Sunday, January 24, 2010

Release the Power of Your Demon Sword!

Taito's Demon Sword for the NES was promoted as a heroic struggle between the forces of good and evil in magazine ads circa 1990:



It's full of the usual Conanesque videogame folderol -- the hero warrior Victar (not Victor, mind you, because he's a mighty barbarian from a much cooler world) wields the ancient and broken Demon Sword yada yada yada find the missing pieces blah blah Wizards, Troglodytes, and Undead Souls and so forth.

But the final paragraph of the ad puts all Joseph Campbell pretensions to stirring pulp mythology aside, and makes a more direct appeal to the source of all adolescent male power fantasies:
The journey is long and the way is hard.  Gather your courage, grasp your blade, and release the power that is yours to control!
Awwwwyeah.  My blade's gonna conquer all seven o' them levels, dude!

Then girls will like me.

No comments:

Post a Comment