Tucked away with my love letters to Nintendo have been my ruminations on the possibility of sequels to the JRPG games dubbed the ‘Operation Rainfall‘ three on the Wii U, and the prospect that the Wii U could be known as more of a JRPG heaven than the Wii was. As an fan of the roleplaying genre, the plethora of options that the Wii U controller offers to enrich this type of game even more is an exciting prospect.

Xenoblade Chronicles, Pandora’s Tower and The Last Story for the Wii are already out in Japan and Europe, and the USA has Xenoblade with The Last Story expected to come out soon. However, Nintendo have yet to announce a USA release date for the action RPG Pandora’s Tower.

These three JRPG titles have become gems in the Wii’s library and have received mostly favourable reviews. But can we expect more like them on Wii U?

What we can expect?

One of the major Japanese roleplaying game series that we do know is coming to the Wii U is Dragon Quest, although it is coming in the form of a massively multiplayer online game. It has already been noted by MMORPG creators that the Wii U is the first console that could hypothetically run these type of games without compromise due to the screen in the controller allowing easy access to “those rows of hotbars that are essential in most MMOs”. If that isn’t enough, there is also the drool-inducing fact that we are going to get to see those lovely Dragon Quest visuals and characters in HD.

Another series that we can realistically hope to see at one point or another in the Wii U’s lifetime is the action RPG Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. The spinoff Final Fantasy series first started life on the Nintendo GameCube and has been on the DS, WiiWare and the Wii since.  The interesting thing about this series was the first game’s focus on local multiplayer using Gameboy Advances as controllers, where each player had information on their Gameboy’s screen. The full realisation of this with the Wii U where each player has there own touchscreen controller probably won’t come to fruition, but there are fun possibilities to the idea of one player having the map or radar on the Wii U controller while the other players use standard controllers and the TV screen.

The main Final Fantasy series making a return to Nintendo?

We haven't seen a numbered Final Fantasy since this one

Nintendo consoles haven’t seen a numbered Final Fantasy since FFVI, though this might be about to change. There have been rumours that Square Enix will announce FFXV at E3 2012 for the Wii U as well as other consoles. Not only this, but Square Enix showed interest in bringing the series to the Wii U last year:

Three or four years ago we joked around about developing a Final Fantasy game on the Wii Fit balance board. But after seeing Wii U revealed at Nintendo’s conference, we are now considering the possibilities of bringing the Final Fantasy series to the format.

The possibility of Wii U sequels to The Last Story and Xenoblade

So far, Xenoblade Chronicles has seemed the most likely to receive a sequel that will debut on the Wii U. In June last year, it was revealed that Monolith Soft, the developers behind Xenoblade, were hiring for work on a Wii U title. Nothing is known about Monolith Soft’s first venture into HD gaming but the developers did say they wanted to make a game that would surprise everyone. So far, the only real clues that we have about the game is that they were hiring for an effects designer to make maps and battle effects, and a motion designer to create battle scenes. Though the game is unlikely to be a direct sequel to the Wii title, it’s still be possible that it may be a similar roleplaying game experience.

The possibility of The Last Story getting a Wii U sequel seemed less certain. The creator of the game, Hironobu Sakaguchi, was very open to making a sequel but he wasn’t sure it would actually happen:

It’s a good idea but I don’t really know whether I will be doing it

Nintendo recently acknowledged that they had prioritised reaching a wider audience for the Nintendo Wii over providing ‘deep’ experiences for ‘core’ video game players. Satoru Iwata noted that they would not be making this mistake again with the Wii U. In terms of ‘core’ gaming experience,s the Wii U seems to be doing well so far with third-party games such as Assassin’s Creed III, Metro: Last Light and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge all making their way to the console. RPG titles such as the ‘Operation Rainfall’ three will be instrumental in providing deeper engrossing experiences in gameplay, and titles such as these will hopefully also make their way to the Wii U.

The Problem of Localisation

Even if sequels for these JRPG titles are announced for the Wii U, they may fail to stir up rampant joy in American gamers’ hearts. The initial lack of localisation of these three RPG titles for the USA resulted in the fan campaign ‘Operation Rainfall’ to encourage the localisation of the titles in the USA, which has seen success for all of the games except Pandora’s Tower. The campaign has brought to light criticisms that the Wii was hardly the home of many deep and engrossing JRPGs. Hopefully, this will make Nintendo take note of how much offerings like these mean to their fans.

So what are your thoughts? Should I have left this article with the creepy Nintendo love letters where it belongs?  Do you think the Wii U needs JRPG titles such as Final Fantasy, Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story? Let me know in the comments below.

On the topic of how long the single player campaign would be, 4A Games had this to say:

We expect the campaign to be at least as long as Metro 2033, and we’re also working hard to ensure there are more reasons to replay the campaign … although we know a lot of you have played and re-played the 2033 campaign multiple times already!

Another fan asked whether the game will have gun customisation:

We’re adding some weapon customization options and we’ll be talking about this feature in more detail later in the year.

When asked about whether the game would feature “exploding barrels” the development team said:

One of our design goals has been to avoid FPS clichés … so no, you will not find exploding barrels on the game. We do have many destructible objects, and in very specific instances some of these can cause damage to a wider area, but these are used judiciously and are appropriate to the environment.

This is a very interesting concept and hopefully it will be one of the features that the Wii U will have.

How do you think this type of functionality could be implemented in a video game?

The former head of Lionhead Studios explained that Nintendo’s “slightly lacklustre” console will have to “blow us away” at E3 2012 with “better specs” and a good first party lineup.

It seems that Nintendo have a job ahead of them to impress those who aren’t quite sure about the Wii U yet and to demonstrate that the console is not “lacklustre”. First party support will indeed be important if the Wii U is to escape the same criticisms of the 3DS. I don’t think E3 2012 can come quick enough.

It’s not just going to be a simple port if we do a console version – if we are shipping a console version, I should say, as we are exploring it actually right now – we want to make it feel native to the console, so there’s a lot of decisions to be made and just a lot of thought and effort that goes into that.

I can’t help feeling that the Wii U would be the perfect console to release such a game on. The easy access to items, spells and abilities that the touchscreen controller would allow seems like too good an opportunity to miss. Do you think Diablo 3 and the Wii U are a good fit?

However, though it seems that Capcom will not have any playable games this does not in any way rule out the announcement of titles for the Wii U from the company.

Eurogamer recently reported that a Wii U version is being developed but by a different team from the Xbox 360, PC and PS3 versions. Not only that but EA have been quite supportive of the Wii U ever since it was shown at E3 2011, so it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to expect that FIFA 13 will be coming to the console.

Would you like to see FIFA 13 on the Wii U?

The problem is, this could just be an acknowledgement of the titles that we already know Tecmo Koei have planned for the Wii U, such as, Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge. However, There have been rumours floating around that Tecmo Koei plans to announce a new IP at E3 2012. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

CVG‘s preview of the game mentioned that aliens are played from the third person view and that there is a class system for xenomorphs as well the marines.

In a recent interview, Gearbox’s Chris Brock explained why they had chosen a third person perspective for the aliens:

We feel it’s key to keep the xenomorph player’s perspective in third person. Xenos have to be sneaky and agile, so the wall and ceiling climbing is a necessity. That said, playing in that style, in first person, can be quite disorienting.

When asked what type of attacks and abilities the xenomorphs would have in multiplayer gameplay Brock replied:

Awesome ones! Xenomorphs are obviously much more agile than their human counterparts, so they’re very quick and have the ability to maneuver about on walls and ceilings. As you’ve seen before, every part of a xenomorph is dangerous, from their claws and tails to their “little mouths” and acidic blood. They have a wide variety of ways to attack the marines.

Hopefully more footage showing off multiplayer gameplay from the xenomorph perspective will be on its way soon. Click here to check out the ideas Gearbox Software had for the Wii U controller last year.

A countdown trailer for the film has appeared on the website ‘Enter the Metro’ but doesn’t give much details about what the film will be about. Head to the website now to stare unwaveringly at the countdown clock until the film is shown.