Localising a game from Japanese to English isn’t an easy job. It’s even more difficult when you’re trying to do it alongside a full-time job. Despite this, a multitude of fan groups have taken it upon themselves to do the work for fans in the West who have never had the chance to experience them. The Geofront is one such group, taking on the monumental task of translating two massive Japanese-exclusive RPG games, Zero No Kiseki (Trails From Zero) and Ao No Kiseki (Trails to Azure). The two titles, known as the Crossbell games, bridge the gap between Trails in the Sky and Trails of Cold Steel.
Fan translations have been a thing for decades, but recent years have seen a surge in projects, as certain series become more popular. In 2020 The Geofront released a full translation of Trails From Zero, and shortly after announced it would be working on Trails to Azure. “We all love the game," Zerker, one of the lead translators on Trails to Azure, says. "So we want to give it the treatment that we think it deserves, and that means going further than the translation and editing process, we really want to treat it as if it was actually being localised.”
The Geofront formed after Nihon Falcom’s 2016 shareholder meeting, when fans once again heard that the company had no plans to localise the Crossbell games. Very basic translations were released years before on the Heroes of Legend forums by a user named Flame. The founding members of The Geofront contacted Flame and decided to take over the project. From there the focus became how to do the game justice and how to give fans the most comprehensive experience possible, even improving the original PC version of the game.
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