NOA clarifies release dates
Includes news on Advance Wars 2, Mario Golf and Donkey Kong Country
Nintendo of America has clarified the release date information on its website, which last week reportedly showed F-Zero GC and Wario World slippages before a gust of wind kicked up and returned the page to its original state.
First of all, the bad news: as feared, F-Zero (which loses the 'GC' outside Japan) has slipped until August 25th, and Wario World takes up its old position of June 23rd.
However, there is a degree of good news in the updated release list. The US release list now includes Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising (also June 23rd), Donkey Kong Country (June 9th), Golden Sun: The Lost Age (April 14th) and Mario Golf (July 28th). Another set of e-Reader cards is also due out, but we won't worry about those over here (sniff).
Of the games on the release schedule we weren't expecting to see, Advance Wars 2 is a pleasant surprise; Donkey Kong Country can't be much other than a Mario Advance-style port of Rare's visually arresting platformer; and Mario Golf is now due out a month earlier than F-Zero, despite a quiet period of incubation.
All in all, it's not a bad list of first party games (which also includes the new Zelda - due out in the US this coming Monday). But cynical though it may sound, we're already wondering how many of them will slip to 2004 in Europe…