Filed under: Promotional Consideration
The DS Life / Promotional Consideration: Leopard print ad
by Eric Caoili 
{ 1 year ago }
Yes, two columns for the price of one! The price, of course, being nothing.
This week's installment of The DS Life / Promotional Consideration looks at an advertisement for Mystery Case Files: Millionheir that ran in several "mainstream" publications like celebrity gossip magazines In Touch Weekly and Us Weekly. The print piece features Ugly Betty's America Ferrera and sub-Saharan Africa's leopard. Surprisingly, the latter doesn't maul the former, despite the ESRB's "violent references" warning.
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Promotional Consideration: Wagon Wheels' March
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
It seems as if it wasn't that long ago when rumors of Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen coming stateside first appeared, querying our next command. But here we are, less than two months away from the 3D remake's September 16 release, and Square Enix already has its marketing engine for the game running. The publisher has certainly done its part to push summer along by keeping the past couple of months busy with quality releases.
This week's edition of Promotional Consideration pulls out a page from the latest issue of Nintendo Power to bring you Square Enix's new DQIV ad. Join us past the post break!
See also: A Dragon Quest IV comic strip draws near! Command?
Gallery: Dragon Quest IV
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Promotional Consideration: Circuit City savings with Cecil
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
This week's installment of Promotional Consideration comes with an excellent bonus -- a Circuit City deal for the Final Fantasy IV remake, which ships to stores next week. The electronics retailer is offering a $10 gift card with any purchase of the 3D RPG, on- and offline. Factor in free-shipping for orders totaling over $24, and this makes up for "the Square Enix tax," that extra $10 the publisher often adds to its DS games.
Now that we've done our part to sell the game to you, let's look at how Square Enix has been pushing Final Fantasy IV.
Gallery: Final Fantasy IV
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Promotional Consideration: Arino's Advertising Challenge
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
With XSEED recently revealing its intentions to localize Game Center CX: Arino's Challenge (U.S. name: Retro Game Challenge) for the North American market, we thought now would be an opportune time to feature an English-translated commercial for the Japanese game. Really, we'll make any excuse to post about this interesting title.
A quick rundown of the Game Center CX show and DS game, for those of you who didn't read about the release the first dozen times we posted about it:
- Game Center CX is a Japanese television series in which comedian Shinya Arino plays popular "retro" games
- In the Indies Zero-developed DS title, players are sent back in time to the 80s by Arino
- Players have to complete challenges in eight Famicom-styled games, like Star Prince (Star Soldier clone) and Guadia Quest (Dragon Quest clone)
Anyway, jump past the post break for the commercial; we've also included photos from train advertisements and a segment from the show as bonuses!
Gallery: Game Center CX: Arino's Challenge
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Promotional Consideration: Play to lose
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
In this edition of Promotional Consideration, we look at several of those My Weight Loss Coach advertisements to pick out the goofy details and voice our trivial complaints. Eat a light lunch, run up a flight of steps, and meet us after the break for the ads!
Gallery: My Weight Loss Coach
Promotional Consideration: Nester's return
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
This month's 20th anniversary issue of Nintendo Power seemed to leave everyone's head spinning with its exclusive Wii news, Mega Man 9 and Castlevania Judgment, so much so, that hardly anyone noticed the magazine's other big item: a new Nester comic!
A lot has happened since we last saw him over a decade ago -- apparently, he now has a Wii, a wife, and ... a son?! Bring your memories of the smart aleck character past the post break for Nester's return!
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Promotional Consideration: Tactical advertisements
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
Did you forget that Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift ships in North America this week? We wouldn't be surprised if you did, as, aside from two magazine advertisements, Square Enix hasn't done much to promote the SRPG sequel.
In fact, unless we've missed something, the only two handheld game commercials Square Enix has aired in the U.S. since the GBA were for the Final Fantasy III remake and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker -- Mario Hoops 3-on-3 doesn't count. That's a shame considering how creative the original Final Fantasy Tactics Advance commercial was!
Bring your mages, ninjas, and gunners past the break for the GBA clip and the two FFTA2 magazine pieces we mentioned above!
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Promotional Consideration: The Hands of Fate
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
It's not that often that we hear about the creative process behind designing a game's box -- our own interview with Konami's contracted illustrator and packaging designer Julie Giles is a rare piece. Most people would rather read about the people who designed the actual games.
Seeing an opportunity to share his experiences with packshots, Atlus creative designer has posted an update on the publisher's informative series of Production Diaries, detailing the adjustments that were needed to adapt Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2's Japanese cover for the U.S. audience. Join us past the post break for comparison shots and a scan of the surgery sim's new print ad!
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Promotional Consideration: Fushigi no Commercials, revisited
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
We're aware that we write about the Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer games much too much, especially considering that it's a niche series representing such a hardcore genre. But after playing Shiren the Wanderer DS, Chunsoft's remake of the original Super Famicom game and the first Shiren game brought stateside, it's hard for us to think of anything else but the other five Shiren titles that've yet to touch soil outside of Japan. Chunsoft's recent announcement for Shiren the Wanderer DS 2, another remake, this time porting Furai no Shiren GB2: Sabaku no Majou (Shiren the Wanderer GB2: Demon Castle in the Desert), originally a Game Boy Color title, has only stoked the flames of our yearning. Though it's reckless to assume Sega will eventually localize the game as it did with the SFC remake, we've thrown caution to the wind, blinded by our optimistic heart's promises.
With that explained, hopefully you'll forgive us for featuring another piece on roguelike commercials less than two months after our installment on Pokemon Mystery Dungeon ads. Bring your talking weasel past the post break for two Japanese commercials from Shiren the Wanderer GB2's original 2005 release.
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Promotional Consideration: The Usual Suspects
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
This week's creative but confusing installment comes from Leo Burnett Milan, the same advertising firm behind "Communion Day," the first Promotional Consideration ad (and one of the smartest) we ever featured. The print piece presents a police lineup of criminals and ne'er-do-wells, suspects for an unspecified crime -- really, it's less of a "whodunit" than it is a "what does it mean?" Step past the post break and peer through this one-way mirror to solve the mystery yourself!
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Promotional Consideration: Dragon Quest IV commercials were weird
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
With the Dragon Quest IV DS remake announced for the US and Europe this week, we thought it'd be good a time to dig up Enix's commercials for the original Famicom game's release in Japan. They're completely different from the retro ads used last November when the DS remake shipped.
As with Squaresoft's chocobo commercials for Final Fantasy IV on the Super Famicom (launching a little over a year after Dragon Quest IV), these ads were just plain odd! They show hardly any in-game video, relying on logos and recognizable theme music instead. Gather your party and meet us in the fifth chapter, past the post break, for the commercials.
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Promotional Consideration: King of the Monster Ads
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
Rawr!
Of the three Godzilla: Unleashed games released (Wii, PS2, and DS), the DS version is, without a doubt, the worst of the bunch. That's saying a lot considering that GameSpot described the Wii version as "the worst thing to happen to Godzilla since getting killed by Mothra's babies." In its review of the DS game, Godzilla: Unleashed Double Smash, Nintendo Power opined, "The slow descent in Godzilla games has finally hit rock bottom."
Nevertheless, publisher Atari had a job to do -- sell copies of the game -- and it did its best to win over fans with monster-sized ads befitting of the radioactive monster. Lurch past the post break to see what we mean!
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Promotional Consideration: Advertising with Power, revisited
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
Chris Slate, Nintendo Power's new editor in chief, explained the ad-bloated issues: "Love or hate the ads, their number should go down significantly over the next couple of issues as we move away from the busy holiday selling season. We saw a huge upswing in ad pages last month because more games than ever are being released right now for the red-hot Wii and DS. However, new titles will slow down midway through December, and the ads will follow suit."
So, now that we've put a few months in between us and December, has the magazine kept its promise, scaling back the number of ads in favor of delivering more news, reviews, and previews? Jump past the post break for the breakdown.
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Promotional Consideration: Moons, Zombies, Dodgeballs, and Tactics
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
Aside from its preview page tease and Time Hollow's localization, there wasn't much in the way of exclusive DS news in this month's Nintendo Power, at least compared to what we've seen in recent issues.
Paging through the magazine, however, we spotted at least two advertisements that we wanted to share with you. As we were tearing them out to throw into our scanner, we thought, "Why not post all of the other DS ads (and the cover)?" Join us past the break for the scanned pages!
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Promotional Consideration: DS Style, the Freshmaker
by Eric Caoili { 1 year ago }
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.
Square Enix has rolled out no less than seven commercials for its DS Style line of "non-games," one for each of the series' seven casual software titles. They're low-budget productions shot with simple scripts, spartan sets, and a single actress in most of the scenes.
Bring your trivial dilemmas past the post break, where we've posted a medley of the 15-second spots past the post break, as well as early 90s commercials for the minty product referenced in this installment's title.
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