The XBE stores the region code (NTSC-J, NTSC-U, PAL). If you own a Japanese copy of JSRF but want the English text, modifying the XBE can force the game to read the alternate language strings already present on the disc.
The community has created "Trainers" or "XBE Patchers" specifically for JSRF.
In the modern retro-gaming and modding community, the XBE file is the focus of several activities: 1. Emulation (Cxbx-Reloaded & Xemu) Emulators require the XBE to boot the game.