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Xenogears Perfect Works Translated

Posted by Bob Mackey

Classic PSX RPG Xenogears may have had its share of flaws, but its ambition was impressive; the game contained so much mythology that much of the story ended up being untold (or told poorly) due to budget problems. Fans of Tetsuya Takahashi's epic tale followed the writer through a labyrinth of Xenosaga games some years later, but most were disappointed by a follow-up series that didn't stick to the plans laid out in a little book called Xenogears: Perfect Works. This Xenogears bible, released in Japan by DigiCube in 1998, wasn't just an all-encompassing source of information for all things Xenogears; it also indicated plans for the series as a whole, as Xenogears was intended to be the fifth episode of an epic saga. Unfortunately, this book has only been available in Japanese, and is notorious for its insane resale price--so you may want to sell your copy now that a completely scanned translation (AKA "scanslation") is available on the Internet for free.

Apparently, Xenogears fan Ultimate Graphics dumped five months of his life into this project, and the results are amazing. The fact that he (and I'm guessing it's a he) managed to translate and physically edit over 300 pages of Xenogears-related text should even impress those--like me--who played through the game a decade ago and can't see themselves going back. But if you've got an urge to plow through Xenogears again with knowledge about what the hell was actually happening in the story, you'll definitely want to head over to the project's flickr page to see what you've been missing.

Special thanks to the Retronauts Twitter for the news tip.

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Posted Apr 15 2009, 01:30 PM

Filed under: fan project, xenogears, fan projects, bob mackey, square enix

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About Bob Mackey

For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.

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