I’ve mentioned in the past that I collect a bunch of unusual things, such as demo discs and promotional DVDs. I covered a Nintendo Promo DVD from 2002 last year, and mentioned that I had other promo discs that I intend to write about. Well, here’s another one of these.
This is a special promo DVD from Nintendo Power, released around mid-2005. 2005 was a dark age for Nintendo. The GameCube was literally on its last legs, the DS was floundering and the GBA was the only success for the big N. This was before the Wii (or the “Revolution” as it was called) was even revealed. Like the 2002 promo, this disc is chock full of demos for the hottest new games on Nintendo platforms.
Naturally, the biggest game on display was the E3 2005 trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I never enjoyed the 3D Zelda games, and know little about this game except Midna, Wolf Link, and 8.8. (Giant Bomb and old school GameSpot fans will know what the last one means.) Nintendo Power was so proud to have this trailer that they boasted it being in DOLBY DIGITAL! You can literally be amazed at the audio quality, provided you had the audio setup.
When I said this was “a dark age,” I was going by what other games were featured on the disc. While there’s a few standout games like Mega Man X Collection and Viewtiful Joe Red Hot Rumble (here called “Viewtiful Joe VFX Battle”), the rest are licensed schlock such as Hello Kitty Roller Rescue, Digimon World 4, One Piece and Zatch Bell! games. The only other interesting trailers in here are for the Fantastic Four movie game, with a trailer for each of the Fantastic Four characters with an appropriate licensed song for each.
There’s also trailers for DS games like Kirby: Canvas Curse, Nintendogs, Yoshi Touch & Go, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (just titled Castlevania here), and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. It’s a pretty good lineup for the DS, with a few standout games and a couple lesser-known titles like Lost in Blue, Polarium and Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble. (like the last Viewtiful Joe game, it’s just called “Viewtiful Joe DS” here.)
Finally, the GBA section. Much smaller than the previous sections, with licensed junk like Atomic Betty and Dragon Ball GT: Transformation (from the makers of other Dragon Ball games on the GBA!). Though there are some highlights, such as Mega Man Zero 4, Rebelstar: Tactical Command (from the maker of X-COM: UFO Defense) and RPG Riviera: The Promised Land. Riviera‘s trailer is Japanese with sprinkled English text, which is pretty lazy on Atlus USA’s part. Handheld games were never my forte, but there’s probably some good games on that list. Hell, I bet the Nightmare Before Christmas GBA game is actually playable.
That’s it. Nothing but trailers. No DVD-ROM bonus content compared to that other Nintendo DVD, such as wallpapers, screen savers or even outdated HTML files to old websites. What you see is what you get. Though, for what gamers were going by in 2005, this was a nice treat for Nintendo Power readers, even if this was kind of Nintendo’s dark period. I mean, this is probably better than the e-Reader, anyway.
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