I have added a new article that deals with rumors of a possible continuation or a remake of the Xenogears and/or Xenosaga series. The idea is that once something is said or appears in an interview by the creators, fans can add this in the comment field and in this way have new information pile up there in case I'm on a break from the fandom. I'm not really keeping track of things anymore and also have some skepticism that anything will truly come out of these rumors or talk among the developers, but I get that people would want a section on the study guide that deals with a possible future of the series. So here it is.
Most of the article is currently only the last part of the History of Xenosaga article that's been moved and then slightly expanded upon.
You might have already seen this, but my hunch is that some of this will interest you:
ReplyDeletehttps://xenomira.wordpress.com/2019/06/07/the-tribulations-of-xenosaga-created-xenoblade-harada-breaks-it-down-vol-7-we-asked-takahashi-tetsuya-about-monolith-soft-summary/
Thank you Lugal, I had not seen it. I don't understand what he means with the rendering engine not being finished for Episode I though... How does that explain why there are so many cutscenes?
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of contacting you since I may have some more bits from the Xenogears script I need someone knowledgeable in Japanese to take a look at. The most important one is right at the start of Disc 2 when Fei describes his dreams/memories of past lives, he says:
"A vast nebulous... With no boundaries...
An emptiness equivalent to my own existence...
I dreamt such a dream...
A long... Never-ending, dream..."
I need to know if the original says the same thing so that I can use this quote to support a theory of mine.
I'm not a game developer, so I can only surmise what he meant, but my guess is that the "rendering engine" refers to the actual Ep I graphical engine, and a lot of long pre-rendered cutscenes were used to compensate for the fact that there was no game engine yet and cutscenes couldn't be rendered with the game's engine until very late in the game's development.
ReplyDeleteAs for your quoted script, I would say yeah, it pretty much says the same thing. You don't have to hesitate to ask me these kinds of things. I have a contact tab on my wordpress which is a good way to communicate via email, and I also recently started a twitter account (https://twitter.com/Xeno_Mira) that accepts DMs from anyone if Twitter is a better platform for you. I'm also active on a discord server I created (https://discord.gg/e2HR2EG) if that's an easier way to contact, too. I don't say this to just you, by the way, but anyone reading this. I've helped someone about translations through email, and I answer questions about translations on the discord server all the time. If I can help you in some way, don't hesitate to hit me up.
Then I'll send you an E-mail via the Contact page on Mira and we can continue talking about double checking some translations by mail.
DeleteAs far as the interview is concerned, I might incorporate some of that new info into the history article. But there seems to be some context missing from when Harda says "... Man, I’m sure the overseas Xenosaga fans will have a field day with this article. saying there might still be hope." What is he talking about, hope for what? Is it something to do with the Xenosaga petition to get it released in HD?
I thought it would come across without the context, but I could see why it wouldn’t. Basically, earlier in the interview when Harada tells Takahashi about the petition, he says that overseas fans, not knowing where to turn their demand for a Xenosaga HD/sequel/whatever, went to Harada. While it’s not flat out derogatory, he paints a picture of confused and misdirected gaijin who are desperate for anything. I don’t know how closely you follow Sorayasaga’s twitter, if at all, but she frequently complains about those overseas people who always harass her everytime there is indication a XS remaster or whatever might be coming. Those kinds of people.
DeleteSo your question. What hope? There is none. That’s the point. That these stupid foreigners will find a way to misconstrue the interview perhaps because of a language barrier, wishful thinking, or both, and say there is in fact hope where there is none. I find this particularly funny because the overseas crowd goes on to prove how desperate and confused they are by trusting a machine translation and spreading false information about how Takahashi said the next XB game is 8-10 months in and 3 years away.
Did you get the message I sent through your Contact page?
DeleteI stopped looking at Soraya's twitter a long time ago, so I don't really follow what's going on.
I find the part interesting where you say Monolith Soft has sent Nintendo 10+ business proposals for approval over the years, but the only one that has been approved recently was Xenoblade. I wonder what those other proposals were, and I wonder if this is partly what seems to prevent them from moving beyond Xenoblade into something new?
I don't know how much truth is in that statement Takahashi made; or at least I don't think it's as profound as it sounds.
DeleteBecause Soma Bringer and Disaster Day of Crisis were published by Nintendo. We don't know how recent "recently" is, and if we go all the way back to when Nintendo acquired 80% of Monolith Soft's stock, who knows how many proposals they've pitched overall.
I speak about this having learned about it recently, but when Xenoblade was announced Iwata talked about how they decided to switch the name to "Xenoblade" from Monado because it was a "special name" or something like that. This is all but speculation, but perhaps Nintendo's (or Iwata's) primary objective from the beginning was to get a JRPG close enough to Xeno (gears/saga) as part of a product diversification effort. As I've said before, it is highly likely had it not been for Hattori's involvement in XB1 the Conduit or something like it was going to make an appearance. As you mentioned the last time we talked, Soma Bringer shares some concepts with the XB games too. The world tree in XB2 is pretty similar to whatever that tower is in Soma Bringer. I was reading an old interview about how Takahashi had a plot for Soma that could span multiple games, and he picked out one part of it for that game. But XB isn't really Soma re-skinned either. So I don't know. I rambled a lot but I'm just not really sure what Takahashi's intent or goal is. I'm guessing you haven't read this, but there's a little page of text I translated (https://xenomira.wordpress.com/2018/11/28/translation-of-background-information-on-siren-included-in-the-siren-model-kit/) that is playing with fire when it comes to past games. Gratuitous references? In part, probably. But I feel like that doesn't explain everything. So this is a really long winded way of me saying that Takahashi probably hasn't moved on from Xenoblade because he himself doesn't want to. Although Monolith Soft does (apparently?) now have 2 projects in the works, so I guess as a company they are looking beyond Xenoblade.
I did visit Mira a month or so ago and read up on what you had translated since we last talked. My impression was that Takahashi wanted to make some kind of high fantasy type of work, and it seems it became a new Zelda instead or something. So, combined with the number of disapproaved proposals mentioned, it had me wonder.
DeleteHello, I remember reading the study guide years ago, and there were sections for "advanced analisis" for the universe, the story, and the characters. Are there plans to bring these sections back? Specially I'd love to have all the stuff about psychology accessible. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteIt might come back in some form. The old format doesn't lend itself well to the blog format and there are things from Takahashi interviews (both old and new) since then that have made me look at things in the works a bit differently. I'm also waiting for more interviews to be translated.
DeleteHello. I have only stumbled upon this last year, but I have a lot of admiration for the work that you have put into researching Xenogears/Xenosaga throughout the years. I am currently working on a fan hack which is partly dedicated to correcting some of the scenes. Would it be alright for me to use some of the versions of the scenes used in the translation section of this blog?
ReplyDeleteIt is alright by me. Some of the translators themselves might like it if you credit them though. Use your own judgment. It's not like there is any contact information left to reach them, so I wouldn't worry about asking them for permission. I didn't ask for their permission to preserve their translation on this blog. I figured it'd be alright as long as I credited them, and I've had no complaints.
DeleteAlright. I'll make sure I credit them. Thanks for the advice. I look forward to seeing what you plan on doing next.
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