What up nerds? New script update available so go ahead and download from the 'Translation' tab in the menu, read it, and feel free to comment on any insight or feedback you may have. This update covered the entirety of the crew's stay in peaceful Nisan just up to the start of the mission to take back Bledavik. Just a quick note, I'll soon be updating the script sharing format. A Reddit user provided me the link to the rom hack (as did a reader in the first post) with the full game script files. Since I don't have the rom-hack know-how, and the tools are only usable on PC while I use a Mac, I'm still not able to hack my script directly into the rom file. But I was able to extract the game script files as they exist in game. Hopefully, by just changing the script text in the files and providing them to the community, someone will be able to insert it into the rom to make it playable. That said, going forward, I'm going to slowly be inserting my current WIP script into the game script files and provide those via the download tab on the menu as well. Because I'm a fiend for torture, I'm still going to work with and provide the regular Excel sheet as I've been doing since I find it easier to track my thoughts, but this way, hopefully we'll be a step closer to a playable translation. I love tedium!
Alright, so to start, the crew arrives in Nisan. There's some lengthy backstory given to the Church of Nisan and a new key character, Sophia, the founder of the Church of Nisan. Surprisingly, there weren't too many alterations needed here to preserve the religious messaging. Both the Japanese script and the original English translation are fairly straight forward. All I've done is rewrite the dialogue to make it more natural sounding.
Bart, Fei, and Citan meet Sigurd and Maison back at the meeting hall for some more exposition bomb drops. Here we learn Citan and Sigurd have a past with Solaris. A few things to note here. The Solaris capital, called Etrenank in the original translation, is actually a mistranslation of Etemenanki as indicated by the Japanese. Etemenanki, or
エテメナンキ, was an ancient Babylonian ziggurat dedicated to the god Marduk, and is said to be a possible inspiration for the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel. According to the story from the Book of Genesis, following the Great Flood as told in the Bible, a united human race speaking a single language migrate eastward where they agree to build a city and a tower tall enough to reach heaven. God, observing their city and tower, confounds their speech as punishment for their hubris so that they can no longer understand each other, and scatters them around the world. Given how this clearly deepens the relationship between Solaris and the surface in the Xenogears universe, I'll be using Etemenanki going forward.
The rest of this exposition dump plays out relatively smoothly translation-wise but I've elaborated on a couple lines for clarity when Sigurd is explaining Solaris' use of the Lambs for slave labor and human testing. For example, I've added in a sentence that reads "In other words, they support their country's operations by abducting surface dwellers to supplement the labor." I've elaborated on this sentence because the original Japanese infers a lot with not a lot of words. It reads「つまり、残りを地上人で補う事で国を維持しているわけです。」 The bit about abduction is not written in the original Japanese but heavily implied based on the previous details of the conversation. Similarly, shortly afterwards in the same conversation I've added this line "In other words, we were guinea pigs for their research and development of pharmaceutical stimulants." This line is actually not present in the Japanese script but I've added it to account for the extra text box in the English translation during the cinematic camera pan and also give more clarity. Later on, during the discussion on the bridge in the town, I've made a small adjustment as well where Bart mentions he was expecting Sigurd to say something like they were "childhood rivals." I've changed it to "I think I was just expecting something much different. Like being on opposite sides of the war as kids or something." This better reflects the Japanese to me as the Japanese uses 敵同士 which means more like "mutual enemies" but this doesn't really make sense since if they were enemies, they likely would have already known each other. I've changed it to this to keep the general meaning while remaining in line with Bart's expectation.
Moving on, we've got some really interesting translation choices in the original English that I've corrected in mine. To be honest, they're mostly trivial relative to the plot, but it bugged me so badly since the original English translation completely inverts the Japanese. The error occurs during the mission briefing sequence when the characters are strategizing the capture of Bledavik. As I've translated, Bart asks Citan after being briefed on Vanderkam, "Anyways, Citan, do you think we'd be able to deal any damage with our small unit?" The Honeywood translations flips this though and seems to be mistaking the subject of the Japanese, reading "Do you think he can strike our gear forces?". The original Japanese script, however, reads そいつらは俺たちのギア部隊でも叩けるのか？ The subject in the English sentence should actually be Bart and his gear units, not Vanderkam's forces. This mistake may have been made because the そいつら precedes the は particle, the particle that often indicates the subject, rather than 俺たちのギア部隊 which kind of makes it a bit confusing as to who the actual subject is. However in this context, the usage of the は particle here is easier to think of as "In regards to his forces, even we would be able to strike him?" This translation error then changes the nuance of Citan's response. Here Citan is saying 問題ないでしょう meaning "It's not a problem." But with the original translation's previous line , this line then took on the nuance of "It's not a problem because he won't do damage." where it should sound more like "It won't be a problem for us to deal damage to his unit." The original mistranslation's consequences continue in the next line as well, which I've correctly translated to "But Vanderkam aside, even if we are able to successfully create a diversion…they will still have a significant amount of military strength left with which to retaliate." Again here's another instance in which the original English has flipped the subjects due to the previous mistake. The original translation reads "Even with Vanderkam, we have enough forces left to pull off the feint." where the original Japanese reads 但しヴァンダーカムはさておき、うまくこちらの思惑通りに陽動できたとしても、本国には充分な戦力が残っているはずです。The strength remaining in the home country should be referring to Solaris/Shakhan forces, not Bart. Note: I added the "with which to retaliate" to further the effect of the next line about consequences if they're over optimistic.
Fast forwarding a bit to the crew at the Nisan ship dock about to depart for Bledavik as the operation preparations are completed. Bart says farewell to Margie with Sister Agnes and as he leaves, Agnes converses with Margie expressing her anticipation of the return of the King of Aveh and the re-establishment of the Fatima dynasty, stating "I look forward to the day when you Lady Marguerite, as the Holy Mother of the Church of Nisan…you and Bartholomew will sit on the throne as husband and wife like the Fatimas of old." I've then added a new line following this that reads "You know it was quite common for even cousins to marry to continue the royal lineage." This might be a bit controversial, but I've added the "of old" in the previous line and a little context in this extra line to circle back to the Fatima tradition (?) of in-family marriage (which I don't believe is mentioned anywhere else in the script). The idea to do so came after listening to the Resonant Arc podcast series deep dive on Xenogears. The guys on there stated how surprised they were at the nonchalance of an incestuous marriage reference, given that the principal demographic for this game at the time of its release was probably much younger than the writing implies. Marrying cousins was rather common historically in not just feudal Europe, but in cultures all over the world, but by today's standards can probably catch the player off guard since Bart and Margie are previously introduced to be cousins. The game also doesn't really indicate strongly that this was commonplace in the Fatima lineage. I think I'd want to follow up with community consensus here to determine if adding this line is better, worse, or whatever.
Alright, cut to Fei, Citan, Bart, and the troops getting ready to depart. Here's another one of the more famous localization changes due to the original Japanese being a pun. Maitreya, or as I've translated his name Miroku as per the original Japanese, is all pumped to deploy. In the original English translation he exclaims something to the extent of, "We'll drag Vanderkaum's tail around and around! Right son!?" To which Fei bizarrely replies, "Don't call me 'son'...cuz you sure ain't my pops." Just...what? To me, this seems very outside of Fei's character and not like something he would say at all.
So since there's a lot going on here, in order to understand this better, we need to look at four versions for comparison: the Japanese, the literal English translation, the Honeywood English translation, and my translation.
JAPANESE
Miroku: ヴァンダーカムの尻尾を引きずり回して、きりきり舞させてやります！なぁ！ぼうず！
Fei: 俺は"ぼうず”じゃない。死んでも経はあげてやれないぜ、おっさん。
Miroku: ん？はぁっはぁっはは。。
LITERAL MEANING
Miroku: We'll drag Vanderkam around by his tail and make him dance! Right, son!?
Fei: I'm no monk, and if you die, I won't be chanting any sutras for you, old man.
Miroku: Huh? Ha ha ha...
ORIGINAL TRANSLATION
Miroku: We'll drag Vanderkaum's tail around and around! Right son!?
Fei: Don't call me 'son'...cuz you sure ain't my pops.
Miroku: Huh? Ha ha ha...
MY TRANSLATION
Miroku: Time to smack Vanderkam around and bring him into the present day! Right son!?
Fei: Don't get cocky, old man, 'cause I don't want to have to bury you out there.
Miroku: Ha! Not bad, but you got a-ways to go before you're talking like a soldier.
Now that we've seen the differences, here's why. First of all, the original Japanese reads: ヴァンダーカムの尻尾を引きずり回して、きりきり舞させてやります！なぁ！ぼうず！ This literally translates as "We'll drag Vanderkam around by his tail and make him dance! Right, son!?" Fei then responds 俺は"ぼうず”じゃない。死んでも経はあげてやれないぜ、おっさん。If you couldn't tell by the literal translation making no sense whatsoever, the original Japanese is a pun on the previous line's use of the word ぼうず, which can mean both "son" or "kid" and also refer to a Buddhist monk. Miroku is obviously using the former meaning of the word to refer to Fei colloquially, but Fei makes a pun by responding 俺は"ぼうず”じゃない。死んでも経はあげてやれないぜ、おっさん。This translates in English to something like "I'm no monk, and if you die, I won't be chanting any sutras for you, old man." In Japanese this wordplay makes sense (though it's still not funny) because of the double meaning of the word and the fact that in Japan, Buddhist priests perform funeral rites. It's dialogue that's VERY reliant on Japanese cultural context. In Miroku's response is the evidence that Fei's pun joke failed. Miroku responds ん？はぁっはぁっはは。。 This is kind of like a doubting "Huh?" followed by what reads to me as forced laughter.
And now my translation. Firstly, for Miroku's first line, I've changed the line to reflect the sentiment that they'll use modern tactics to beat Vanderkam's traditional warfare sensibility. It reads "Time to smack Vanderkam around and bring him into the present day, eh son!?" To follow this, I've tried to have Fei keep the original sentiment by cracking a joke about Miroku getting killed, but it not coming off as particularly funny or interesting. I've also kept the elder-junior dynamic using "son" and "old man" in the exchange. I've changed Miroku's response to this line to give him a bit more of an active response here, but again, I've tried to keep a similar sentiment by having him point out Fei's failure to take a good jab at him. The original Japanese reads more like confusion and dismissal, where in my translation, I've chosen to have him show a little more compassion.
Alright, that's about it for this round. The crew sets off to retake Bledavik, Ramsus walks out nekked on Miang after having a nightmare, and we end the camera cuts to Elly about to meet her Gevurah squadmates.
Questions, comment, concerns below! See you nerds next time.
-Nino
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