What’s going on here?
Quite frankly, how do you market an 8- or 16-bit game? Well, with a mixture of “high concept” live action and gameplay of course! Here are some of the least helpful.

A grizzled Moogle takes auditions for new monsters in Final Fantasy III - VI if you pay attention to series continuity - and is barely impressed. HA!

We seriously have no idea how anyone not familiar with the series would be persuaded into playing this.

Gender-bending Link crunks with backup dancers on a terrible PBS-esque dungeon set before saving Zelda. Then Ganon appears. But not before there’s more dancing.

We have no idea actually. We were sold as soon as the funk started.

A couple Christmas elves sit poolside and explain that they pitched the idea for Sonic & Knuckles to Santa. S&K if you remember enables you to play as Knuckles in Sonic 2 and 3. Or as one little guy reiterates - “LOCK-ON TECHNOLOGY.” Santa politely turns down the brilliant idea, to which the guys sell the idea to Sega, making bank in the process.

Despite the game’s release in October ’94, the entire concept hinges on the Christmas holiday. Apparently the best course of action to explain S&K is with little people. The gameplay shots were nice, but the abrasive stars were not.

”HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. YOU LOOK LIKE A REAL JERK.” The boring family calmly explains their weekly Sunday drive around the neighborhood. “OH NO YOU AIN’T. YER GONNA PLAY POLE POSITIONNNNNNNNNNNN!” A giant Monty Python then hand reaches from the sky and tosses their Station Wagon around before placing the family in car crashes and hilarious MTV filter effects.

Save for the gameplay shots, the rest of the TV spot is like a snuff film with the family placed in mortal terror. We’d rather not play Pole Position if the likelihood of dying or having skidmarks on our soul is at stake.

15 seconds. An ostrich running on the beach set to the Chocobo theme. And then we hear someone laughing in a voiceover, not unlike Heath Ledger’s Joker cackle. Oh and something about Final Fantasy IV.

Words can’t describe…what just happened?!

Nov 18, 2008

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