‘Xenoblade Chronicles 2’: New Franchise Entry Big Hit With Western Gamers

The Nintendo Switch has undoubtedly become one of the biggest gadget entries in recent years, both in terms of revenue for its maker and also the appreciation that it has gained from users.

The fact that the Switch — launched on March 3 — was the biggest selling product on both this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales is proof that with this delectable video game console, Nintendo has scored one of its most significant hits outside of Japan, its country of origin.

Behind this success were some great game titles that came to the Switch.

From the brilliantly bloody horror game ‘Doom’ to the smart revamp of an old character driven game, ‘Super Mario Odyssey’ to the stunningly gorgeous and seductively mysterious ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild,’ Nintendo has brought out games that appeal to people with a wide spectrum of tastes, to ensure that the Switch becomes the success that it is today.

The latest entrant in this formidable and growing arsenal of game titles is ‘Xenoblade Chronicles 2.’

Released Dec. 1, the game is a lavishly realized open world adventure that is already gaining rave reviews from users. It is just the latest entry in a long list of loosely related games set in the same world.

However, notwithstanding the great reviews for the latest entry, the game’s history is filled with entries which have repeatedly failed to find a sizeable audience in the Western world, which makes the ecstatic reception the new entry is receiving somewhat baffling.

‘ Xenogears’ — the original game itself is a great example.

‘Xenogears’ was a Japanese role-playing game that was highly acclaimed by critics. The game, launched in Japan in February 1998 was created by the company Square. Released during the original PlayStation era, it was considered rather advanced for its time. Not only was its animation extremely polished for the time, the game also explored serious themes like science and religion, which are rarely handled in video games with anything resembling maturity. On top of that, the battle system in the game was very complex.

But even with all such things in favor of the game, it was never even released in Europea.

Once the game director, Tetsuya Takahashi, left Square, he founded his own company, Monolith Soft. This studio created the game, ‘Xenosaga’ for PS2 (launched in Japan on Feb. 28, 2002). This was essentially a trilogy that — even though not directly linked to the story of the first game — nonetheless worked in the same premises. But only the second game got released in Europe.

The first part of ‘Xenoblade Chronicles’(released in Japan in 2010) itself was not played by many users in the Wwest because the company chose a bad launch date — the game came too late in the Nintendo Wii cycle.

Nintendo tried to remedy this situation by releasing a portable remake. But that was playable only on the Nintendo 3DS, thereby limiting the number of players.

This was followed by the release of ‘Xenoblade Chronicles X’ (released in Japan in April 2015). This was a heavily publicized release but it was launched on Wii U. It was a console that sold just a measly 13.56 million units in its entire life.

Given this history, it would be easy to doubt the future success of ‘Xenoblade Chronicles 2’ but the way things are looking now, it’s bound to be a big hit.