Oh. Hello there. Didn’t see you come in. It’s Sunday, so here is some news.

• Kotaku has an interview with the man who wrote the English translation for the SNES classic Earthbound. Marcus Lindblom worked at Nintendo during the SNES era, and worked with Masayuki Miura to create what is considered one of the all-time great translations. With the game’s recent release on the Virtual Console finally allowing it to get the exposure it deserves, this is a great insight into the behind-the-scenes process behind one of the greatest games of all-time.
• Speaking of recently-released Nintendo games, The Wonderful 101 was originally going to be a crossover featuring Nintendo’s biggest stars. The revelation comes from the latest Iwata Asks, in which Nintendo’s illustrious leader talks to the staff at Platinum games who worked on the title.
• In even more Nintendo news, a trailer has emerged for the upcoming 3DS Virtual Console release of Summer Carnival ’92: Recca. For those who don’t know, Recca is one of the most sought-after Famicom titles, and commands high prices on Yahoo Japan Auctions and eBay. The game itself is one of the most technically impressive games for the platform, bringing near-bullet hell levels of shooting goodness to the at-the-time ageing hardware.

• In news not related to Nintendo, it turns out that FIFA 14 on the PS Vita is just a reskin of last year’s FIFA 13, itself a reskin of Vita launch title FIFA Soccer. This is disappointing for soccer fans hoping for some of the features of the title’s bigger brothers to make their way to the handheld.
• In a talk with Polygon this week, Blizzard’s Tom Chilton has revealed that the company is open to the idea of a free-to-play World of Warcraft. “For Blizzard it makes sense [to go free-to-play] at some point. But a lot of the risk is in making that transition.” he said, pointing out that, while many games have gone free-to-play and seen huge increases in numbers, long-term health is another matter.

Cover image taken by me at Manifest last week.