this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2026
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After Nearly 15 Years of Work, The Legend of Xanadu Can Finally Be Played in English (handheldhideout.neocities.org)
submitted 11 hours ago by PerfectDark@lemmy.world to c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
17 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Today's little retro gaming article (just on my NeoCities, no big feature article on my regular site this time) is about the newly released English translation of The Legend of Xanadu, Falcom's 1994 PC Engine RPG, which has finally become accessible to English-speaking players after nearly 15 years of work.

Just a little look beyond the release announcement and explore the people and effort behind it, particularly John Brandwood (Elmer) and SamIam, who've spent literal years working through the game's technical challenges, translating its enormous amount of dialogue, and even attempting a full English voice dub at one point.

I dug through some of their old development discussions and found a few interesting comments from years ago, including one from 2018 where SamIam insisted the project was never dead, despite the long periods of silence. There's also a little about Falcom's history, the original game's development and why projects like this are such an important part of game preservation. Really enjoyed learning more about this one! Hope this is the right space to share it :)

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[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

isn't this part of the Dragon Slayer series that includes bangers like Legacy of the Wizard and Sorcerian?

[–] Kriznick@lemmy.world 8 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Keep fighting the good fight and keep reporting!

[–] PerfectDark@lemmy.world 38 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (5 children)

P.S.

I know I've been writing and sharing a bunch of little articles here lately. Do let me know if you're a bit tired of these.

Both my site and my NeoCities experiment are ad free (obviously, with the latter), so there's no alterior motives when I share my writing here. But I do worry I'm just sharing them too much and becoming a slight annoyance.

Feel free to chime in and let me know if I'm annoying you all. I scrolled down the main page of this community and I see so many of my own posts. I don't want to become a bother!

[–] tanisnikana@lemmy.world 40 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Buddy, you’re putting content on Lemmy. You’re keeping this place alive.

[–] BCOVertigo@piefed.world 8 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'm subscribed to your posts, so don't stop or the herculean effort I exerted to click that little bell on your profile will have been wasted.

[–] PerfectDark@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

I won't ever let any effort like that go to waste. Thanks for confirmation. Now that two of you have said I've got the all-clear to keep on inundating this space with my articles ...well, you have been warned :P

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 4 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

This is great, thank you! Your contributions are great, I personally only get annoyed when people post stuff way too many of the same thread in an hour. I think like a daily newsletter like thing is fine for most people.

[–] halcyoncmdr@piefed.social 3 points 7 hours ago

Yeah, there is a crosspost function, separate posts clog everything up for no reason.

And as long as there is effort put in, like an actual explanation of the link or excerpt from an article it's usually fine.

The report bot crap spamming 500 communities separately with just a random link... Those are the issue.

This is content. And someone putting the effort in to give content to the lurkers are what makes a site like this work.

[–] tomkatt@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

Keep on keeping on, no complaints here.

[–] HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

Keep them coming - I love to see things like this on my feed. Keep up the good work!

[–] kahjtheundedicated@lemmy.world 5 points 10 hours ago

Hell yeah, love hearing about games like this getting translated! Major kudos to Elmer and Samlam, that’s dedication. This game is going on my short list

[–] Labotomized@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

Wanted to say thanks for the article! Reminds me a guy I stumbled upon on YouTube called Basement Brothers. The old computer games are pretty fascinating.

[–] Canuck@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

I would love to see Trails of the Sky 2 & 3 translations come to PSP too, given they only fully released 1 in English officially

[–] tomkatt@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

All three are available on Steam, English translated.

[–] Canuck@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 hours ago

I know and also GOG, and there is even the remakes coming out.

I'm hoping specifically to be able to play on the go on PSP given they the first game natively worked on there along with the trilogy of the Legend of Heroes before it.