one I used to love, and I think I’m going to need some time to come to terms with that.

Popular opinion seems to state that Japanese gaming is experiencing a decline. Capcom appears to be doing its level-best to reinforce that belief, as it pulls one boneheaded move after another. First came the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3. While I’ll admit I’m only a fan in the passing sense of Mega Man as a whole, I can easily see how the die hards would have been hurt by this. It’s been nearly 11 years since the last MML game was released. A lot of people had been looking forward to a new entry in the franchise, and it’s incredibly malevolent for a company to build up their hopes, just to pull the rug out from under them. The best comparison I could make is if Atlus had cancelled Persona 3 in the summer of 2007.

Following that announcement, Capcom displayed absolutely no shame by letting everyone know that Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is coming this November. Now, this is a series that I have more experience with, and it would be an understatement to say that this news pissed me off. It’s not that the revision is unprecedented, per se. Rather, it hasn’t even been six months since the original game hit the shelves. They couldn’t even wait a year to pull this kind of stunt? This is also months after one of the Capcom reps stated that there would be no more DLC for MvC3, inferring that the game hadn’t sold well enough to warrant further development.

Just to rub a little more salt into the wound, the new content for UMvC3 will NOT be available as DLC to owners of the original MvC3. This means that anyone interested in the new characters (Strider, Ghost Rider, Phoenix goddamn Wright) will have to shell out $40 to get them at launch. Naturally, a lot of people are furious over this whole mess, and are vowing to either buy the game used, or just pirate it outright.

Then, just when you thought things couldn’t get any crazier, Capcom had the unmitigated gall to say that MML3 just MIGHT be able to come out after all. That is, so long as enough people in the fanbase agree to sign up for a petition that reveals their personal details over Facebook. Why not just take everyone’s social security numbers and credit card info while you’re at it? What the HELL is this company thinking?

A lot of Japanese game developers have fallen pretty far from their glory days. Sega, Square, Konami, Nintendo…Maybe Capcom felt left out. At this point, I’m honestly left dumbfounded from the thought that this is the same company that produced U.N. Squadron, Magic Sword, Breath of Fire, Onimusha, Resident Evil, and a ton of other fun, memorable games.

Regardless of what happens in the future, it’s good to know where the public stands with Capcom. I know I won’t be shelling out for Super Dead Rising 2, or buying into anymore of their inane bullshit. All I can do is look back at how things used to be, and wonder how it got this bad.

So, I mentioned that the developers were clamoring for more people to sign up for the dev room to make a last minute dash (hah) to save Mega Man Legends 3? Well, despite that and other grassroots efforts (including a fairly hefty campaign on Facebook, as Jason mentioned), Capcom’s not changing their tune. This latest flip of a coin is showcasing how screwed up Capcom’s relationship with their fans has become within a span of a couple weeks. I…really don’t know what to think about them now. I suppose I’ll retreat back into their glory days. Breath of Fire II, maybe?

That’s about all that can be done at this point, as it seems that Capcom is honestly trolling the general public now. No new Breath of Fire games, no new Darkstalkers, no new Mega Man. Bionic Commando is probably as dead as Namco’s Splatterhouse right about now. So what do we get? Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition v. 2012!!! This is after a rep for the company already said that there would be no further revisions beyond the original Arcade Edition.

Just imagine if Capcom had been a movie studio over the past 100 years. Casablanca: Championship Edition. Super Godfather II. Forrest Gump Turbo.

They simply have no shame.

It sure seems like they don’t, man. I want my old Capcom back!

LVLs. Roundtable – Operation Rainfall

This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time – have a staff roundtable on a particular topic, spill out thoughts related to it, and (potentially) react to those comments.  We’ll begin this new editorial series with a notable subject these last few weeks – Operation Rainfall’s attempts to change Nintendo of America’s mind about localizing The Last Story, Xenoblade and Pandora’s Tower (which, BTW, you should get those Xenoblade letters out tomorrow!).  Jason X and Nester join me in talking about this effort, and with this particular cause we just spoke out on the issue at hand – no rebuttals or debates this time.  I hope this becomes a recurring series on LVLs., and that our discussions prove interesting.  Enjoy!

It’s been a little over a week since a small band of IGN forum goers started a movement that would shake up the gaming world – an attempt to convince Nintendo of America that they should localize The Last Story, Xenoblade and Pandora’s Tower for American gamers. Despite a massive social networking push, a ton of media coverage from gaming sites, bumping Monado: The Beginning of the World (North America’s name for Xenoblade) to the top of Amazon’s video game charts, Youtube videos, and mounting a massive letter writing campaign that’s about to begin, Nintendo’s sole response has been seen more as a slap in the face than anything else. Despite this setback, the movement is ready to begin the next phase with its Xenoblade letters sent to Nintendo of America pleading for its localization.

As one could tell from our banner at the moment, I’m fully behind this endeavor. I think Zero at Negative World puts my feelings into words about as well as I could – I’ve been a fan of Nintendo since I was a wee boy, playing Donkey Kong as an arcade cabinet and growing up with a NES and N64. I have all of their systems save a Virtual Boy and 3DS, and consider them one of the greatest devs in the industry. However, this generation has been a test of that passion. Most of my Wii library is third party games – A Boy & His Blob, Muramasa, Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, Resident Evil 4, Zack & Wiki, Little King’s Story, Deadly Creatures, Data East Arcade Classics, No More Heroes, Dead Space Extraction. I have Wii Sports, New Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Galaxy 2, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Kirby’s Epic Yarn representing Nintendo. I can’t think of too many other consoles I own where the difference between first and third party content is this wide. Granted, there’s a few choice games missing from this list I’d like to try – Donkey Kong Country Returns, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, the upcoming Zelda: Skyward Sword. But what I really have wanted to play, more than anything else, has been The Last Story and Xenoblade.

Somehow or another, I have found myself being a big fan of RPG’s. It didn’t really begin happening until I had my Commodore 64, which had the entire Bard’s Tale series and Pool of Radiance, both of which are fantastic old-school Western examples of the genre. Ogre Battle 64 was the first Japanese RPG (although it’s more strategy based than most) that caught my attention, and Skies of Arcadia and Grandia II built upon that initial enjoyment (especially Skies). Since then, I’ve found myself attracted to the genre, and modified my own game designs to be such games. One in particular had taken an interesting turn into becoming a real-time battle engine, where your allies were AI controlled, you fought in large spaces, could interact with the environment and do neat co-op moves with your friends.

Now you may understand why The Last Story has constantly been covered by LVLs. since I found out how it works – it reminds me so much of my old design that I would love to see how well it controls, to see if my imagination was on the right track for an engaging, fun combat system. Of course, mine did not tie into every facet of The Last Story’s – the environment was far more context-driven, like throwing sand into the enemy’s eyes if you were fighting on the beach, for example, or being able to climb rocks and trees to ambush foes caught up in other battles, plus several other traits I don’t want to go into (it may be a thing one day, you know ). The point is, The Last Story is a game I could have made if I had the resources, and I want to play it so badly it dominates nearly every other desire I have gaming-wise.

Xenoblade, on the other hand, just looks fun to me. I like Tales of Symphonia, and Xenoblade reminds me of it from a gameplay perspective. It also has a huge open-world to run around in, and I like to explore. It’s a game I would buy, without question.

However, I need to be able to purchase them before I can play them. And there’s the rub. Nintendo’s response to Operation Rainfall is not promising, although not an outright refusal (although in some ways that may be preferable). The internet has exploded with various forms of outrage, some classy, others not, but the vitriol is quite apparent. Frustrated gamers are able to unite and complain to the world at large more than ever before. It’s not an isolated incident anymore. The 16-bit days of yearning for Seiken Densetsu 3 (for example), never getting it, and having no real outlet to try to change that is long gone. Social networking through the web has rewritten the rules, as much as Nintendo (and others) may wish it hadn’t.

My thoughts? I want to play these games. I want to buy them legally in America, without modding my Wii to play European copies. I want to support Nintendo for making a choice to give Wii gamers some RPG’s it’s been starved for. And I will make the effort to convince them to do so. It may be for naught. But I do believe that it is absolutely worth trying.

Operation Rainfall is not a wholly unique endeavor. I’ve seen other grassroots campaigns on the Internet that try to influence a publisher to make or release a particular game. The Shenmue Campaign comes to mind. It was active for years and involved letter writing, capsule toy mailing, banners at the Tokyo Game Show, a petition with over 50,000 signatures, and acknowledgment from series creator Yu Suzuki. Yet, that wasn’t enough to evoke a significant reaction from Sega.

But I’ve never seen a fan campaign spread as far and as fast as Operation Rainfall. Aside from widespread coverage by commercial gaming media, news of the movement reached Yahoo Japan, as well as the creators of Xenoblade and The Last Story. Most impressive of all, however, is that it evoked an actual response from NoA. Granted, the “official” statement was made via Twitter and Facebook, but it took more than two days for Nintendo to make it. While it would be easy for fans to see that as Nintendo being lazy or slow, what it likely meant was that something was happening behind the scenes. Perhaps NoA was reevaluating options, or communicating with Nintendo Co Ltd in Japan. The ultimate reply may not have indicated results or revealed much, but it was at least an acknowledgment that the fans’ voices were heard and considered. That, in itself, is a feat, especially for a company that often seems notoriously closed off from the outside world.

So, I applaud Operation Rainfall, as well as the gaming community that has admirably united with it. Their continued efforts should be supported, but with the understanding that we don’t always get what we want.

This is an interesting situation, and I find myself in a situation that might not be entirely beneficial to the Operation Rainfall movement. I like the idea of Xenoblade and The Last Story, and would like to see them brought to America. I don’t really know much about Pandora’s Tower, but the more quality games we can get on the Wii, the better. Unfortunately, I’m not exactly an avid Nintendo fan.

The vast majority of my time is spent on my 360. I’m addicted to the siren song of Achievements, and my gaming habits reflect that. Nintendo has no console-wide point system, and have even gone so far as to state that they’re against the very idea of such a feature. That’s all well and good, but it prevents me from playing the games on their systems more often.

On top of that, there’s no denying the fact that the Wii isn’t exactly flush with top rate entertainment. Much like the Gamecube and N64 before it, there are some good games here and there, but not nearly as many as you could find on the PS3 or 360. Don’t get me wrong, Muramasa and the first No More Heroes were enough to justify the purchase price of the system alone, but those types of releases are very few and far between.

Even so, I’m behind what Operation Rainfall is trying to accomplish. Not because it would genuinely make a difference to what games I play, but because of what it represents. Customers are telling a service provider what they want, and the provider is not listening. I’m sure Nintendo has put time and money into evaluating these games for an American release, but when these things are coming to Europe with English translations, I’m really at a loss as to what their defense could be. The cost of publishing? Marketing? Are they seriously saying that they can’t take some of the cash out of their infamous war chest for these games?

I think a lot of it comes down to the psychology behind the situation. If you give in on something like this after a business decision was already made, you set a very bad precedent. You’d be telling the public that they can get whatever they want from you if they just pester you enough. On the other hand, this isn’t a hostage negotiation. We’re trying to tell a company that we want to spend a lot of money on something, if they’d just have the decency to sell it to us.

All things considered, even with my tendency to not play Nintendo games, I find myself really identifying with this cause. I’ll be writing a physical letter to Nintendo about it, and if the games do see a U.S. release, I’ll buy them on day one just to prove that my word is good. Will it work out in the public’s favor? I honestly don’t think so. Sometimes, though, you just have to prove a point.