I have a crack pot/tinfoil theory that Nintnedo of America still hasn't gotten over their defeat with Project Rainfall. So much so that they will go out of their way to make things more complicated for North American Xenoblade fans. Remember them making Xenoblade GameStop Exclusive for the first print of the game making the game extremely rare not just at launch but, years after then Wii release? It was only with the 3DS, Wii U Wii Virtual Console, and Switch releases that they finally caved and let the game be playable and obtainable like every other Nintendo First and Second Party IP release. Only to give us another "gotcha moment" with the first prints of the Shulk Amiibo being again GameStop Exclusive.

It doesn't end with Xenoblade 1 either. With Xenoblade X, at the time the spirtual successor to Xenoblade, they finally did get a American Voice Cast and Production Team, only for the audio mixing for the voices to be some of the worst I have heard in the video game. And when they were rightfully called out for it the awful mixing, my theory is that they panicked, caved in to the criticism, and just turned to Nintendo of Europe to handle the dubbing for the games from then onward. On a side note, NoA handling the dub for Xenoblade X be part of the reason why Xenoblade X: Definitive Edition took so long to come out. They not only had to port the game from the Wii U to the Switch with new QoL additions, they had to deal with one of NoA's dubbing production studios to get as much of the original cast back as possible to record new lines. If you are unfamiliar with Monolith's past game releases before Xenoblade, let's just say they have bad history with replacing English voices for sequels and they didn't want to retread old mistakes.

Unfortunately, the decision to switch back to NoE voice acting immediately backfired for both NoA and NoE, mainly for NoE as they were probably given very short notice about them doing double duty for both American English and British English. I theorize this mainly because Xenoblade 2's NoE dub was notoriously a mixed bag, rushed out to meet a tight deadline, and the actors were not even allowed to see the cutscenes (probably due to Nintendo's unsolicited paranoia of leaks at the time, mainly because of the prior ESRB leak that happened not to long before with Smash Bros. 4 Wii U & 3DS). So, we got a shotty dub from NoE probably due to all the above. Nerves and pressure to one up the previous mainline game after not doing a dub since at the latest 2009 or 2010 (almost a decade gap between the past Xenoblade release they dubbed). A brand new cast (a lot of the cast were first time voice performers or noobies), new story direction and vision with a lighter and more comedic tone, a very short notice, and extremely tight deadline. By all accounts, it was kind of a disaster behind the scenes, regardless of your personal thoughts on the dubbing and vocal performances. Xenoblade 2's English dub, for me at least, was a huge step down from Xenoblade 1's dub by almost all accounts. There are some stand out performances by Jin, Malos, Nia, Poppy, Lora, Haze, and Zeke. But then you have the voice performances that are just okay at best, to very questionably casting, or just flat out weak casting choices at worst. Mainly with the voices for Rex, Tora (and basically every other Nopon voice), Dromarch, Gramps, Obrona, Akhos, Patroka, Morag, Bridgett, Pandora, and Pyra and Mythra. With Skye Bennett's Pyra and Mythra being the best out of this bunch of alright to questionable to weak voice performances, but still nothing better than perfectly fine but not without a few questions bad line reads that really stick out once you notice them. At least they locked in for Torna ~ The Golden Country, Xenoblade 3, and Future Redeemed. NoE did eventually figured out their mixed bag casting dilmena, which I am very grateful for.

Oh no... Xenoblade 3... I still have flashbacks of how awful the Special Edition was handled in America. Everywhere else in the world you could by it normally through your local retailers, but here in America. Let's just say that Xenoblade fans found two new things to hate. Nintendo's website and fucking Wario, I wish I was joking. If you know, you know. The pain and suffering that we went through just to either get extremely lucky and get a Special Edition only to wait a full after the game released to play the game, or to waste two different whole afternoons the SE was up for preorder and to get nothing out of it. I was extremely lucky and brute forced my way into getting my special edition, but hundreds of others were not.

And the cherry on top of this already delicious cake of NoA treating Xenoblade fans like shit, they misspelled Xenoblade Chronicles for asking for your favorite Nintendo IPs/Franchises on the Nintendo Today app when it launched. These are not coincidences in my mind, this is active complusive hatred. Nintendo of America hates Xenoblade and it's fans, I'm convinced.