The Turbulent Rise of Xenoblade Chronicles

Japanese role-playing games or jrpgs for sure as the name implies have been a staple for decades in Japan and can be traced as far back as 1982 due to their growing popularity in Japan many Distributors look to promote the games to the West which at the time had very little exposure to the genre as a whole magazines such as Nintendo power would go out of their way to Hype up jrpgs giving multi-page previews of games such as Earthbound and the fabled final fantasy series The Rise of geopachis is often accredited to the astonishing commercial success of Final Fantasy VII which as a franchise has continued to grow on President levels for jrpgs in a similar sense another lesser known franchise has quietly become one of the fastest growing series within the genre that franchise is Xenoblade Chronicles the latest love child of tetsuya Takahashi Xenoblade Chronicles has evolved into one of the most anticipated and recognized modern jrpg series in recent years but what if I told you that just over a decade ago there was almost no chance that the franchise making its way over to America what took place following this decision would become one of the most inspirational and impressive Feats by the community in gaming history so how did scene Blade Chronicles get to the stage how did the combined efforts of a hardened Community seemingly forced Nintendo's hand and how has the franchise grown to be one of the most beloved jrpg franchises of the current ERA well I hope you've brought an umbrella as it might get a little wet or while we witness the turbulent rise of Xenoblade Chronicles to fully understand how Xenoblade Chronicles came to be you must first go all the way back to the late 90s very young tetsuya Takahashi after spending years working for square on games such as Final Fantasy 4 through 6 and Chrono Trigger would choose to leave the company to co-found his own that company was monolith soft before leaving square tetsuya and his wife kauri kanaka had proposed a potential storyline for Final Fantasy VII that was to be released in the coming years the story was deemed too mature for the Final Fantasy franchise so instead Square allowed Takahashi to develop a completely separate project at first Takahashi wanted to develop a sequel to Chrono Trigger but found it too challenging and ultimately chose to create an entirely unique Project based in an alien world with warring rival human Empires the game would follow protagonist FEI Fong Wong as he was forced to battle against Deus an ancient machine weapon worshiped as a God the idea was to include turn-based combat and foot but also fights within large bipedal mechs called gears I after spending two years in development the game would be released for the PlayStation 1 in 1998 with the fitting title Xeno gears xenoniki's would adopt a Square's signature active Time battle system which essentially added a timer to decisions made in battle adding a sense of urgency and excitement upon entering combat which was mostly random players would have to use a combination of martial arts moves ether attacks and special death blow combinations each offensive action would require action points or AP which each had a cost associated with the intensity of each attack as you progressed throughout the game the characters would gain access to a larger quantity of AP in addition to these hand-to-hand battles the game would incorporate gear battles in these battles AP would be replaced with fuel which could be regained with a charge command the game would go on to receive critical Acclaim for its gameplay soundtrack story and characters with some describing it as the hands-down best RPG of the year now that wasn't to say there were no problems at all in fact like we'll discuss again later on in this video there was a very good chance that xenick is would never make it to a western audience due to the game's heavy Reliance on religious aspects within a story and fears of a defending westerners Square would announce that it was very unlikely that the game would be released in the United States to counteract this an English localization team spearheaded by Richard Honeywood a veteran of the video game localization worked directly with square developers to make sure they fully captured the meaning inside the story while also shifting things that may be considered offensive to Western audiences this was a Monumental task with Richard himself describing the project as pure hell due to the numerous controversial topics such as the idea of killing God and other linguistic and conceptual challenges even so after countless sleepless nights working around the clock the localization for Xeno geese was completed and published in the west just eight months after its official Japanese release the game would feature two discs with the second disc choosing to impart the majority of its story through pure narration with a very brief gameplay segment sprinkled in this method of Storytelling was chosen to allow the team to finish telling the full story that was set out amidst deadlines and budget problems following the game's success work immediately began on a sequel there was just one problem though Square was heavily into the film industry at that point and was trying to develop a movie for Final Fantasy prompting Square to turn its head away from Xena gears and focus all of its attention on Final Fantasy Elisa did quite well right oh uh as you can imagine Takahashi didn't agree with this decision and as a result he would leave square with a handful of other Xena gear stuff before establishing monolith soft in 1999. now with funding from Namco the team was free to work on their next set of games the Xeno Saga Trilogy originally planned as a story to take place over six entries the games acted as spiritual successes to the original Xeno gears the Xeno saga games would feature a completely new story with new characters and locations monolith would release the first game titled xenosaga episode 1 in 2002 for the PlayStation 2. set far into the future in a time when Humanity has left Earth the story follows shionuzuki and Cosmos a battle Android designed to fight the game's enemies the gnosis the game uses a turn-based combat system that would trigger when engaging enemies unlike Scenic gears enemies were visible within the environment making each fight optional actually points carried over to the xenosaga games with unused points now carrying over to the next turn the party of characters also had access to Mecca which could be equipped in return for surrendering a turn the game was met with generally positive reviews but compared to the Acclaim of Xena gears it was certainly a step down the games being developed for the PS2 meant that 3D Graphics could be implemented something not possible with Xeno gears Takahashi later admitted that a large majority of the monolith soft developers were very inexperienced at the time which negatively impacted development especially in regards to the graphics engine which was completed only six months before the game's release following the overall disappointing release of episode 1 Takahashi would step down as director and reassign a completely new development team to work on the future games this led to the original six games being cut down to three and the second installment shifted its focus from its story to its gameplay xenosaga 2 would release just two years later for the PlayStation 2. and would continue the story of xion and Cosmos while met with generally positive reviews criticism was thrown at the long drawn out cutscenes and the new combat system which in some instances had players work through tedious steps before being able to inflict significant damage on more powerful enemies the game would sell decently well but according to Namco was still well under their projected sales Target once again it was back to the drawing board for the next installment where they looked to balance the story elements and gameplay another two years passed for Xeno Saga episode 3 would release in 2006 for the PS2 the main aim for the team behind the Xeno tiger games was to address the issues with the story and gameplay raised in the previous two games while still allowing for a satisfactory conclusion to the trilogy this seemed to pay off initially as the game would receive positive recognition upon its release unfortunately similar to the previous two entries these reviews did not translate well into sales the Xeno Saga episode 3 shifting a total of 343 000 units following the disappointing end of the trilogy and Namco writing it off as a commercial failure the team at model soft was left completely devastated but as the saying goes It's not what happens to you it's how you deal with it and the team wasn't about to let this stop them from creating what they described as a game that players would enjoy they just needed another chance and with Namco seemingly restricting the creative freedom of model of soft it would seem that this chance would never come there was however one company would often consult and support them do you wish to change it huh the future spared on by the support monolith soft looked to break away from Bandai Namco and become a Nintendo subsidiary now with all the creative freedom needed the team could look to continue the Xeno franchise and with this new Drive pushing them along it was almost inevitable that success would follow while working on another game back in 2006 Takahashi had imagined a world in which people would live on top of enormous Titans this would become the groundwork for a game that was displayed at E3 2009 called monado beginning of the world this would later be changed to include Cena as a way of honoring takahashi's previous work on the series June 10th 2010 Xenoblade Chronicles would officially release in Japan a year later the game had been localized to Europe and yet there were no plans to localize the game to America in fact Nintendo of America actually went out of their way to block Nintendo of Europe from displaying the game at E3 in 2011. deja vu must have been circling in the heads of longtime fans I mean not again was there Mawson sensitive content where we bodying another God what exactly was going on this time around but that's the thing Nintendo of America would make no comments regarding why the decision was made seemingly ignoring or avoiding talking about it what they didn't realize at the time though was this decision had just started a storm one that wouldn't stop until they got what they wanted the storm took the form of a group called operation rainfall formed in June of 2011 the crew pushed for the localization of three games The Last Story Pandora's Tower and of course Xenoblade Chronicles beginning on the 23rd of June 2011 the first phase of the campaign focused on Xenoblade Chronicles and had members pre-order the game on Amazon under its placeholder name monado to help skyrocketed to the number one position on the site's pre-order list within just two days this was Then followed up with Phase 2 which coincided with the European release of the game fans were encouraged to purchase not only Xenoblade but to make a virtual purchase of Final Fantasy 1 and hopes of showing the love and support fans had for the jrpg games at the time during all of this IGN message boards were little with support for the operation as well as countless letters and emails but sent to Nintendo of America as the movement continued it would gain considerable media attention being covered by some of the biggest gaming websites and blogs at the time the movement got so big that it even prompted Nintendo of America to respond unfortunately it was not the positive news so many had wished for a grueling six months followed but on the 2nd of December 2011 Nintendo had finally cracked Xenoblade Chronicles was announced and slated for an American release in the next year they had finally done it and while Reggie Ames would go on to say that operation rainfall with Neville was a serious consideration in their decision to overturn localization it's seen by many in the community as the leading factor in changing Nintendo's Mind released on the 6th of April 2012 the game took place on the frozen bodies of two warring Titans the bionist and the mcconus the story centered around shulk a young lad with the power to build the monado a special sword with the ability to cut through the enemies of the game known as the mechons featuring expansive open world design with players able to freely navigate its seemingly interconnected environments the game would incorporate a slightly different battle system in the form of a real-time Action System this allowed the player to manually move the current lead character in real time with party members Auto attacking enemies within a certain range these attacks can be slipped in between manual input attacks known as Arts which had cooldowns and required some form of timing to be efficient the game would go on to receive critical Acclaim but praise directed ads fleshed out story likable characters engage in combat and expands of open world one of the main gripes with the game is the seemingly lower definition Graphics which had resulted due to the lack of power that we had when trying to load the massive areas featured in the game the game would go on to sell over 900 000 copies which may not sound like much but for a game that was pushed out towards the end of the Wii's life cycle this was respectable and pushed Nintendo and the team at modelsoft to start working on future injuries and to the series following the critical success of the first Xenoblade game development on the next game in the franchise began this time however Takahashi wanted to delve into a more sci-fi themed RPG while still incorporating the system used in Xenoblade Chronicles Nintendo found the idea intriguing and within five years Xenoblade Chronicles X was released for the Wii U in 2015. earlier that same year Nintendo had tossed another developer monster games supporting the original Xenoblade Chronicles over to the newly released 3DS the system's increased power made it possible to Port the game over and the addition of Zealand's yarp shoulder buns meant that the original Wii layout could be used without adjustment allowing fans to now enjoy the story in a more portable format seen belly Chronicles on the other hand featured a whole new group of characters who found themselves on the planet Mira following Earth's destruction the game allowed the player to create their own unique Avatar who would work from the home hub named new Los Angeles a total of five continents were connected using an open world format that players could explore through story quests Affinity quests missions hard quests each offer differing rewards such as narrative progression Affinity boost between party members and in-game money the game the game adopted a similar battle system from the first game having party members Auto attack and wield hearts that could be manually triggered a Core addition to this entry though was the use of skells large transformable mechs that had both a bipedal walking mode as well as the vehicle form driving mode these machines were a reference to the original gears in Xeno gears and added a new layer to the combat system the game would also be the first to implement a multiplayer aspect which allowed players to loan their avatars and form units dubbed squads these squads would take part in tasks time limited random missions that had players collect a set number of resources from the environment both Xenoblade Chronicles X as well as inner Blade Chronicles 3D would receive favorable reviews with critics praising the game's detailed worlds in enhanced combat system both games would see a dip in sales numbers though when compared to the original this could be attributed to the relatively low sale numbers of the Wii U despite all this on all the soft remained determined to continue the series which at this point had cultivated quite the loyal fan base luckily for these fans the games that followed certainly they would not disappoint and just like that two years passed bringing us to the year 2017 when Nintendo would unveil their latest Home console the money printer ah I mean the Nintendo switch during the many reveal Trails for the console one trailer in particular caught the eye of every jrpg fan from the recognizable company logo to the sprawling open world and breathtaking Landscapes the game would reveal itself to be the latest game in the franchise [Music] this trailer brought people from all walks of life together from Lifetime fans and Senior gears to Time Travelers regardless anticipation built and by the end of that same year Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had been released acting as the true sequel to the original game the story would follow the biggest chat in Nintendo history daddy Rex the game was a return to form featuring a more story driven format in which humans lived on living creatures known as Titans the gameplay was similar to previous entries with real-time Action Battle system making a return different from the previous titles though was the addition of blades players were able to equip up to three different plays for each character with each determining a specific class such as offensive attackers healers or defensive tanks as is usually the case with this series The Game would go on to receive positive reviews surprisingly the game would sell 168 000 copies in its first month in Japan which comparatively was actually less than both xino Saga episodes 1 and 2. what Takahashi never expected though was the overwhelming support the game would received in the west within a month the game had sold over 1 million copies worldwide and just four months later the game had become the best-selling game in the Xeno franchise as of the current Day the game Remains the best selling in the franchise with an impressive 2.44 million copies sold and while that may not seem like much compared to Nintendo's other Flagship franchises as Takahashi stated himself it far exceeded all expectations ever set downloadable content for the games released throughout 2008 including an original Side Story expansion going by the name tauna the Golden Country set 494 years before the main game the story looks to explore the past of several main characters from the main game this expansion would expand on the original game by introducing a new combat system allowing for the ability to switch characters and even entire opinions with a single button when out in the field critics expressed positive outlooks on the expansion and sales seemed to follow suit as Takashi once again stated that sale numbers far exceeded any expectations everything was looking up for the franchise as a whole September 2019 another Nintendo Direct was seemingly wrapping up and as you know the final reveals tend to be for Nintendo's most recognized franchise sizes this one was a bit special though as a familiar figured appeared on screen and approximately 40 seconds later Cena played Chronicles Definitive Edition would be revealed released a year later in 2020 the game was a HD remaster of the original featuring enhanced visuals remastered music and updated user interface and plenty of quality of life improvements the new epilogue puddled future connected would also be included featuring a whole new story segment taking place one year after the events of the original the game would sell over 1.68 million copies continuing the commercial success of the franchise we've now arrived at the latest game in the franchise Xenoblade Chronicles 3 concludes the trilogy's overall narrative taking elements from the previous two installments the game once again featured a whole new cast of characters with new locations and environments that draws from the story points of its predecessors to help depict the futures of both their worlds adopting the real-time battle structure that has become synonymous with the franchise Xenoblade Chronicles 3 would switch up the formula by allowing up to seven party members to participate in battles at once players would also be now be able to swap between characters in middle of combat as is the normal xenobake games the story takes place on a large open world map with plenty of breathtaking environments and sights to behold the game would go on to receive extremely positive reviews with praise being aimed at the game's updated combat system visuals and excellent pacing as of the current Day the game has sold over 1.81 million copies and could quickly see itself becoming the best-selling Xena Game Ever After the latest story focused expansion titled future redeemed such were released or depending on when this video is out it might already be released the Xeno franchise as a whole has a turbulent Journey from the religious controversy of Xeno gears to the era defining war between Nintendo of America and operation rainfall when you take a step back and look it as a whole picture you have to appreciate the effort and resilience of everyone involved at one point it would seem the Xeno series was finished and I'm sure if you would ask Takahashi back then what the future would entail I'm sure not even he could pick the success of the franchise what was once a bleak an unpredictable future has now finally been redeemed [Music]

Channel: Legend of Kai

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Keywords: xenoblade chronicles 3, nintendo switch, switch, xenoblade chronicles 3 gameplay, xenoblade chronicles 3 review, xenoblade chronicles 3 trailer, Xenoblade Chronicles, Xenogears, Xenosaga, Review, Commentary, Rise of, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, xenoblade chronicles definitive edition, xenoblade chronicles 3 future redeemed, Nintendo, Gaming, xenosaga 3, xenosaga 2, Legend of Kai

Id: ch8GVaC2D28

Length: 19min 21sec (1161 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 23 2023