Man am I glad I landed on this one first because as far as 30 second ads go, this one has some history to it. We'll discuss that later though. We are just here, attempting to analyze this commercial in all of it's “please buy this thing” glory. The main thing everyone remembers about this commercial is the big chandelier dragon, which is pretty cool, if you don't think about how fragile a glass dragon would be. That dragon was the entire 15 second ad spot you might have seen between cartoons on TV back in 2001.

In the 30 second commercial there is a lot of lead up to the dragon, but I definitely won't call anything that happens as context for anything else. This is going to be a more serious effort than I was anticipating for a quick joke article. I painstakingly analyzed every blurry frame of this commercial, and these are my findings. I think it gets a bad rep for being confusing and outdated, but every Nintendo commercial is confounding and dated the moment it comes out. It was the trend at the time.

This one has so much happening though. Most commercials have clear, basic premises, but this one sets up a an entire magical society where everyone tosses their magic around all willy-nilly (that might be a magic spell, be careful). This is probably how it would be in the real world. Magicking things when you shouldn’t be. Magicking while half-watching TV. Rudely performing magic at the movie theater.

This ad is honestly pretty creepy. The thing starts with Rich Uncle Skeleton(TM) up in the booth, imbuing a statue with life, and commanding it to attack the symphony he bought tickets for.

I guess in a world of magic this is probably the equivalent of throwing a tomato. The statue is immediately pissed. I would be too. Life, am I right?

This isn't just a magic audience though. It's a magic symphony as well. These violinists did not take years of archery just to have their big concert ruined. Wait, what was that last sentence? This statue should have attacked, a theatre play instead, because the violinists light this guy up like this is an ad for Contra.

If you thought that was rough, the conductor comes out hurling a cymbal like he's Kung Lao, decapitating anyone that interrupts these sweet symphonic sounds. You living statues up in the cheap seats need to know your place.

Mr. Necromancer up in the balcony isn't done playing god yet. Now that million dollar chandelier is a dragon, or maybe a wolf? It has a snout, I can tell you that. It's all for show though, because this beast has terrible aim, and whiffs two magic attacks at incredibly close range. This glass-dragon-wolf looks like me playing any FPS over here.

After that the, dancer, singer, both? Whatever she was there for, now she's definitely there to point blank execute this glass dragon because the crowd loves it. She takes her wand and launches a magical uppercut that destroys it in one hit. Am I wrong to want a close combat wizard fight kung fu movie? Like a John Wick set in the Harry Potter universe.

Hell yeah, rare item drop! This is the thirtieth time I’ve performed this symphony.

Right proper show, eh old chap- huwuuuuh!?

Also, Golden Sun on the Game Boy Advance out now! Okay! bye!

We see the GBA for all of 6 seconds of the commercial, with actual gameplay making up only half of that meager time allotment. If you don't consider a title screen 'gameplay' then it is even less than that. Often times it feels like Nintendo's biggest hits are in spite of the marketing, not because of it.

Oh, and that history. Apparently this commercial was as much a surprise to the Golden Sun developers as any of us that saw it on television. They were even asked about it in an interview or two that I hope to hunt down eventually. When the third game in the trilogy finally dropped in 2010 on the Nintendo DS, the game included a glass dragon summon! The glass dragon is definitely a dragon and not a wolf, and the dragon also got a name, Crystallux, and also it’s not glass, it’s crystal. Also, it doesn’t miss.