Present 1 – Xenosaga Freaks – chaos’ Story translation and programming was just finished!
Present 2 – XS1 10th Anniversary contest! Click the link for details!

We hope you have a good new year, guys!

Hi there, folks!
Just in case anyone who visits this site doesn’t already have their nose to the ground looking for info on Xenoblade, Nintendo of America started to update their facebook page yesterday (December 2, 2011) at around 11am with a small gallery offering, then a link to the game teaser trailer as it appears on their official site. The trailer appears to be using the British English audio recorded by Nintendo of Europe, and the tentative release date for the game in the US is April 2012.

For folks who had (or decided to) to wait, it looks like your patience has paid off! I think a great deal of credit goes to Operation Rainfall and its dedicated members, and also to Nintendo of Europe for making it available, and the folks in Europe who bought it.  Sincerest thanks!

For an in-depth look at one of the Japanese art books for Xenoblade (or rather, the only one), hop on over to our forums, and in the section labeled “The Arsenal,” you will find something shiny.

Also, the Arsenal is also our Xenoblade discussion area. Feel free to chat up anyone. It’s been a little dead, and, despite the rumors or opinions of former forum staff members, our forum welcomes every and any fan of the Xeno series who comes our way, so long as they aren’t a spambot or break our house rules. Godsibb exists to keep the love of Xenosaga, Xenogears and now Xenoblade alive, and I believe that fandom exclusivity cannot factor into the running of any community, in any fandom, if it is to function properly and respectfully.

Jessi here to bring you good tidings and a wonderful gift from a few hard working members here on the boards. The users Jintoki, Kare_Reiko and Porimac have all pitched in and worked hard to bring us a full remake of the XenoKomi portion of the side game Xenosaga Freaks, previously only available in Japanese!

If you’ve ever been curious about XenoKomi (I know I have), feel free to nab a copy for your favorite OS here.

It should also be noted, Godsibb is working out a partnership with both Xenogears-Fansite as well as XenoTensei. Although everything is still being discussed, I’m confident we can all look forward to some sort of collaboration between us in the future.

I’ve also been working on a full-scale website revamp. I’m not sure when this will be completed, but you will know when it is done, trust me.

So get excited, Xenosaga fandom! Stay sharp!

–Jessi

It’s a strange time in gaming, folks.

It seems so recent that great RPGs, games that set themselves apart from the rest with their strongly emotional narratives, open worlds, descriptive characters, and grand adventures, were a dime a dozen. Now, we are in a generation populated with casual markets and big-budget FPS titles. For those of us left in the lurch by the games we hold dearest, things have gotten even worse. Honestly, two people can count the number of RPGs available on PS3 on all of their fingers, and they would even have a few fingers left uncounted.

So we heard the announcement for Xenoblade. Then we heard of The Last Story, of Pandora’s Tower. Not only have these titles been garnished with triple-A accolades, but they are created by some of the biggest, most talented names and studios in the entirehistory of the RPG genre. As Americans, we swelled with pride and knew we were entitled to our piece of the translation pie.

But not now.

Nintendo, in a strange and angering move, announced that we would receive none of these titles on our shores. Appalled and enraged by this blatant disregard for a core fanbase that helped build the entire gaming industry with our wallets, fans of RPGs, of Xenosaga, of video-games themselves united. In a soon to be historical event in the gaming world, Xenoblade’s pre-orders exploded into the number 1 slot on Amazon. Fans assaulted Nintendo’s social networking pages with demands for those games. But in response to all this, we received just one tersely written message:

Thank you for your enthusiasm. We promised an update, so here it is. We never say “never,” but we can confirm that there are no plans to bring these three games to the Americas at this time. Thanks so much for your passion, and for being such great fans!

A horrid and ungratifying message, Nintendo left us in the lurch once again. The true horror of the fact that Nintendo is withholding these games from us is not their desire to turn Nintendo into a publisher of strictly casual games, not that they alienate all their third-party developers, and not even that they leave the Wii as virtually a stretched wasteland peppered with only a few gems: It’s that for the first time, North Americans will miss out on big budget, studio-developed RPGs. This fact, coupled with the trickling stream of releases in this genre for the past four years, could mean the end of the genre. Or at the very least, the continuation of this beloved form of fun, interaction, and storytelling to be nothing more than a niche market of unreleased gems. Nintendo is sitting on these developers, and it isn’t fair to the makers of the games, nor to the fans.

So, as an outcry, Operation Rainfall was started. Garnishing notoriety all across the internet, even being the subject of many an article or feature on sites even unrelated to gaming, this collective of gamers seeks to bring these titles to the US. The hope of Operation Rainfall is not just to bring Xenoblade, Pandora’s Tower, and The Last Story to our shores, but also to show the importance of this genre. Many are hoping that this even will even convince publishers to release games previously though unsaleable to certain regions. In such a diverse and populated code, region-locking systems and not translating popular games is just another way to further the divide between races and peoples. It’s an unnecessary and tired form of media separatism.

So, to join the cause, to mail letters to Nintendo, to e-mail, call and to share your feelings and desires with gamers just like you, please visit these sources, and try and help the cause in any creative way that you deem acceptable, honest, respectful, and most of all, prideful for what you love and what you want.

http://OpRainfall.com
http://twitter.com/OpRainfall
http://facebook.com/OperationRainfall
http://youtube.com/OperationRainfall
http://oprainfall.freeforums.org/

http://www.petitiononline.com/OpRain01/petition.html

But I would also like to announce that our forums have changed from PHPBB to Invision Power Board. You can visit the new forums here. If you have not come and posted on the new boards yet, now would be a good time because the new boards are enriched with many robust and experience enhancing features.

Lastly, expect a site-wide revamp sometime in mid July. That’s all folks.

–Jessi.

Please feel free to stop by the contest area to view all entries and to look at this month’s contest, which has just recently begun! There is still time to join in! If you have any questions, just PM me, Leah7, on our forum or on deviantart, and I will respond as soon as I can.

I’d also like to say thank you so much to our wonderful forum administrators, Jessi and katimus_prime, for they have done such a wonderful job and have put so much dedication into this atmosphere for us!
Thank you so much, you’re wonderful!

Smile, Godsibb!!

Our monthly contest is back on for March! See this thread or Leah7 for details. Part of the prize for winning is being featured on the front page!

In other news, Yasunori Mitsuda recently released -MYTH-, a 2011 recording of certain tracks from Xenogears’ OST. The easiest way to get it at the moment is to purchase it via iTunes, unless, of course, if you live in Canada (though if my canuck buddies sit tight, I’m sure it’ll pop up soon. If not, it’s also available on yesasia.com). I HIGHLY recommend checking it out and supporting Mr. Mitsuda’s work!

Not too much else to update with.  We’re working on fixing our forum security and we’ve pruned a few zero-post non-active forum members, but you can get back into your account very easily if it’s been deactivated.  We’ve only deactivated those who have had no activity and no posts since last July, though.  Our forum has also gotten quite a lovely skin face-lift thanks to Jessi and Primantis.  I think that’s about it!  Hope everyone had a good Blanket Holiday Season and we look forward to seeing everyone around.

~Katimus

The fanart gallery, where we’ve received work from many new fanartists! Kare_reiko has cleaned Mattoid’s scans for Volume 3 of the official Xenosaga Manga, we’ve received scans of the Xenosaga I Postcard Set from Infini, and GoldeneyeDS has donated his rips of the Xenosaga III Chapter Save Screen Images from the European release of the game.

Also, congratulations to our new mods Stitchedmoon and AniRichie, and helpers Canada and Leah7!

Anyway, we have a new affiliate. Please visit Tales Union!

In the mean time, enjoy some Caramelldansen: