@ On a Christmas eve in 2003, I opened a christmas present that contained a GameCube with Zelda Collector's Edition. For the first time ever in the franchise, we have a way of playing older Zelda games in a single compilation on the then current Nintendo console.

Overview

You have: Zelda 1, 2, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and a demo of Wind Waker. So in terms of 2D and 3D Zeldas, you have choices of both styles. And unlike the NES and N64, you have the GameCube controller to play with, which I think is the superior choice. >: )

The value you get out of the bundle is cool - with a GameCube and several Zeldas in one! I can tell you that I played the fuck out of the Collectors Edition.

Excited, after getting everything hooked up, we threw in the disc and were met with the game selection screen. I remember thinking that there were some missing selections...

I really missed Zelda: A Link to the Past

I remember watching the retrospective movie and wondering, "Why is there no A Link to the Past?"

At the time, my SNES had stopped working a few years before because the power pin inside of the socket had fallen out. And though there was ZSNES, I preferred to play it with a proper controller, rather than keyboard so it wasn't exactly a game I played via emulation at the time. It had been a few years since our SNES stopped working, and I had hoped the Collectors Edition would have rectified that.

My cousin had a SNES jr. For a summer, I would go over to her house with my copy of A Link to the Past and we would play it together. There was a point where I had gotten stuck on Mystery Mire, so I sequence broke the game and completed it out of order from that point. For whatever reason, I never walked the prisoner through the light after blowing up the ceiling in the boss room. Haha ;p

Despite the lack of A Link to the Past, I still enjoyed the Collectors Edition as a whole! And there was another happy accident that unexpectingly happened.

Wind Waker Demo

Wind Waker was the new Zelda at the time. I remember being alienated by its sudden change in art style and had wanted to try it. Immediately the save screen presents some premade save files. Looking back on then, they were certainly interesting choices.

There was one that actually hooked me into Wind Waker. It was the Foresaken Fortress save. Once you reach the end of the fortress, you're given a spectacular sequence of cutscenes and an epic boss battle. Then, you make your great escape after encountering Ganondorf.

And then, you set sail for Wind Fall Island. Gosh, the music when you're sailing! I was completely in love. Surely my doubts weren't justified. It was a learning lesson for young me, as it was an experience that showed assumptions could let to the wrong conclusions. Wind Waker was iconic and did not deserve the pushback it received from fans like myself. Sadly it would be awhile before I could actually play it properly.

N64 Experience

Let's talk about the emulation experience with N64.

Ocarina of Time felt as if it were just a native port of itself on GameCube. Everything worked as expected - including rumble! I have to talk about Majora's Mask. Crashes. Bugs. Just wow, there have been many instances where I would be doing a playthrough and it would just hardlock for no reason. There was a particular challenge run I was doing for myself, where I would play Majora's Mask and attempt a 100 percent completion in one sitting. I made it all the way to getting the last heart piece when out of nowhere, crash. (In Fox McCloud's Voice) Ahhhhhhh!!! Sound also would act wonky sometimes. Bassy sound effects would distort and pop/click as if they're clipping for some reason. This all was a stark contrast to Ocarina of Time.

Regarding controls, let's just say that GameCube is more suited to Zelda in 3D than N64's controller. This is definitely a matter of preference, but I just loved how tight the controls felt!

Conclusion? Pretty good

Overall, the selection of games are all solid entries in the Zelda franchise. Especially given how Wind Waker was perceived by fans at the time. The 20 Minute Demo did more to introduce fans to Wind Waker than anything else. I wonder how many others who had picked up Collectors Edition also experienced Wind Waker like I did? And getting this for free with your GameCube is just a nice way to incentive people to buy a GameCube. If you picked this up back then, you got one hell of a deal. Nintendo came out of nowhere with Collectors Edition, but honestly Zelda fans were eating well during this time as there were a bunch of releases for both 3D and 2D fans alike during the GameCube era. I look back fondly to these games to this day!

There hasn't been another compilation like Collectors Edition since

Nintendo never did revisit this concept like how Collectors Edition executed it. Sure there was Master Quest, NES Classics, and a few bundles, but we never got a compilation of the franchise like Collectors Edition. I have a hunch that there may be something like that coming for the 40th anniversary for Zelda, but we'll see! Nintendo always likes to do things when they're ready, after all.

Unrelated, but my cousin and I played a lot of games together. My mom as well, she beat Ocarina of Time with me when I was 5 and we also played through Twilight Princess together years later! On that note, I must say, Happy International Woman's Day! : D

Until next time! gm112 waz here, then he wasn't.