Nintendo hypes up 2004

Including firm dates for FFCC and Sword of Mana amongst other things.

News by Tom Bramwell Former Editor-in-Chief

Published on 17 Dec 2003

Nintendo has issued an end of year missive highlighting some of its plans for Cube and Game Boy Advance owners in 2004. March continues to be the month of choice for big launches, with Spawn: Armageddon (March 5th), Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (March 11th), R: Racing (March 19th) and Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes due out on the Cube that month, while GBA owners benefit to the tune of Sabre Wolf and Sword of Mana (March 18th). Not that impressive when you think about it - Spawn and R: Racing are both multi-format anyway.

Once again there are some maddening discrepancies between US and European dates too, with Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour - released months ago in America - still waiting to be given a firm release date. At the moment it's down as Q2. Come on chaps! Insanely, Kirby Air Ride has been given a bump up to February 26th. Why not swap the two around?

Meanwhile, Phantasy Star Online III is also down as Q2, Metroid: Zero Mission is squaring up for an April launch on GBA, and fellow handheld titles Donkey Kong Country 2 and F-Zero 2 (presumably the Legend of Falcon title) are pencilled in for Q2. Pokemon fans will want to keep an eye open between April and June as well, with Pokemon Channel and Pokemon Colosseum due out around then.

Nintendo's list also has Ubisoft's Harvest Moon titles down for release in mid-February, which is something, although we're disinclined to believe the dates given that Ubi's latest schedule for this week lists the GBA release (Friends of Mineral Town) as February 27th, and the Cube title (A Wonderful Life) as March 26th.

Anyway, with that in mind the list is probably not entirely, but we'll print it in its entirety all the same. As a rule, first party title dates are more likely to be valid than not:

Nintendo GameCube