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XSEED Will Do What Nintenwon't, Agrees to Localize 'The Last Story' for North America

Mistwalker's Wii RPG will finally be coming to the U.S. this summer.

If you were one of the many Wii owners grousing loudly and frequently when it seemed as though Nintendo had no intention of bringing one of several highly regarded role-playing games for the system over to North America from Japan, your rage was likely soothed just a bit when the company finally agreed to just go ahead and put Xenoblade Chronicles out here this April, because you wouldn't shut up about it. That, however, still left Pandora's Tower and Mistwalker's The Last Story floating about in the unlocalized ether, perhaps never to be properly available in the States...

Your letter writing campaign paid off! Again!
Your letter writing campaign paid off! Again!

...Until today! During a largely 3DS-focused conference this morning, the company let slip that The Last Story would be coming to America, with localization courtesy of independent publisher XSEED Games.

XSEED obviously has a history of taking typically obscure Japanese games and bringing them to the North American market. In the case of The Last Story, they'll be handling all localization duties, and handling exclusive publishing duties in North America, courtesy of a special deal with Nintendo, who co-developed the title with Mistwalker.

No more specific release date than "this summer" has been announced, but that's still a hell of a lot better than the "probably never" we had to work with prior to this morning. While it doesn't sound likely that anyone will be picking up Pandora's Tower at this point, you've gotta figure two out of three headed to American shores is a vast improvement over the zero out of three we were staring at late last year, right?

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alex

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Edited By alex

If you were one of the many Wii owners grousing loudly and frequently when it seemed as though Nintendo had no intention of bringing one of several highly regarded role-playing games for the system over to North America from Japan, your rage was likely soothed just a bit when the company finally agreed to just go ahead and put Xenoblade Chronicles out here this April, because you wouldn't shut up about it. That, however, still left Pandora's Tower and Mistwalker'sThe Last Story floating about in the unlocalized ether, perhaps never to be properly available in the States...

Your letter writing campaign paid off! Again!
Your letter writing campaign paid off! Again!

...Until today! During a largely 3DS-focused conference this morning, the company let slip that The Last Story would be coming to America, with localization courtesy of independent publisher XSEED Games.

XSEED obviously has a history of taking typically obscure Japanese games and bringing them to the North American market. In the case of The Last Story, they'll be handling all localization duties, and handling exclusive publishing duties in North America, courtesy of a special deal with Nintendo, who co-developed the title with Mistwalker.

No more specific release date than "this summer" has been announced, but that's still a hell of a lot better than the "probably never" we had to work with prior to this morning. While it doesn't sound likely that anyone will be picking up Pandora's Tower at this point, you've gotta figure two out of three headed to American shores is a vast improvement over the zero out of three we were staring at late last year, right?

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Lugixx

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Edited By Lugixx

Now all you need is Pandora's Tower. There's always hope for completing the nintendo action-RPG "trilogy".

I'm just hoping us Europeans will get all those 3DS-ware games you Americans have been getting.

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Solh0und

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Edited By Solh0und

Now if they will start on localizing Grand Knights History, we would be in business.

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crusader8463

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Edited By crusader8463

Grats for the people winning one.

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zor

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Edited By zor

crap that another game i need to buy this year... :)

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paulunga

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Edited By paulunga

Meh, Pandora's Tower isn't really anything to get excited about anyway. You already got the two reasonably good games. Though Xenoblade was kind of disappointing with everyone jizzing all over it. Great music and graphical style, sure, as long as you don't mind doing basic MMORPG fetch quests of the worst kind in those beautiful landscapes.

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hyperfludd

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Edited By hyperfludd

Honestly, who really doubted such a high profile title coming to the US?

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SomeJerk

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Edited By SomeJerk

All signs point to that they'll use the existing localization. The game is already in many peoples hands over here.
 
Hope you guys enjoy the Britishness of it, rather than go rage about it. Feels good to listen to.

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vonFlampanker

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Edited By vonFlampanker

Nice. Now (since I was one of the aforementioned grousing individuals) to put my money where my mouth is and preorder the dang thing.

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Edited By FancySoapsMan

The Last Story and Xenoblade are good enough for me.

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gla55jAw

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Edited By gla55jAw

I finally bought a Wii last week so I could play Xenoblade, now this is even more awesome news. I'm pumped for being a Wii owner.

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originalgman

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Edited By originalgman

@Solh0und said:

Now if they will start on localizing Grand Knights History, we would be in business.

You really think they haven't started yet? I thought it was supposed to come out relatively soon. I canceled my pre-order, though, when I learned it would be coming out on PSN.

Now it's just up to Sega to bring Valkyria Chronicles III stateside.

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MeatSim

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Edited By MeatSim

Wii owners continue to get a couple worthwhile games.

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Solh0und

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Edited By Solh0und

@OriginalGman said:

@Solh0und said:

Now if they will start on localizing Grand Knights History, we would be in business.

You really think they haven't started yet? I thought it was supposed to come out relatively soon. I canceled my pre-order, though, when I learned it would be coming out on PSN.

Now it's just up to Sega to bring Valkyria Chronicles III stateside.

Part of me thinks that they started a bit of it and decided to put that one on hold.

I also hope VCIII comes to the states too.

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probablytuna

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Edited By probablytuna

It's all marketing bullshit, they were always planning on releasing the games. But either way, at least Wii owners around the world will have access to such games, so congratulations.

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Edited By WJist

My Wii is actually sitting in my desk drawer collecting dust from disuse. After reading the GB wiki entries for each game, consider me stoked for both of these releases.

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lordofultima

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Edited By lordofultima

Thank you based Alex Navarro. You can always tell his article from the headline, very fun stuff guessing on who wrote which articles on this site.

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StriderJ8

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Edited By StriderJ8

Poop. I read this literally as the email that my Europe Import has shipped and will arrive soon landed in my mailbox. Oh well. :)

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clumsyninja1

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Edited By clumsyninja1

Great for XSEED...maybe someday will see a Wild Arms on a next gen console.

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peewi

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Edited By peewi

So is it a different localization than the one getting released in Europe? It's always confusing when something has multiple translations for a single language.

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FancySoapsMan

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Edited By FancySoapsMan

@Solh0und said:

@OriginalGman said:

@Solh0und said:

Now if they will start on localizing Grand Knights History, we would be in business.

You really think they haven't started yet? I thought it was supposed to come out relatively soon. I canceled my pre-order, though, when I learned it would be coming out on PSN.

Now it's just up to Sega to bring Valkyria Chronicles III stateside.

Part of me thinks that they started a bit of it and decided to put that one on hold.

I also hope VCIII comes to the states too.

According to their FB the problem is on the developer's side.

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Edited By ChrisTaran

Unfortunately out of the 3 of them I think Pandora's Tower looks to be the more interesting. Still holding out hope for that release!

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Edited By Axersia
@SomeJerk said:

All signs point to that they'll use the existing localization. The game is already in many peoples hands over here.  Hope you guys enjoy the Britishness of it, rather than go rage about it. Feels good to listen to.

@Peewi said:

So is it a different localization than the one getting released in Europe? It's always confusing when something has multiple translations for a single language.

Yeah, reading Alex's post I got the impression he either doesn't know the game is scheduled for release in Europe on the 24th, or he actually thinks they're gonna re-translate the thing -- which seems highly unlikely. XSEED also published the Nintendo of Europe-localized Solatorobo in the US, and from what I've heard they just swapped some ou's with o's. I suppose that qualifies as localizing it...
 
Also, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people that were attracted to the game due to the initial trailer end up being disappointed. I was really hoping for something with a tri-Ace level of depth and difficulty to it (think Valkyrie Profile 2 and Resonance of Fate), but everything I've read about it tells me otherwise.
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Sergeant_Stubby

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Edited By Sergeant_Stubby

hmmmmm now will i wait for the american release or just import the one coming out in a few days??? i'll just import, i liked the British voice cast in xenoblade.

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Edited By alex

@Axersia: The press release they put out said they would be handling North American localization duties. I have no idea if that just pertains to certain fringe particulars, or actually involves a new voice track. They didn't say. I'm just going off what Nintendo/XSEED announced.

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WickedCobra03

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Edited By WickedCobra03

This is going to be a great year for RPG's. I feel kind of weird being excited for Wii RPG's than I am for a huge Playstation 3 RPG of Final Fantasy XIII-2. I am in for both!

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Edited By MooseyMcMan

Great. Guess I'll be getting this game, because I dunno. I have a Wii.

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SpaceRunaway

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Edited By SpaceRunaway

Anything to keep funneling money to XSEED.  I will wait for Trails in the Sky: SC for as long as it takes.

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Edited By WickedCobra03
@probablytuna

It's all marketing bullshit, they were always planning on releasing the games. But either way, at least Wii owners around the world will have access to such games, so congratulations.

I think it is a little of both. The Wii has a way more diverse player base than that on the Gamecube, but on the other hand they have a mich larger player base as well. i dunno, all three of those games are pretty niché titles on a sysytem that is on the decline as far as its its life goes. But if they were really planning on bringing them over to the states, why have the translations been left in british-english? I feel like if they were really serious and thought that they were going to sell, they would have brought in native N/A voice actors to lay down a new voice track.
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Edited By Rirse

Glad to see this and Xenoblade come out. Shame nobody ever bought over from Europe Pandora Tower or Pikmin 2 with New Wii Controls.

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Edited By vinsanityv22

That's the SECOND game they got from Nintendo of Europe now (the first being CyberConnect's charming Solatorobo)!

God bless you XSeed! You're one of my favorite publishers for bringing over games like Solatorobo and Fragile Dreams.

I'm pre-ordering Last Story now...although, I'll be honest here, I'm gonna play it on Dolphin Emulator anyway. You guys deserve the money, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna play a game all blurry in 2012. I NEED this and Xenoblade to be up-rezzed. I can't even look at wii games anymore.

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Edited By ninkendo

Fantastic. Gonna have to preorder this soon. The game isn't as genre-redefining as Xenoblade is, but it should still be a fun romp.

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Edited By vince_kupo

Great news, I wonder what will happen with Dragon Quest 10 in all this, tough it is supposed to come to the WiiU

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Edited By Vexxan

Extending the life of the Wii, one game at a time.

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Edited By Kyle

I might have to buy this game just because of that headline.

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Edited By alternate

@Peewi said:

So is it a different localization than the one getting released in Europe? It's always confusing when something has multiple translations for a single language.

That would be highly wasteful - especially if they have to re-record all the VO.

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Edited By Draxyle

Holy crap, I was just about to order this from Europe, I had already modded in order to complete Xenoblade and I was certain this would never make it over.

Nintendo are still cheap bastards, but at least they're allowing this to happen.

So, how about that Earthbound?

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ghostNPC

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Edited By ghostNPC

XSEED, always saving the day.

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Edited By Cybexx

I figured either they or Atlus would eventually bring it over, since both of them are okay bringing over a game that only sells 100k or so. I imported the Japanese version of Last Story a while back and its pretty cool, it has some framerate issues but the gameplay is interesting. It is funny that the JRPGs moving the sub-genre forward are on the Wii, probably something to do with how difficult it has been for Japanese developers to work on HD systems with PSP and Wii being bastions for PS2-level development.

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Zippedbinders

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Edited By Zippedbinders

Great news!

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@ChrisTaran said:

Unfortunately out of the 3 of them I think Pandora's Tower looks to be the more interesting. Still holding out hope for that release!

always want what we can't have :D

If there's a new localization I might actually import the US version even though my copy should arrive this or next week. just for my collection's sake^^

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Edited By dagas

It's out in two days in Europe. Good that Americans will be able to play it as well. I don't know much about it though other than it's by Sakaguchi, but it's not like he's done much good in recent years.

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Edited By Raven10

@WickedCobra03 said:

@probablytuna

It's all marketing bullshit, they were always planning on releasing the games. But either way, at least Wii owners around the world will have access to such games, so congratulations.

I think it is a little of both. The Wii has a way more diverse player base than that on the Gamecube, but on the other hand they have a mich larger player base as well. i dunno, all three of those games are pretty niché titles on a sysytem that is on the decline as far as its its life goes. But if they were really planning on bringing them over to the states, why have the translations been left in british-english? I feel like if they were really serious and thought that they were going to sell, they would have brought in native N/A voice actors to lay down a new voice track.

I always prefer British VO in fantasy RPG's honestly. There was no medieval North America so it never seems right when there are American accents. Besides, British accents are just much cooler than any American dialect.

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Edited By kollay

@Raven10: I recently finished Xenoblade and the VO was magnificent.

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Edited By Shaanyboi

Yay!

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Edited By aleryn

YES! The game sounds GREAT for fans of Hironobu Sakaguchi-produced Final Fantasy and similar games. I just hope I can play it on a Classic Controller; waggle gets old past the 30 hour mark, heh.

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Edited By randgris

alex deserves to get punched for that pun.

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pekoe212

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Edited By pekoe212

Yaaaaaay! Thank you, XSEED!

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Edited By Amethus

Yay, I love these guys. They brought over some of my favorite PSP games (Ys Seven and LoH: Trails in the Sky).

Hope Last Story doesn't disappoint.

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Edited By Hyperball

Is the European localization going to be the same as the North American version like in Xenoblade Chronicles?