Pre-Order Xenoblade Chronicles At GameStop And Get Free Art Book. Release Date is April 6, 2012 for Wii

Operation Rainfall logo showing Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower logos.

Xenoblade Chronicles, one of the biggest Wii games of all time, will be released on April 6, 2012! If you have yet to pre-order the game, please do so! The game is being sold exclusively at GameStop, as they are serving as a publisher for the game.

Pre-order Xenoblade Chronicles at GameStop and you’ll net yourself an exclusive artbook for the title, while pre-ordering XenoBlade Chronicles at the Official Nintendo Online Store will net you a black Classic Controller Pro included with the game if you pay $15 extra (for a total price of $65).

So what is Xenoblade Chronicles? The game is an epic RPG developed by Nintendo 2nd party developer Monolith Soft, the same company behind the Xenosaga series and GameCube RPG series Baten Kaitos, among others. Originally called “Monado: Beginning of the World”, it was later renamed “Xenoblade Chronicles” in January 2010 to honour Tetsuya Takahashi, “who poured his soul into making this and who has been working on the Xeno series”. While the game is named in honor of the Xeno series (Xenogears and Xenosaga) it is not actually related to those games, just titled after them.

Here’s the Xenoblade Chronicles Epic RPG trailer.

The pedigree for Xenoblade Chronicles could not be higher, and the game has been highly regarded as one of the most beautiful and epic games ever released for Wii. And one of the best.

Originally Xenoblade Chronicles was not going to be released in the United States. In fact the game was released in Japan on June 10th of 2010. It was then released in Europe on August 19th, 2011 and Australia on September 1st. Nintendo of America made it’s intention of NOT bringing Xenoblade Chronicles over to the American market known. That sparked a firestorm from RPG fans who felt that they were missing out on some of the best Wii games ever released; not only Xenoblade Chronicles but also other critically acclaimed Wii RPGs such as “The Last Story” from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi of developer Mistwalker and “Pandora’s Tower”, another Wii-exclusive Japanese RPG. Both The Last Story and Pandora’s Tower were picked up by Nintendo of Europe, and were localized and released across the pond.

Here’s an extensive look at gameplay for XenoBlade Chronicles by youtuber GhostRobo.

Outraged fans decided to do something about the absence of these titles and started a movement called “Operation Rainfall“, in which they set out to systematically support the games in all ways possible and to let their desire to see the Wii trio of RPGs released in America known. They did this by setting up writing campaigns to Nintendo of America, creating a website dedicated to the movement, popularizing the game on forums and message boards, adding the Amazon-entry for “Monado: Beginning of the World” to their wishlists, pre-ordering Monado on Amazon (which caused the game to reach #1 in the Wii Games section), promoting the game on Facebook and Twitter, and letting Nintendo of America know of their desire to see the trio of RPGs released in America via phone calls, letters, petitions and the like. Eventually Nintendo took notice… and on December 2nd, 2011, they posted on the official Nintendo of America Facebook that Xenoblade Chronicles would be released in America on April 6th, 2012! Operation Rainfall had seen their first victory!

Beautiful artwork for The Last Story Wii RPG

The fact that Nintendo posted the release announcement on Facebook is said to be a sign to Operation Rainfall (who was very active on Facebook) that they had an impact on Nintendo; although whether or not it was enough in and of itself to convince Nintendo to release the game is another matter entirely. Nintendo has denied that Operation Rainfall was the sole reason; but the Wii would’ve had a huge absence of big-name releases had Nintendo not acted on bringing these games over. In many ways, it’s hard to imagine how Nintendo could oppose their American release, especially considering that the European’s had already localized the games into English and recorded new English voiceovers.

Awesome, beautiful artwork for Pandora's Tower, the acclaimed Wii RPG and last member of Operation Rainfall.

Operation Rainfall then had another huge win when Nintendo announced that they would be releasing The Last Story stateside on June 19th, 2012 in partnership with Xseed Games! Operation Rainfall has now started a full-blown website that will concentrate on getting Pandora’s Tower released in America (the last game of the trio that has yet to receive an announcement regarding an American release) and then focus their sights on other niche titles that they desire to see released in America and elsewhere.