The Legend of Zelda: Collector’s Edition featured The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask both from the Nintendo 64 PLUS a 20 minute, or so, playable demo of the next title in the series – The Wind Waker. There was also a retrospective on The Legend of Zelda series for gamers to enjoy. How gamers got this special disc was ingenious and furthered Nintendo’s reach with gamers.

Harder than it should have been

First, new gamers could simply buy the just released Nintendo Gamecube bundle that included The Legend of Zelda: Collector’s Edition. Secondly, you could register two Nintendo GameCube games on Nintendo’s website and receive this special disc. Finally, if you bought a new, or renewed, a subscription for Nintendo Power, you received this special disc. This was provided at no additional charge. See, Nintendo was giving gamers something really cool. In return, those customers had to show support to Nintendo (one hand washes the other). Wal-Mart offered a Nintendo GameCube bundle that had the Collector’s Disc and Wind Waker in the box already. Ah, the short return of game bundles like we had in the good old days.

Zelda Collector’s Edition offered improved versions

Alright, what did this special collector’s disc offer? Sure there are some games but were they simply ports or were they improved upon since their original release. To start with, the original Zelda and Zelda II had translation edits that fixed problems with the original works. These errors were affectionately known as “Engrish” by old school gamers.

Death animations were also changed in the original NES games. Gone were the strobe light effects. They were replaced with a solid red square due to concerns over possible seizures in gamers. These changes were kept for the GBA and future Virtual Console re-releases.

Ocarina of Time and Major’s mask both experienced some graphical problems from being run on the GameCube. All of the titles are emulated, not rewritten code here. Some of these problems were game ending (freezes). Others were just annoyances  such as lower frame rates here and there and sound issues. Though both are displayed at a much higher resolution than the Nintendo 64 originals.

Hope for the future

Nintendo has proven they are not scared to offer fan service with their systems and games. Maybe that is why they are so beloved by so many older gamers? Maybe it is just they make great games like clockwork, either way, Nintendo knows how to market their properties.

Carl Williams

It is time gaming journalism takes its rightful place as proper sources and not fanboys giving free advertising. If you wish to support writers like Carl please use the links below. https://www.paypal.me/WCW https://www.patreon.com/CarlWilliams