Will this be your third run? I don't know if I'll have time to play through it twice before the other big games hit this year, but I figure this will be a game I'll want to keep returning to. I feel really drawn to the world they've created just from reading producer interviews and fan reviews, and of course checking out videos.

It's getting ridiculous at this point.

I'm almost tempted to import the European prints of Xenoblade, Pandora's Tower, and The Last Story strictly out of principle. I'll be doing the same with Fatal Frame IV pretty shortly

I'm kind of curious as to why Pandora's Tower keeps getting grouped in with Xenoblade and The Last Story.  The two RPGs actually look pretty decent, but Pandora's Tower looks like any other mediocre Japanese action game.  Just because Nintendo published it in Japan doesn't mean it's good (note that the overly generous Famitsu only gave this a 7/7/9/8 compared to 9/9/9/9 for Xenoblade and 10/10/9/9 for The Last Story).

Review scores from Famitsu (or anyone else, for that matter) mean shit all to me. A 9/9/9/9 for Xenoblade by their standards means it's about as good as Nintendogs as far as I'm concerned.

Pandora's Tower has some killer art, regardless. Gameplay doesn't look bad, I really dig the aesthetic. I like the black case it comes in, too.

Yep. Although I didn't completely finish my second run but stopped right before the final boss.
I suppose that counts as 2 though.

That's what worries me about this Operation Rainfall.
They're asking for games of which they don't even know if they're any good.
I mean, word of mouth on Xenoblade is pretty much what started this whole thing off, so that's fine, but The Last Story is boring as hell, I can vouch for that, and not that many people actually like it (if I go by the comments on other forums).
Pandora's Tower I can't comment on, but there's a good chance it's not that special either.

So let's say these games DO come over to the US and get abysmal reviews (not Xenoblade of course), leading to poor sales, what kind of message is THAT going to send to Nintendo!?

I would say that these games would get abysmal sales in the U.S. regardless of how good they or their reveiws are.  Outside of the vocal minority that's screaming for them, I doubt the larger market cares.  Before you bring up the Amazon experiment with Monado pre-orders, let's keep in mind that Amazon's charts are best-selling in the last hour.  Who cares what sold in the last hour?  That's a meaningless metric if I've ever seen one.  That said, I still think it's nonsense for Nintendo not to bring over Xenoblade or any other title that already has it localization costs being covered by Nintendo of Europe's budget.  Hell, if I was Nintendo of America, I'd say that we're going to make a limited edition U.S. print-run of Xenoblade of around 20,000 copies and charge $100 a copy, available only from Nintendo's online store that comes with some silly premium item. Other than a press release, I'd do no other marketing and let word of mouth take care of the rest.  If it goes viral and retailers start asking for it, then I'd print up a bunch more w/o the premium item and set the MSRP at $60.

Oh, none of them would sell millions, obviously, but Xenoblade has the potential to sell between 200 and 300K, I think, if properly marketed (big if), considering it and TLS sold between 150 and 200K in Japan alone.

Anyway, Operation Rainfall has a new update which is very interesting:

http://oprainfall.blogspot.com/

I wonder if that's really true...

how well or poorly did arc rise fantasia rate on the wii? im guessing not to well? worst game to base interest in JRPGs on the wii, if u askd me.

u know whats goin to happen, if xenoblade is released in the u.s., is that we'll get charged a premium for it, because then they'll know there are people will pay a nice 60 bucks for it. im sure it'll be worth it, I dont doubt that, but still, thats some scheming on their part.

I have no idea about Arc Rise Fantasia, and I haven't played it, but from what I hear it's a pretty good game, if you can get over the awful English dub, apparently.

I don't see what's wrong with asking 60 bucks for a game like Xenoblade.

Well said, but I have no idea what that would entail.  I mean, Nintendo put some marketing muscle behind DQ9, and while it certianly did respectably, it didn't exactly light a fire either.

I actuly have it, it's very similar to a Tales series rpg, and even more incredibly cliche than usual. still a decent game, but not a must-have. and yes, terrible english dub is terrible

other than that nintendo ought to be considered a scalper for it. still incredibly excited for the possiblity of it actualy getting relased in NA, tho. prolly stil pay 60 dollars for it, and like it.

just thought: what if NoA defers the relase of Xenoblade to the wii u, just to get you to buy a wii u? they are nefarious, indeed

This is a rumor/possible scenario that has been going around on other forums as well.

It would be a sneaky thing to do, but if they give it a bit of an HD overhaul and smooth things out a bit, I'd be all over it. AGAIN.

The Australian release gets a special soundtrack bundled in. I kinda wish I was getting that...and that French art book. Oh well, I'm still getting a package of awesome.

I assume the special soundtrack is the one that came with the JP version as well?
And the French Art Book is the Xenoblade Monado Files book released in Japan, and I wonder if they actually translated it...

Oh, I didn't know about the JP version including a soundtrack. I guess twelve tracks would feel more like a tease of the full OST though. I swore to myself that I was done buying VGM two years ago, and this is one of the recent soundtracks that has made that hard to keep.
If they did actually translate the Monado Archives book I wonder if it's a limited print of 1000 then. I just figured it would be the original book, but you never know.

So, only a couple of days until the European release, and reviews are slowly trickling in.
It's getting scores between 90 and 100 all across the board (currently at 94% on gamerankings and 92 on metacritic), so it's obvious Western reviewers are digging the game too.

I wouldn't be surprised if NoA would pick it up eventually anyway, but they'll probably watch the sales first. They'd be idiots to ignore a game this well-received though.

I have no doubt it will be the best RPG this gen for me (heck, I'd name it that even if I never got to play it ), and it looks and sounds to be a contender in the all-time category. I guess I'll find out personally here pretty soon. I've never invested this much in a game before; I'm sure it will satisfy more than my recent dealings with the stock market. NoA can hardly ignore its widespread appeal.

I ordered it myself and I'm *really* looking forward to it. Been ages since I've been a good JRPG.

Apparently NoA's official stance is that they'll be watching the EU sales 'very closely,' though I don't know whether an abundance of import sales would temper their interest or not.

I kind of forgot this was hitting this week, but my bank reminded me because they thought the preorder I made on a UK site was an instance of fraud. I'm on vacation next week, and I hope it makes its way to my side of the pond before the week is over. Now to figure out how to properly install the region-unlocker on my auxiliary Wii.

"been ages since I've been a good JRPG"? what? is that like that kid in ffx who wanted to be a blitzball?

I have mine copy, and it plays beautifully. Farewell.

Funny.

About six hours into the game. It's absolutely amazing. Graphics are a weak point but the ambition of the art design makes up for the low resolution. Thanks to the imagination of the artists, the vistas look more amazing than anything I can remember from an HD game like FFXIII.

Everything else is top-notch.

I'm still without my copy, which is annoying because it shipped before my vacation started, and even after a three-day extension (thanks, Irene!) I wasn't able to invest any of my time off to it. Curse you, Royal Mail Service, and the sick seagull you sent across the ocean with my package.

Who did you order it from? Certain retailers are taking far longer than others. I ordered from 365games and it took just six days (which greatly surprised me).

I've been hearing rumors some retailers sold out of their initial batch and that even people who preordered it have to wait for a second batch to arrive.

Don't know if it's true, but it might explain why some people are getting it late...

I have my LE copy already, but dammit, I just don't have the time for it

I've been having horrid time with mail from the UK in the past year or so. Just recently at least the second time something just never showed up, and a other times it's taken an inordinately long time. Plus the outside of things seem to get beaten up.

everyone importing this from the EU?

Yeah, you pretty much have to (and homebrew the Wii, which is easy).

Ordered it from Game.co.uk, who were very quick in getting Last Window to me in time for making my sister's Christmas gift, and I chose them because they had a bundle with a red Classic Pro and some signed lithographs. At this point I'm getting more concerned than annoyed, and TerraEpon's horror stories aren't boosting my confidence.

Let me make you feel even more miserable then by telling you that the litographs are ONLY for people who buy the game at Game's retail stores. They're not for people who buy the game online

And just like that, Xenoblade seems to be getting a US release finally.

Great news.  Looks like Skyward Sword won't be the Wii's swan song afterall.

AWESOME!

And for those of us who refuse to set foot in GameStop, we have this lovely alternative thanks to Nintendo:
http://store.nintendo.com/webapp/wcs/st … reId=10001

I think it's especially funny that this is a GameStop exclusive given that the Operation Rainfall people used Amazon pre-orders to try to convince Nintendo to release it here.

It's my GotY. If you love JRPGs (and even if you don't because it breaks a lot of their conventions), you have to get this game.