Xenogears Translator Reflects on Challenges of Adapting the Iconic PS1 JRPG While Navigating Personal Beliefs
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These days, it’s almost expected that you’ll face off against a god—or at least a representation of one—by the end of any JRPG. Back in 1998, when Xenogears debuted on the PS1, this concept stirred quite a bit of controversy. Translator Richard Honeywood recalls his experience working on Xenogears as quite challenging—not just because of its religious themes.
“You have to understand that the content was quite intense: it’s filled with references to Jungian and Freudian psychology, and it’s fundamentally about killing god,” Honeywood shares. “At that time, I was a Jehovah’s Witness, so that aspect weighed heavily on my conscience, and some staff in the US were also concerned about potential backlash.”
For instance, Square’s US branch “wanted us to remove the word Church, capitalized, because it might be interpreted as a reference to the Catholic Church. I had to approach the development team before the Japanese version launched and ask them to tone down some of the content.”
This isn’t the first time Honeywood has discussed the concerns surrounding the religious imagery in Xenogears. “One of the translators was worried and said, ‘I don’t want fundamental Christians or other religious groups getting upset and causing trouble,'” he recounted in a previous interview. Consequently, two other localization team members left the project, leaving Honeywood to tackle it alone.
Ultimately, Xenogears didn’t spark much mainstream controversy (it did earn a reputation as one of the best JRPGs ever made), but Honeywood faced significant challenges in translating it with limited resources. The literary references in the game were particularly tough to navigate.
“Being in Japan, I didn’t have access to English books, let alone German ones,” Honeywood explains. “I had to go to the National Library, where some of these foreign texts were stored, to research these concepts and find their English equivalents.”
At that time, internet access was scarce in Japanese companies. “We couldn’t just hop on Wikipedia to look up information,” Honeywood adds, “so, as you can imagine, it was a total nightmare!”
“In the end, I nearly burned out on that title, and people noticed,” he concludes. “They saw me sleeping in the office every night, looking like a zombie. I hardly ever went home, just trying to get it done. At that point, they realized, ‘This guy really cares about our titles and is dedicated to them.’ So we weren’t handing it off to just anyone who would deliver a subpar translation.”
The writer of Chrono Trigger and the composer of Xenogears are teaming up for a new JRPG, featuring a sick frog warrior, set to launch on Switch and PC this summer.
