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The Legend of Xanadu
(An Introduction for Non-Gamers…)

If you're not much of a gamer yourself, the first thing you imagine when you hear "video game" might be Mario jumping to grab a mushroom, or maybe a spaceship blowing up an asteroid. Video games are usually all about action, it's true, but did you know that some of them are centered on telling a story? It might sound crazy, but over the course of playing a video game, some people will read entire novels' worth of text, usually as dialogue, because that's what it takes to get across the enormous stories found in certain video games. Everyone needs a hobby, right? Trust us, it's fun.


ICONS: Asteroids (1979). Super Mario Bros. (1985).

Video games that put a lot of emphasis on story often fall under a category called RPG, or role-playing-game. If there is a single RPG you've ever heard of, it's probably one of the games in the Final Fantasy series, and it's no coincidence that Final Fantasy is made by a Japanese company. Japan is to RPGs what Hollywood is to movies. They're not the only ones making good stuff, don't get us wrong, but in terms of quantity, quality, and sheer influence, Japan is simply the RPG-King. This was especially true twenty years ago.


JAPANESE RPG TITANS: In addition to Final Fantasy, the Dragon Quest and Ys games are staples of the JRPG genre.

The late 1980s and the whole of the 1990s are actually considered to be the golden age of Japanese gaming, period. But where the story gets interesting is when you look at all of the video games from this era, both RPGs and others, that never went on sale anywhere outside of Japan. It's a bafflingly large number. In fact, it's actually the majority of the games made there.

Putting a good video game on sale overseas seems like such a no-brainer. The game is already finished; if you sold a million at home, why not sell another million abroad, right? However, some game companies were so small that they often didn't want to spend resources on translation and foreign distribution, and console-makers like Nintendo hadn't yet built any infrastructure to help them, either. In other cases, the console necessary to play the game itself might not have had any market-foothold outside of Japan, which would have made sales of any game on it impossible. For these reasons and more, there are vast treasure troves of Japanese games that never had a shot at coming out in the West, and a great many of these are RPGs…some among the best RPGs ever made.

Can they be imported? Sure. However, when Joe English-Speaker loads them up, he's going to run head-first into this:


LANGUAGE BARRIER: Sadly, for many people, the language barrier prevents full-immersion and enjoyment of an RPG.

This is where fan-translations come in. Thanks to the internet, it's gotten very easy to distribute translation "patches" that can literally turn all of the Japanese words found in a game into English, or whatever other language is desired. When done well, the result can look every bit as good as an official translation. Ultimately, these patches open up the game to a whole new audience that couldn't have appreciated it otherwise, like subtitles added to a lost foreign movie. Of course, making a video-game patch is hard work, since it requires translating, reprogramming, and drawing up new art, but people find the motivation to do it because so many of these lost Japanese games are downright masterpieces.

This is what the Legend of Xanadu games are, and why we're doing everything we can to translate them. They were made by an incredibly exciting team of developers, and in terms of scope, they were the greatest thing these people ever attempted. The games themselves have a unique and highly refined style of presentation, and most importantly, they're a lot of fun to play. The only problem is that they were produced by a company that never published abroad, and they ran on a console that few outside Japan owned anyway.



FAN-TRANSLATION: A "patched" version of The Legend of Xanadu allows players to enjoy every aspect of the game in English.

Whether or not video games excite you, we hope that you can appreciate what a great thing fan-translations are for the people who love them. If you happen to be someone who can act and has access to a microphone, we also hope you'll give our character-list page a look. In total, there is over an hour's worth of special voice-acted scenes in the two games, and we need actors for our English translation who can deliver lines that call for passion and subtlety alike. Who knows? You might actually get quite a kick out of doing it.

All auditions are welcome. If you have any questions at all, please let us know, and we'll do our best to answer them. If you don't think this is for you but know someone who might be a good candidate, please send them our way. The translation patch will be free, and so we won't be able to pay anyone for their performance, but we're so confident in how special The Legend of Xanadu is that we're sure that all who participate will be glad that they did.

Thank you for your time!