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Things seem to on the up for Monolith Soft and its Xenoblade Chronicles series. After the original game on Wii was brought over to North America after a nearly absurd amount of fan demand, the second installment in the series, Xenoblade Chronicles X, bypassed all that drama and was announced for worldwide release on the Nintendo Wii U.

Today proved to be yet another good one for the Japanese developer, as the dev's original character Shulk was confirmed as a playable character in the new Super Smash Bros. games. During the same Nintendo Direct that revealed Shulk's new playable fighting role, it was announced that Xenoblade Chronicles is set to be remade and released on the New 3DS.

While many gamers who may have missed the opportunity to play the original may firmly believe that this is their chance to go hands-on with the title, that won't be the case. As has been confirmed by Nintendo, the port will only be able to run on the newly announced 3DS hardware. While Nintendo has emphasized that gamers will be able to enjoy a wide array of older titles on the new hardware, there will be exclusive software.

This is a result of the new handheld's enhanced CPU which allows it to process items faster – thus possessing better capabilities to render Xenoblade Chronicles' massive locales. Taking that into consideration, it makes sense that the impending software will remain exclusive to the New 3DS units.

This does, however, set a precedence that Nintendo will likely follow suit with. With other games requiring the CPU to run software, the additional power of the forthcoming portable will come in handy for developers. Couple that with the C-Button that appears on the New 3DS and Shulk's original outing appears to be a match made in heaven for the handheld aficionados.

Admittedly, the re-release doesn't quite stand up to the visual spectacle that was the Wii original, although it does come close, but it's still impressive that Nintendo managed to get the game running on a portable device.

The game is currently set to hit Japan at some point next year, with an International release date still up in the air. That said, gamers probably won't have to resort to petitioning to have the game released overseas given how well received Xenoblade Chronicles has been on the Wii.

What do you think of Xenoblade Chronicles coming exclusively to the New 3DS?

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