Update [Sat 29th Jul, 2023 18:15 BST]: The translation patch for Cool Cool Toon is now available (thanks, Dreamcast Junkyard). You can grab it here.
Original Story [Tue 11th Jul, 2023 15:00 BST]: Back in August 2022, the hacker Derek Pascarella announced on Twitter that a team (including himself, Cargodin, and Popomocco) was planning to translate the SNK rhythm game Cool Cool Toon into English, generating some excitement in the Sega Dreamcast community.
Now, Pascarella has offered another incredible update on the project, revealing that the translation is not only "very close" to being ready, but that it will also feature Neo Geo Pocket Color link cable functionality too (so that players can connect to its Neo Geo Pocket Color companion game Cool Cool Jam, and unlock new costumes, like in the original).
Cool Cool Toon, in case you've never heard of it, was a title released exclusively for the Sega Dreamcast in Japan back in 2000. It was a rhythm game controlled using the analog stick and the Dreamcast controller's face buttons, and featured single-player, versus, and co-op modes, as well as story campaigns for you to play through.
An official localization was at one point planned for other regions back in the day, but thanks to SNK's poor financial standing at the turn of the century and the Dreamcast's declining popularity in North America, any ideas of bringing the game to the West were eventually shut down. This new patch, therefore, will hopefully make the game's story much easier to follow for those who can't speak Japanese and bring it to a much wider audience.
We'll keep you posted once you're able to download it, but for now, we recommend following Pascarella over on Twitter for more exciting updates.