Note from the translator

Hi internet. Thanks for visiting the Zeboim Project, one Japanese speaking Xenogears fan's passion project to translate the game as the script intended without the limitations of cultural sensitivities or publisher deadlines. For full transparency, I want to start by saying that though I have a fair amount of localization experience, I am not a translator by trade. I have over ten years of Japanese language experience including four years of major study at Boston University, and living and working around Japan at both Japanese and international companies while voraciously digesting as much media as I could acquire to improve my language skills. I've been a fan of Xenogears since first playing it in junior high school, and have replayed the English version at several intervals in my life. Although I was aware of the development troubles and localization issues that the game is now well known for, it was only after playing through the game again in Japanese during the coronavirus pandemic that I realized the stark differences. All it took was a little encouragement from some non-Japanese speaking friends who are also long time fans of the game to convince me to try my hand at my own translation.

To be clear, this translation is not to correct any of the choices made by the original translator, Richard Honeywood. I have the utmost respect for his localization choices given the the scale of the work, development timeline, profound philosophical and religious undertones of the story, limitations of the hardware, and the demands of the industry to make it palatable to foreign audiences sensitive to religious criticism. This is merely a passion project to provide a more transparent version of the story as conveyed by the original game script for those who want to enjoy it that way. That said, for the translation, I will be using the game script printed in Xenogears: Thousands of Daggers as my source material which does not include all the dialogue of every NPC, but only the main plot elements. Because of this, I'm a little ignorant to text box limitations. While I will of course do my best to keep it concise in case someone wants to use it for a ROM hack, I'd rather prioritize an accurate representation of the original script and themes. If I need to include an extra line of dialogue here or there, making it longer to get the point across, I think that's okay.

I'm more than welcome to community dialogue for this and am certainly open to adjusting as I go if that's a concern for people. Also, while I am sure I will use the original Richard Honeywood translation as a reference at points, I am also choosing to not necessarily abide by many of the choices made in that translation regarding character names, places, events, etc. I also recommend you check out The Xenosaga Wiki, as it's an absolutely awesome encyclopedic resource for backstory that I will also be referring to often to make sure my translation remains consistent with the greater game universe and symbolic elements. Though I won't be using it as much, The Xenogears and Xenosaga Study Guide is another awesome resource for information on the universe that I highly recommend checking out.

I will detail my progress and explain my translation choices in blog updates on this site going forward (and on the Zeboim Project instagram account) so please feel free to follow along, engage me academically in my choices, and provide feedback. Constructive criticism is more than welcome, but no hate, trash talk, or intolerance; this is just one fan's perspective so let's make it intelligent discourse! One last thing to note, as I don't have the software to hack a rom and revise the script directly in game, I'll basically just be sharing my translations via post updates on this site and a final text document. If anyone would like to work with me to plug my translation into a rom to make it playable, please reach out! I'd love for that to happen. Anyways, thanks for reading and hope you enjoy my translation.

For my non-videogame related marketing work portfolio, check out here.

-Nino