Nerd Rush: The Legend of Zelda's horrible (and not so horrible) advertising schemes, part 3.

As promised, I'm back with some incredibly creepy Majora's Mask commercials. These commercials mark a really distinct departure from the older ones - you can tell they were trying to broaden their market, make the games look modern, and they seemed to be actually advertising in the spirit of a horror game, which is interesting.

This is a North American commercial for Majora's Mask. There's a really apocalyptic air to it - there's almost no indication that it's a Zelda game until the very end.

The Japanese commercial has a similar feel. Apparently, Nintendo's new sales technique was to imply that the world will be destroyed if you don't play their games.

There were less commercials for Majora's Mask than for previous games, but as you can see, they had much higher production values.

Nintendo's second stab at handheld Zeldas - Oracle of Ages/Seasons - had its own limited promotional campaign.

These are the Japanese ones. They feature a terrifyingly disproportioned Link who looks like he is going to eat you in his sleep, but they're cute in their own way.

This is the extremely memorable North American Ages/Seasons commercial. They very wisely decided to create a 3D commercial and ignore gameplay footage - by this time, the Gameboy Color's graphics were so outdated that there was little point in promoting them. The high-quality (for the time) 3D commercial created an illusion of a high-tech, fully modern game. What Nintendo was really offering was to Link's Awakening what Majora's Mask was to Ocarina of Time - same graphics, same engine, same gameplay, in a new box with a new storyline.

Now we get into interesting territory. Shortly after Majora's Mask was released, Nintendo announced the launching of a new console - the Gamecube. There was a lot of speculation as to what the "next generation" of Zelda would look like, until Nintendo shared this tech promo at SpaceWorld 2000:

Fans went mental. It was exactly what they wanted - just like the N64 Zeldas, but prettier, darker, and grittier. This was the kind of game everyone was expecting. The next year, however, Nintendo showed up at the same event with this:

The outcry was huge. Fans declared the Zelda series dead and buried. I remember commenting that Link's head looked like a lemon. (Looking back on it now, this is the best promo video Nintendo has ever released - Link's cheeky wink is the cutest!)

Nobody had ever seen a game that looked anything like Wind Waker before; it was totally unexplored territory. In my opinion, this is one of the first and last times that Nintendo has ever successfully managed to surprise anybody.

Wind Waker still has its critics, but as commercials and promos started to come out, the charm and appeal of the game really started to become apparent. This was a new Zelda, and it was for everybody.

The Japanese one was very straightforward - no frills, no gimmicks, entirely gameplay footage. Nintendo wanted their fans to see new and interesting mechanics that they'd introduced thanks to the Gamecube's power, not actors.

The North American ones tried to play up Zelda's reputation and nostalgia value. It totally worked.

The first was straightforward gameplay footage, with the classic trailer music (Nintendo has used it several times.) Unfortunately, the tone of the commercial is almost humorous when paired with the footage - Wind Waker is just too cute for voice overs like that.

On the other hand, tell me you can watch the second one without wanting to run out and play this game now. It combined the classic live-action inserts of earlier Zelda commercials with excellently placed gameplay footage and an intriguing little legend narration. In my opinion, this is really the commercial which sold the game in North America.

Tune in next time for more exciting commercial action as we get into the modern Zeldas, from Phantom Hourglass to Twilight Princess to the as-yet-unreleased Skyward Sword.