ミストという本

I was looking for the Myst intro to rewatch it this morning, and since my phone's system language is Japanese, the first result was indeed the Myst intro...in Japanese:

Watch on YouTube

I hadn't even realized that Myst had a Japanese translation, it makes perfect sense. Such a popular game, that singlehanded did so much to popularize the CD-ROM format and sold tens of thousands of CD drives to gamers, of course it's going to get a Japanese translation since there's barely any text or voice in the game so the cost of translation is minimal. So as I do with these things, I listened to the intro, transcribed it, and translated it:

この本は、私が計画したとおり、誰にも永遠に破壊することはできないだろう。それは星を散りばめたような空間を、さらに落ちて行った。結局どこに落ちたのか、もうそんな推測も無駄に思えてきた。

ただ、私の中に解決されないひとつの疑問が残る。それはいったい誰の手に「ミストの本」渡るのかということだ。この疑問に、終わりはないだろう。

だからエンディングは　書かずじまいで終わることになるかもしれない。

And here's my admittedly-clunky translation:

"The book, just as I had planned, could not be destroyed by anyone. It kept falling into that star-filled void, and to what ultimate destination it would fall would be pointless to guess.

"However, there was one unresolved question remaining to me. That was, into whose hands would the 'Myst Book' ultimately pass? That question still had no answer.

"And that is why the ending may not yet be written."

Most of it is pretty much the same, but that first line?! In the English version, Atrus expects the book to be destroyed until he's in the middle of enacting his plan, but in the Japanese version, the book was indestructible from the start. I'm not sure it actually changes the plot at all--I haven't played any of the games past Myst, so I don't know if this is a vital plot point--but I wonder why the change was made?

Also, I really like one of the comments on that video:

数十年前のwindows95のデスクトップpcを捨てずに取っといてある理由がこれがプレイできるからである
"I've kept my decades-old Windows 95 PC so I can keep playing this game."

I plan to replay Myst this year and finally beat it, since it's one of the few non-WWII-based games my father has beaten that I have not.