We meet again!
Remember on that post where I talked about working on the Wizardry remake how I said it'd be a while before I would have anything else to talk about? I forgot this game was coming out so soon after that! So I'm gonna talk about it now! Surprise: after chipping in on Reverie a few years back, NISA had me back to help translate the next Trails game by way of Trails through Daybreak, the first entry in the latest story arc!
Unlike Reverie, where I mostly handled a bunch of side quest and NPC dialogue, this time I got my hands dirty and handled one of the main story chapters in addition to all of that other stuff, so you'll definitely run into my handiwork throughout the game. As is series tradition, this was another gargantuan script to churn out into English at over 2 million Japanese characters total. But between my killer team of fellow translators and editors and easily some of the best project management I've ever seen in my time in the business, I feel we managed to churn out a hell of a script that people thankfully seem to be taking to, which is always a relief. 
I can't speak for anyone else on the team, but this will probably be my last ride on the Kiseki train for the foreseeable future. Nothing at all personal, I'd love to come back and still do even more! It's just how the scheduling cookie ended up crumbling. Regardless, Reverie and Daybreak, which I pretty much worked on back-to-back, more or less consumed two entire years of my life. For as much as it can feel like the work on these games is never-ending when you're in the thick of things, they were nevertheless a genuine rock in my life as I was going through a lot of turbulence in that period in the background between my long-delayed Japan move and some various other personal matters that also ate up a lot of my time and emotional energy in my off hours. Always having more dialogue to write and edits to collaborate on these projects went a long, long way to keeping my spirits up during the more uncertain months and I'll be forever grateful to the support and generosity that was afforded to me by my coworkers and project management. I will perhaps always feel like a bit of a guest staying in someone's house working on these games compared to Tales, but my work always felt appreciated and embraced every step of the way, so it was a genuine honor to get to pitch in as much as I have.
Regardless, if you plan on playing the game yourself, I hope you enjoy it! Every singe person on that team gave this game their utmost and then some at all levels of the project and it's exciting to see such a storied series take its first English steps into this new arc on such sound footing. Now I really won't have any more credits to share for probably at least another year, but at least I'll be able to bask on this genuine high note. 
Talk to you again about work stuff in 2025, probably!
