Released exclusively in Japan in 1996, Cyber Doll is a Saturn JRPG with a unique (for the '90s, at least) cyberpunk setting.
Taking place at a time when the world is threatened by a muscle-loosening disease, humanity must look to technology for a solution, with cybernetic implants allowing those impacted to survive.
However, according to the introduction sequence (which is voiced in English), another disease crops up which can attack both humans and cyborgs, leading to the establishment of a task force named 'Debugger'.
Developed by Betop and published by I'Max, the game was co-produced by Hiroyuki Kotani (Ape Escape, Patapon), with character designs by Yasushi Nirasawa (Shin Megami Tensei IV, Enemy Zero) and CGI sequences by Takahide Murakami (Suikoden) and Hiromichi Sueyoshi (Sakura Taisen), so, despite the obscure nature of the development studio, there's a surprising amount of pedigree behind this title.
There's also a lot that's interesting about Cyber Doll – such as the limb-targeting system during combat, the vast number of different weapons and the ability to use limbs from fallen enemies to improve your own characters – and there's plenty of English text in the menus, which means you can play it without knowing Japanese (although you'll obviously miss out on the storyline). If you fancy learning a bit more about this game, then watch this superb video and skip to the 29:26 mark.
There's never been an English translation of Cyber Doll, but it looks like one is in the works, courtesy of
TrevoStuden. The venture was announced in November of last year, with January 2026 being floated as a tentative release date.
However, TrevoStuden has openly admitted that he's using AI in more than one way for this project. "I am using Python to create different scripts and am trying to use AI to inject the translated text from Google Translate," he said back in November, before adding:
"It's going to get done, but whether or not the translation is worth a lick is going to be up to the gamers. I am using AI in the script and translating it from other sources. I am not going to manually translate each block of text myself. I was always very against AI, but once I started to using it to ask questions instead of finding reasons to hate it, it has actually helped me a great deal with working on this."
The use of AI in any field is a hot topic at present. While AI is beneficial and auto-translation services – like Google Translate – can open up books, films and games to a broader audience, the use of machine translation in retro video games is often frowned upon. It's hard enough to maintain the meaning and nuance of Japanese text when a human is doing it, but having AI take the lead can often lead to even more concerning mistakes.
It also creates a worrying situation in which obscure games like Cyber Doll are given poor-quality AI translations, thereby removing the need (or desire) for someone else to step in and translate them correctly.
This could then result in a drop in quality in fan translations, which, some will argue, have reached a high point in recent years thanks to the talents of human translators who genuinely care about the material they're working with, and ensure that respect is given to what the original author was trying to say.
On the flip side, without AI assistance, would a game like Cyber Doll ever be translated? Let us know your thoughts with a comment below.