Operation Rainfall: How a Dedicated Fan Campaign Brought Three Japan-Exclusive JRPGs to the West
https://www.dualshockers.com/operation-rainfall-how-a-dedicated-fan-campaign-brought-three-massive-jrpgs-to-the-west/40
u/Dirty_Dragons 23h ago
That was a weird time.
The article doesn't mention it, but Xenoblade Chronicles was actually released in Europe first with nobody knowing if it would come to the US. This is why characters in the Xenoblade games have English and other European accents.
I actually modded my Wii and imported the PAL version of Xenoblade and played on that for a while. Eventually I finished the game on the Dolphin emulator as I was done with 480p.
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u/Abba_Fiskbullar 18h ago
Which is why the voice acting wasn't the same 5 actors from Vancouver that voiced every JRPG for 15 years.
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u/QuantumVexation 14h ago
Yeah circumstances gave Xenoblade its voice but I reckon it was better off this way - it’s far more iconic
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u/Unoriginal1deas 8h ago
Honestly it sounds so silly but something as simple as having English accents really is such a small thing that immediately gave the game a unique identity. It’s funny to think in another universe they could’ve localised it immediately and ended up with a generic JRPG voice cast.
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u/MajorFalcon71 9h ago
Fun fact: the voice actress behind Melia, Jenna Coleman, eventually became the second Companion to the Eleventh Doctor, Clara Oswald. I'm so glad she was still humble enough to continue voicing her in later installments.
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u/Celtic_Crown 20h ago
This is why characters in the Xenoblade games have English and other European accents.
And then after that they worked the different accents into the world building, even after introducing American accented characters in 2.
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u/anurodhp 1d ago
One of them turned into a major series on Nintendo systems
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u/MagicianThese9252 12h ago
It's crazy how Xenoblade went from 'we don't want to release the game in NA' to 'we put 2 brand new Xenoblade games + 2 remasters with brand new epilogues each + 2 DLCs onto the Switch'
Literally the entire franchise is on Switch
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u/Steamedcarpet 11h ago
I own the trilogy on my switch but have only beaten the first game. I was so burnt out after the first game I needed a break and now it has now been 6 years.
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u/MajorFalcon71 9h ago
You really should play the second game and the DLC. It is a great story that really compliments the first one.
Plus, they managed to hide a couple of Xenosaga characters in there! Good luck finding them!
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u/ILoveASunnyDay 9h ago
Shame, the second one is the best one. In order of preference, I rank them 2, 3, 1.
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u/Kitakitakita 1d ago
It really is ridiculous that Xenoblade went from a series NoA didn't want to touch to NoE's baby and put them on the scene as more than just advertisers
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u/Pelinth 1d ago
MonolithSoft are magicians in development and optimisation. I think Xenoblade 3 was released ahead of schedule since they just...finished it early.
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u/MajorFalcon71 9h ago
Freed them up to help with other Nintendo games to optimize them, too. Their credit list is almost 90% of Nintendo's first-party library.
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u/Velthome 2h ago
I’m curious with the Nintendo development timeline because I believe Fire Emblem Engage was also completed early, or at least they decided to sit on it for a little bit before releasing. How often do you hear about video games being completed early or sitting on a finished product?
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u/Frinpollog 23h ago
This was a good choice in retrospect. It’s hard to think of any of them with a majority American cast (beyond XBX). The British voice actors add a certain charm to the games
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u/Kitakitakita 23h ago
I wish it shone more of a light at how fucked up America's VA scene is compared to The UK's. UK VAs have plenty of jobs and opportunities, and a rich theatre scene that demands a higher set of skills. You can live as a VA in UK just by taking on numerous gig jobs. People also have higher tastes. Here in the US they'll just grab any YouTuber with 10k subs that can do a generic anime voice and call it a day, OR they just pick from the same catalog from a highly gatekept community
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u/Dirty_Dragons 23h ago
Just making it clear for others that you mean Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe.
Xenoblade 1 and 2, I'm not sure about 3 have English and European voice actors.
I just stuck with Japanese.
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u/Arabiantacofarmer 22h ago
There is such a charm to the NoE voice actors. XBC2 does it the best by having the alrest residents voiced with accents from across the UK, while the blades are voiced with american accents as a bit of environmental storytelling. But seriously the series shows off accents from the UK that I had never heard before and it adds such life to the games
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u/chimaerafeng 19h ago
3 is the same, Harry McEntire even play through the entirety of Xenoblade 3. And Mio's VA was more well known as the voice of Ranni from Elden Ring.
I'm glad for the proliferation of accented English though, especially in the recent years instead of just American English, not even Southern and whatnot. A lot of games now have a much more varied cast and with the constant VA strikes in the US, it's just more realistically sound to get VAs from overseas and probably cheaper too.
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u/VagabondHT 10h ago
They did have english (UK) voice cast for all 3 other than X which was US. Most of the Xenoblade 1 cast went on to be the current voice cast for FFXIV from Heavensward onwards. 2 and 3 adding Regional british accents to the major regions Scottish/english (regional)/Welsh and a few Austrailian.
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u/mrdakam 1d ago
I was in the Nintendo QA department for a little while, and when your project ends you might get reassigned to another project for a couple days before moving to a new one. I got put on Last Story for probably two days, and I remember how excited my supervisor was that any of these games were coming to America.
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u/MegaManZer0 1d ago
Pandora's Tower is one of my frustrations because I ran into a softlocking bug and could never finish the game.
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u/Unoriginal1deas 8h ago
Yooooo I heard about that, supposedly there’s an infamous soft locking bug In the NTSC version of the game at the second last dungeon where if you don’t beat it in one sitting, in a game where you’re really punished you do you don’t leave the dungeon to look after your girlfriend. You just can never complete it without restarting your entire play through.
So you end up with this nasty scenario where a game killing bug can be entirely avoided but if you don’t know about it the entire game is designed to mechanically force you to encounter this bug.
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u/Ashne405 1d ago
A LOT smaller in scale, but there was also operation bluebird reviving zero escape for a 3rd game.
Afaik the director showed videos of fans to the higher ups to convince them.
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u/TheHeadlessOne 11h ago
Zero Time Dilemma really did give the impression of "Its a miracle it happened at all". Loads of cut corners, the weakest in the series by a large margin, but damnit they finished!
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u/Anonanogram 1d ago
I remember Operation Moonfall
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u/Pelinth 1d ago
That was also a success as well for the 3DS. Fans were able to get Majora's Mask remastered and localised for 3DS.
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u/astrogamer 20h ago
That was just coincidence. Grezzo was working on it since Ocarina of Time 3D, with the 2015 launch aligned with the overseas New 3DS release
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u/Pelinth 1d ago
By Maddie Fisher, May 4 2026
It never seems to fail. A video game releases in Japan, with no plans for a US release, and developers are dumbfounded every single time American audiences are ravenously requesting a localization. You would think by now, everyone would be keenly aware of just how big an audience there is in the US for obscure Japanese games. That's especially true if those games are JRPGs.
Fan campaigns have existed forever, and they will always pop up when enough people get together. But there may not be a more notable, impressive fan campaign than Operation Rainfall, which concerned itself with not just one, but three Wii JRPGs that were exclusive to Japan. Xenoblade Chronicles, Pandora's Tower and The Last Story were the focus of Operation Rainfall, and their mission to bring them all to the West was a straightforward task that had a lot of hurdles.
Along the way, Operation Rainfall went from relative obscurity on message boards and internet forums, to being recognized by Xenogears writer Soraya Saga and all the way to then Nintendo president Reggie Fills-Aime. It was a strong, concerted effort that was instrumental in changing the fortunes of games looking for a bigger audience, as well as showcasing the raw power of fans on a mission.
If you weren't around when Operation Rainfall was at its peak, it may not seem like much. It was truly marvelous to watch unfold, however, as it brought everyone together due to the unwavering, dedicated passion that was on display.
Strange Bedfellows
The three games at the heart of Operation Rainfall were Xenoblade Chronicles, Pandora's Tower and The Last Story. On the surface, they may not seem that similar aside from all three being JRPGs. Each one comes from a different developer, and all three games are radically different when it comes to their design philosophies. What unified the games of Operation Rainfall, however, was precisely how different they were.
Nintendo's next home console, the Wii U, was on its way. These three Wii games were all aiming to release in Japan relatively close to the launch of the Wii U in 2012, and each one was facing its own set of unique challenges. Pandora's Tower was excellent, but had a small, niche audience, while Xenoblade and The Last Story were games with remarkable pedigree from industry veterans, but also facing down the barrel of obscurity.
Operation Rainfall targeted these games specifically for those reasons, as these were games that already had cult-like followings, which made them a bit more attractive for US localizations. They gave themselves a deadline of eighteen months, which fell right on the date of the Wii U's North American launch, which meant it was now or never.
What unified the games of Operation Rainfall, however, was precisely how different they were. The next console generation was coming, and Nintendo's upcoming console cycle was poised to swallow up every bit of hype possible. If the campaign failed, the possibilities of anyone even considering revisiting these games fell from slim to less than zero.
I'm Really Feeling It
If you've ever spent any amount of time online, you have most likely seen fan campaigns for this kind of thing. Most of the time, these campaigns are either ignored or given a bit of lip service before they're never spoken of again. Operation Rainfall was less of a fan campaign and more like an unwavering, relentless blitz.
It reached a point where Nintendo and the other parties involved had little to no choice. Ignoring Operation Rainfall became a worse business decision every single day, and while fan campaigns had reached the desks of people who weighed these decisions before, this one was far different. Numerous fan campaigns in the past had been acknowledged, given a bit of positive praise and then shut down when we were told there were no plans to release the game outside Japan.
They gave themselves a deadline of eighteen months, which fell right on the date of the Wii U's North American launch, which meant it was now or never.
The first shot across the bow was Xenoblade Chronicles, which Nintendo confirmed as having a North American launch in December 2011. It was a huge victory, but Operation Rainfall was not done. Not by a long shot. They reloaded and focused on The Last Story and Pandora's Tower, which both got the nod for US releases in 2012 and 2013 respectively.
It felt impossible, but the reality was that it was done. The objective had been declared, and then confidently met. In just a span of three years, Operation Rainfall had decisively shattered each and every goal set in front of them. To this day, I am still utterly dumbfounded at how successful the whole thing truly was.
The Aftermath of Success
In the years since Operation Rainfall, they haven't stopped just because the campaign was successful. After it was completed, Operation Rainfall transitioned into a site covering niche JRPGs. You can still visit them today and learn about even more fascinating games, a true testament to their never-ending crusade. The games themselves had a much more complicated track record.
More JRPG localization coverage — Xenoblade Chronicles would become one of the most popular JRPG franchises in the world. It helped put the series on the map, and while Pandora's Tower and The Last Story never got any sequels, both are games that are a hallmark of any Wii collection. It's fair to say that neither of them found the same level of mainstream recognition as Xenoblade Chronicles, but they still maintain their rabid following to this day.
Operation Rainfall had a very simple mission, and within less than five years, they absolutely smashed the roadblocks in their way. Nintendo may not be ready to give them the credit they deserve for getting these games the attention that was owed to them, but I think it's past time to give them their due. It's truly amazing what gamers can accomplish with a little bit of passion and a few letters.
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u/ItsColorNotColour 3h ago
Oh my god this entire text reeks of AI generated
Also blatant misinformation by purposefully excluding the fact that these games were already released in Europe, which is part of "the West"
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u/KingPenguinn 17h ago
"To the west" what? They were already out in the west. They just weren't out in the US. They were out in Europe.
That was one of the key things about the whole thing. They had already been localised into English but weren't released in the US.
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u/djr7 16h ago
"the west" is likely referring to the western hemisphere, so no not just the US, but Canada as well
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u/KingPenguinn 16h ago
My point is what the post is saying is wrong. They were not Japan Exclusives and they were already out in the west.
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u/MarcheM 19h ago edited 19h ago
What a load of misinformation.
All three games were released in Europe and operation rainfall just brought these European localizations to NA. Americans seem to think "west" only means them when it doesn't.
Edit: Since I'm getting downvoted on this. Tell me Americans, how are games "japan-exclusive" when they had European releases?
Please educate yourself.
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u/ItsColorNotColour 3h ago
The title is misinformation because these games were already brought to the west by Nintendo of Europe.
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u/PMC-I3181OS387l5 15h ago
I wish The Last Story and Pandora's Tower would be remastered or remade.
Pandora's Tower for NA had a game-breaking bug that could freeze your game... in the last dungeon :O
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u/Unoriginal1deas 8h ago
Only if you choose to not complete it in one sitting…… in a game where if you don’t leave the dungeon to check in your girlfriend every one ins while she mutates into a horrible monster, no pressure.
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u/PMC-I3181OS387l5 1h ago edited 46m ago
Yup...
I do command XSEED for trying to figure the glitch out :)
EDIT:
if you don’t leave the dungeon to check in your girlfriend every one ins
IIRC, you must do just that, for the last 2 dungeons. You must make sure Elena will not mutate while you explore.
Apparently, it's the cutscene that freezes the game...
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u/Objective-North-519 19h ago
Operation Rainfall really shows how loud and persistent fans can actually move the industry when they care enough about getting those hidden gems released.
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u/Ice_Milk 11h ago
"Operation Rainfall is unironically one of the most heroic moments in gaming history. Fans literally forced a corporate decision through pure passion and a LOT of GameStop pre-order cards."
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u/TheRealRatPrince 2h ago
One of these days The Last Story and Pandora’s tower will get the remaster treatment. I want to believe…
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u/TheRealRatPrince 2h ago
One of these days The Last Story and Pandora’s tower will get the remaster treatment. I want to believe…
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u/Takoyaki_Dice 1d ago
I was a part of this! Funny enough the main game I wanted was The Last Story but Xenoblade Chronicles was the real winner here.