Back to a REAL issue unlike last month and much like DuckTales, another Disney property takes the cover this issue, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers. This issue does run a little short at 99 pages, but that's okay. (You can read along at archive.org). The ONLY place I can find a cover is from Retromags and it's a bit askew. If I had my own like Volume 4 I would've used it.

Mail Box opens with another story of the indestructible NES, recovered from a family's home destroyed by Hurricane Hugo (while it smashed into the East Coast and briefly held the title of costliest hurricane, the family in question lived on U.S. Virgin Islands), while the video spotlight has a 6-year-old who probably (definitely) plays too much video games.

There's the continuing run of Final Fantasy with an included world map among its strategy and the continuing (and somewhat poorly-documented) Final Fantasy contest.

Howard & Nester meet "the guys from Super C" while out hiking...I used to like Howard & Nester as a comic but it's not particularly funny, the game tips are poorly integrated into the comic, and I'm not sure about Nester himself. I don't know who writes Howard & Nester (they definitely switched artists and writers later on), but it's definitely inconsistent, even in this era. Is Nester supposed to represent the readers of the magazine? Is Howard his best friend, or does he just show up? More importantly, how is Nester's game knowledge? In some, he knows some stuff but relies on Nintendo Power to make it seem like he's better than he actually is, sometimes he's a complete dolt who probably couldn't get past Glass Joe.

Summer CES is covered, and while it was bigger than last time they only have features on a few games, namely Mega Man 3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (the awkward way of unifying the NES Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with the arcade Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Dr. Mario, Power Mission, the "Laser Scope Voice Command Stereo Headset" (another stupid gimmick controller that didn't work properly), Déjà Vu, the Miracle Keyboard ("from Mindscape & Software Toolworks", which had merged by this point), a game based on The Simpsons (released as The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants) and Beetlejuice, both by LJN/Acclaim, which had also merged by this point. Interestingly, The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants was released by LJN, but The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants was released by Acclaim, likely to be able to release more titles for the NES at one time per rules of Nintendo (the Ultra brand by Konami was established to do the same thing).

As per a cover feature in those days, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers gets seven pages covering most...but not all...of the game. The final difficult stages and the final battle with Fat Cat...that's just a preview. The maps are from the game, and in those days were made with capture software and have little sprites of Chip in every screen. I'm noticing that there's Power & Player Meters in every feature now, not just Now Playing. I don't think that was there last time...

There's also a small feature on Snake's Revenge, the since-disowned sequel to Metal Gear, but it does have maps.

Classified Information covers Knight Rider, Double Dragon, Super C (with a code to get more lives...but it's NOT the Konami Code), Adventures of Lolo 2, Godzilla, Astyanax, Xexyz, and Burai Fighter.

There's a few pages on the sequel to Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode, The Mafat Conspiracy, then Solstice, then Crystalis. I've never played Crystalis but it seems to combine medieval-style fantasy with futuristic tech by having a nuclear apocalypse on October 1, 1997, then there's a floating tower, and on Earth people have rebuilt small villages.

The Game Boy section features the Game Boy version of Double Dragon, Wizards & Warriors X: The Fortress of Fear (the sequel to Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II, and no, there wasn't six more you missed, and yes, it would get more confusing with the release of Wizards & Warriors III: Kuros — Visions of Power), The Final Fantasy Legend (the final Western title of Makai Toushi Sa・Ga), The Amazing Spider-Man, Lock n' Chase, a Game Boy version of Wheel of Fortune, Penguin Wars, Dexterity, Pipe Dreams, and a port of Paperboy. The Final Fantasy Legend was only a blurb and that's it, so if it got any more coverage it wasn't this issue.

The Previews section covers three games, the first being Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (it's known that the game was made harder when localized as a "screw you" to renters, but it also lacked the cool music the Japanese version had because of a lack of extra chips). The second game is Maniac Mansion, which would covered as a feature in the future. Notably there's a screenshot that uses the original "For a good time call Edna" graphic before it was scrubbed in the final version due to Nintendo's standards and practices department. The third game is Mission: Impossible, based after the 1988 continuation of the series and features an older Peter Graves as team leader Jim Phelps, before just six years later when Tom Cruise would lead a franchise that would not only run for far longer than the original canon would, but disposes of Jim Phelps as a character by making him the mole in the first movie. (I think it's been long enough where I can tell that as a spoiler).

The last time we checked in with Top 30 in Volume 12, you know, before the strategy guide, Super Mario Bros. 3 was in the top spot. It still is here by a huge margin (18,710 points to #2's 5,735). The magazine reminisces when the top three spots were respectively taken by The Legend of Zelda, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, and Metroid at one, two, and three respectively. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (still under that name) makes a reappearance at #17 with Metroid at #18. Batman jumps up to #2 (from #6), Super Mario Bros. 2 jumps up to #3 (from #8), Mega Man II jumps up to #4 (from #9), Zelda II: The Adventure of Link holds its #5 spot, Tetris drops to #6 (from #2), The Legend of Zelda drops to #7 (from #4), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles drops to #8 (from #3), Tecmo Bowl jumps to #9 (from #15) so it's back on the top 10, and Shadowgate is now at #10 instead of #7. Which means the only things that moved out of the Top 10 (to make way for the return of Tecmo Bowl) was Ninja Gaiden which is now at #11.

Counselor's Corner has one question each from Super C, Shadowgate, Code Name: Viper, The Magic of Scheherazade, and two with Batman. The Game Play Counselor Profiles continue though this guy is a CREEPY looking dude.

New Games Now Available covers Captain Skyhawk, Little League Baseball, Spot, Dragon Spirit, and Dungeon Magic. Spot was one of the games I've played on a real Nintendo Entertainment System (my cousin had it), it's basically Othello, even though I don't remember when they advertised 7-Up with Spot. I do take issue with the copyright though (link) and I will be a pedantic dork about this, but the copyright date refers to The 7-Up Company, when by this time they had merged with Dr Pepper to form Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc., a brand that still appears on soft drinks (despite the current owner being Keurig Dr Pepper, as of this writing).

After NES Achievers and a preview of the Ninja Gaiden II strategy guide to come next month, comes Video Shorts with Adventures in the Magic Kingdom (Capcom), Rad Racer II (Square...exclusive for the North American market), Michael Andretti's World Grand Prix (American Sammy...though the article calls it "Michael Andretti's World G.P." multiple times), Wizardry (a port of the computer game title, from Nexoft, ASCII's American division at the time, though they renamed to ASCII Entertainment within the next year), Arkista's Ring (American Sammy), Pinball Quest (Jaleco), Wall Street Kid (Sofel), Heavy Shreddin' (Absolute), Boulder Dash (JVC), Bad News Baseball (Tecmo), Battle Chess (Data East, porting from Interplay Productions), Jeopardy! 25th Anniversary Edition (another gameshow variant title from Gametek), Pictionary (LJN), Silkworm (American Sammy), Image Fight (Irem), The Last Starfighter (Mindscape...based on the film), and Mechanized Attack (SNK). That all sounds like a lot but some of those games received barely any coverage.

NES Journal has a profile of Lucasfilm Games, the relatively obscure division (at the time) of Lucasfilm that didn't even own the rights to Star Wars games (that was held by Brøderbund Software until 1992...at least for the computer market). Instead of a Celebrity Profile there's racecar drivers and the games based after them...but the main feature is a feature on the Nintendo World Championships, which evolved into Nintendo PowerFest 1990, where even if you weren't competing you could see new games and talk to Game Counselors. There's a mention of a "Nintendo Fruit Snacks Video Booth where participants can purchase a video of themselves dancing to a Super Mario Bros. rap". (But we have footage and it's just as embarrassing as it sounds). I will admit that at first glance I had assumed it was Supermarioland by Ambassadors of Funk, but that didn't come out until 1992.

Pak Watch this month isn't as exciting, though they do mention (at different points) Silver Surfer and the NES version of SimCity. As I go through these they'll be discussed in more detail. There was also a bit on the ACME expo in Chicago following the announcement of new games in the Nintendo PlayChoice arcade. Arcade ports weren't as big in 1990 as they were back in the early 1980s, but they still speculated about some of the newer games that they wished would make a NES appearance (though by this time any ports would be a big downgrade): Konami's Aliens (never got a console port), Mercs (the magazine called it "Merc", no Nintendo ports but it was ported to the Genesis), "Buster Bros." (Super Buster Bros. was ported to the SNES), Toki (this one DID get a NES port), and Dragon Breed (got ports but never for a home console system).

The list of available back issues grow, but Player's Poll Contest is a good one this month—it's sort of the "game and big prize" (the big prize being a trip to Orlando to see the NWC finals) and "just the game" format it would have in the future, but "just the game" is still a huge get, with the game being the 1990 Nintendo World Championships cartridge. The gold cartridges, of which just 26 were made and distributed for the contest, are worth over $100,000 today. Next issue is the strategy guide to Ninja Gaiden II, which I admit I almost skipped.

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