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An anonymous reader writes "The GameCube has had a drought of games since the start of spring. Many gamers are eagerly awaiting 'the next big game,' The Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords Adventures. The game, which is set to be released this June, has already been released in Japan and a full review from the SiliconEra website. According to the piece, the game is 'easy to learn, innovative and can appeal to people of all ages', but the reviewer also states that the US release of the Four Swords will be minus some Japanese features, as it will be missing the Navi Trackers mini game."

Thanks to Game Informer for their interview with Nintendo Of America translator/localizer, Bill Trinen. He discusses being Shigeru Miyamoto's translator for American trade shows, as well as localizing many of Nintendo's top titles, and says a major challenge is that "...up until recently, there hasn't been a whole lot of continuity... I think originally on the NES [Zelda] Ganon's name was spelled with two N's. We've actually been going back and trying to solidify and define all the terminology and the names of all the franchises." He also discusses Mr.Resetti, the mole who chides you when you reset without saving in Animal Crossing, saying: "...in Japanese Resetti had this very, very gruff Osaka accent and [the translator] took that and... as he was writing it he was saying the lines out loud in the thickest Bronx accent you could think of."

SuperRob writes "Planet GameCube apparently has an exclusive (until ECTS, that is) on the post-E3 changes to Nintendo's Mario Kart: Double Dash for GameCube. Notable updates are weapons specific to each character, a new battle mode, and a huge speed increase (the top complaint about the game from E3)." There's more info at fan site Mario Kart Central, which has even started mapping the new game tracks for this keenly-awaited sequel before release - it's currently due in America on November 17th.

SuperRob writes "Planet GameCube apparently has an exclusive (until ECTS, that is) on the post-E3 changes to Nintendo's Mario Kart: Double Dash for GameCube. Notable updates are weapons specific to each character, a new battle mode, and a huge speed increase (the top complaint about the game from E3)." There's more info at fan site Mario Kart Central, which has even started mapping the new game tracks for this keenly-awaited sequel before release - it's currently due in America on November 17th.

Thanks to InsertCredit.com for their feature reviewing a selection of crazed Asian bootleg NES fighting games. The introduction explains: "In the days when Street Fighter II was the king of all games, you could make a killing by making a halfway decent Famicom port of it. And apparently you could still make money even if the game wasn't anywhere near halfway decent.." The expose checks out such completely unlicensed titles as Fighter 12 Peoples Street VI, Kart Fighter (using the characters from Super Mario Kart), Mortal Kombat 3 Special 56 Peoples, and even Tekken 2, rating each messily hacked-together game, many of them produced as recently as the late '90s, "...on a scale of negative one to negative ten."

Thanks to GamePro for their article discussing new details about Square Enix's long-awaited Dragon Quest VIII, as revealed in a recent issue of Japanese magazine Shonen Jump. According to the article, this latest in the massively selling Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior series, due for Japanese PS2 in 2004, will have battles "..rendered in full 3D, a marked departure from the static fight screens in the last seven games. Despite this new technology, though, the Dragon Quest-iness of the game will remain untouched - early screenshots show the hero picking up barrels and peering into random dressers for items." Although new in-game shots aren't yet online, the single previously released screenshot is very reminiscent of external developer Level 5's other signature titles such as Dark Cloud 2 and the forthcoming Xbox MMORPG, True Fantasy Live Online.

Daetrin writes "Originally reported on The Magic Box and relayed (and edited) at Games Are Fun: 'Square Enix is currently pondering the possibility of porting their [unreleased] Wonderswan remake of Final Fantasy III to Nintendo's Gameboy Advance.' This is the only FF that hasn't been released in the US yet." However, this rumor last surfaced 10 months ago, so should probably be viewed warily - but the WonderSwan remakes of FF1 and FF2 were ported and enhanced further for Final Fantasy Origins on Playstation, so if FF3 is done, it might make sense for it to be re-appropriated as well.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out the news on Gamespot that Nintendo is ending production of the classic Famicom (NES) and Super Famicom (SNES) consoles. Apparently, a limited amount of AV Famicoms and SFC Jr. Super Famicoms were still being manufactured in Japan - but sadly, not any more. Also, according to Gamespot, "Nintendo will also stop its disk-rewriting services for the Famicom Disk System, a supplemental device released in 1986" - amazing that Nintendo was still allowing Disk System re-writing after almost 20 years, and that they allowed Gameboy/SNES cartridge re-writing, which also never made it outside Japan, until late 2002.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out the news on Gamespot that Nintendo is ending production of the classic Famicom (NES) and Super Famicom (SNES) consoles. Apparently, a limited amount of AV Famicoms and SFC Jr. Super Famicoms were still being manufactured in Japan - but sadly, not any more. Also, according to Gamespot, "Nintendo will also stop its disk-rewriting services for the Famicom Disk System, a supplemental device released in 1986" - amazing that Nintendo was still allowing Disk System re-writing after almost 20 years, and that they allowed Gameboy/SNES cartridge re-writing, which also never made it outside Japan, until late 2002.