My 2012 Localization Checklist

Another post, another few months gone by.  Sorry for the delay!

The woes of being a lover of Japanese games in this day and age are often staggering.  With less and less of interest to me coming out of Western companies, these are the games I'm counting on to fill the void.  Sadly, rather than responding accordingly to the emergence of a global economy and Information Age, Japanese developers seem to be losing touch with their Western fans via an unwillingness to even localize some of their most fascinating and unique games.  Recently, we've seen the effects with social networking movements such as Operation Rainfall, the Gallian Liberation Front, and a handful of fan pages devoted to various Tales games.

The situation isn't entirely bleak.  Japanese developers have many interesting things to offer Western fans this year so far*.  These include Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, Tales of Graces f, Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir, Pokémon Conquest, and Ni No Kuni:  Wrath of the White Witch.  With all that on its way, it may be hard to see what J-game lovers still have to complain about.  So without further ado, here are the rest of the games I'd love to see localized in 2012.

All Aboard Operation Rainfall!

Short story: We (all regions) want Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower.

Long story: Unsurprisingly, the "core line up" for the Wii in 2011 is looking grim. In North America, only LoZ: Skyward Sword rests on the horizon. But wait! A ray of hope. Mistwalker's The Last Story and Nintendo's new IP, Pandora's Tower, still remain a distant possibility. They're already out in Japan, with Xenoblade Chronicles set to release this Fall. So far it's been confirmed that Europe will be getting The Last Story and Xenoblade, with no word on Pandora's Tower. As for North America... well, Nintendo says we're SOL, apparently.

Nintendo of America has repeatedly denied any plans to bring us these three core action-RPGs, even in the wake of the new online campaign "Operation Rainfall." This is also following Nintendo's claims that they intend to return to targeting "core gamers." In Nintendo's words, there are simply "no plans" for NA getting these three games. Pandora's Tower in PAL is also dubious. However, as Joystiq's Nintendo division has pointed out:

Not that we want to give false hope regarding the actions of a company who is always pragmatic to the point of angering dedicated fans, but "no plans right now" is far from a death knell, especially for Nintendo. Some things that there were "no plans" for in America: the black Wii, the Classic Controller Pro, the Wii Sports Resort hardware bundle. Basically, there are "no plans" until the company decides to tell people its plans.

 So, there is still hope.

North America could really benefit from having these three games (and PAL from having Pandora's Tower). The Wii is especially strapped for core releases this year, which is pretty disappointing for those of us who have supported Nintendo every step of the way. Sales-wise it's a bit of a risk, but Nintendo isn't exactly scrambling for dollars and can afford to take this risk. Especially because this could put Nintendo back in the good graces of former Nintendo fans who have since boycotted--right in time for their supposed return to core gaming, the WiiU. This would be a win for everyone so it boggles my mind that they're so hesitant to risk a few bucks.

Or at least make your systems region free, FFS. Really, I'd be more than happy to import if it was "safe." I still might unlock my Wii since apparently it's really easy, but at the same time, it would mean a risk of bricking my console.

My 8 Must-Play Games of This Summer

I read an interesting feature in a January 2011 issue of OXM questioning why we don't see more quality games release in Summer, or Q3.  Indeed, they made some good points:  the kids are out of school; more free time equals time for seasonal jobs.  I don't know about you, but as a full-time college student, I'm lucky to even get to pick up a controller on the weekends, meaning the time to dig into my appalling backlog of shoulda-coulda-woulda-but-didn't-play games is Summertime.  Despite these facts, publishers avoid those hot months like the Plague.  The majority of quality new releases tend to grace us in the Spring or otherwise, right around the Holiday crunch.

Yet, that doesn't seem to be the case this year.  It's possible that studios are finally seeing the untapped potential of Summer months, but the more likely explanation is that 2011 is simply so jam-packed with promising software--from the conventional to the strange, sequels (and "threequels") to new IPs, East to West, there simply aren't enough months in the year to ease the inevitable blows to our wallet.  In fact, some of my most anticipated releases this year will be dropping in the Summer--thank goodness!

That said, I wanted to examine my most anticipated releases between May 10 and mid-August (these mark the duration of my Summer).  Without further ado, they are...