Biography
Born in Vermont, Smith obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Asian Studies from Dartmouth College/Keio University in 1995, and a Master of Arts degree in Classical Japanese Literature from Harvard University in 1998. He began working for video game designer Square Co. in the late 1990s, working as part of the localization team for several games, including Final Fantasy VIII, Chocobo's Dungeon 2, Front Mission 3, and Parasite Eve 2. In 1999, he worked as the main English translator for Vagrant Story. Reviewers noted the high quality of the English script, in which Smith utilized various archaic English idioms and slang that distinguished the game from its straightforward Japanese counterpart. In addition to working as a translator for Square Enix, Smith has worked for Bowne Global Solutions (later acquired by Lionbridge), where he was contracted to work on several other video game localizations, including Bloody Roar 3, Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
In addition to his work as a translator, Smith has also occasionally worked as a video game voice actor, usually in minor roles. In addition to providing English lyrics for the two songs "The Skies Above" and "Otherworld" on The Skies Above, the second album of the band The Black Mages, he performed the spoken intro to the song "Maybe I'm a Lion" on that album. He has served as the assistant voice director for Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2. He has also translated "Eternity" on the Blue Dragon Original Soundtrack, composed by Nobuo Uematsu.
Read more about this topic: Alexander O. Smith
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