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[Victor Omega]

What was Operation Rainfall?

Operation Rainfall, commonly known as oprainfall, was a video game-oriented fan campaign founded to promote the release of games not available in North America. Initially aimed at promoting the North American release of three games on the aging Wii home video game console only released in Japan and Europe, it later transitioned into a community blog dedicated to niche Japanese games and further fan campaigns aimed at the localization of Japan-exclusive games. From inception, its stated intention was to show publisher Nintendo the demand for the three chosen games.

The game that got the most exposure and success from this campaign was Xenoblade Chronicles which has gone on to be a staple franchise for Nintendo.

Though the initial campaign was a success in getting these two games to localize, I feel, to this day, these games should have gotten just as much love and even a decent HD remastering:

The Last Story - Mistwalker - Hironobu Sakaguchi​

Pandora's Tower - Ganbarion - Toru Hoga / Takao Nakano

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But wait....there was another!

EARTH SEEKER -

 

[Xeaker]

Pandora's Tower gave me a special feeling, it was so melancholic somehow.

 

[Danjin44]

I really, REALLY want to see Pandora's Tower on Switch or any modern system, that game deserves second chance.

 

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Got all three. Bought them when they all came out. The campaign to get them released in the west was a really big deal at the time and it seemed like a damn near miracle that it succeeded. Nintendo even acknowledged the link and offered a limited 3 coin set to people who had bought and registered all 3 games.

Gave us Xenoblade which as everyone knows was the biggest of the three and launched what has become my favorite RPG series.

The last Story was a mixed bag. The gameplay was different and included a cover system. The art direction however fell a little short for me and suffers from the "gritty brown" that plagued that era of games (particularily for FPS games). On the whole though, a very interesting game and one that sadly is mostly overlooked now.

Pandora's Tower is a thing. A really unique take and has a very distinctive melancholy and often unsettling atmosphere, The basic premise is that there is a girl who is gradually turning into a monster and the only way to stop that is to venture into the tower to fight monsters and get their flesh for her to consume in order to stave off the blight. And it's not framed as something her condition makes appealing to her - she does not like it and suffers through forcing it down to survive. You're on a timer - the longer you take in the dungeon the more her affliction will take hold resulting in her suffering more and looking ever worse and more mutated if you take too long. Small bits of flesh from lesser enemies in the dungeon can be used as stop-gap feeding options to keep the curse at bay but you need to get to and kill the bosses to get the flesh that will really help. Hard to describe - one of those games you really have to play. Really glad this one got over here though as it's definately not something we would likely have ever seen otherwise. Needs a remaster and re-release but with it's subject matter i'm not sure it would appeal enough to the market to sell enough to justify the investment.

Great games. All pretty unique and different from each other. The campaign to get them released in the west was a really impressive and big deal at the time, it's a shame it's mostly forgotten now and only one of the games remain in the public eye. thanks for bringing it up OP. A good one to look back on.