Regular Nintendo Power is back on the menu once more with a cover issue on Maniac Mansion (Sept/Oct 1990), the Jaleco port that was a great improvement on the original...if not for the censorship and the fact that there's no actual cursor for the NES either. Player's Pulse has the Mail Box section pushing Video Spotlight into a tiny corner...it will be gone before too long. They make the first mention of Nintendo artwork on envelopes, too.

Final Fantasy gets its third feature with the third part of the "Final Fantasy Treasure Chest" contest, before getting to Maniac Mansion. The map is a little hard to follow and a little inaccurate, and they also seem to imply Jeff has skills that can help you win. (He doesn't, though his theme is great).

The Howard & Nester comic is on The Mafat Conspiracy starring "Nester 13". It's pretty decent since Nester actually walks away a winner with this one (not besting Howard, but still a W for our boy nonetheless).

The Top 30 has some changes. They mention that because the pros play games first, that's why some games appear so high before they're actually released. From Volume 14, the first place is still Super Mario Bros. 3 (I'm pretty sure it remains in the top three as long as the NES remained in the market), with Final Fantasy now in #2 (partly due to the "Pros' Picks", but still falling short of #1 by a huge margin. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles jumps back to #3 after its fall to #8. Ninja Gaiden II premiers at #4, Super Mario Bros. 2 drops to #5 (from #3), Mega Man II drops to #6 (from #4), Tetris drops to #7 (from #6), Zelda II: The Adventure of Link drops to #8 (from #5), Batman drops to #9 (from #2), with #10 being taken by Battle of Olympus, bumping The Legend of Zelda to #11 (off the top 10!). Ninja Gaiden is at #14, Metroid is at #22, Tecmo Bowl is back in the gutter at #17 instead of #10. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! is listed as "Punch-Out!!", as by this time the game had been re-released as Punch-Out!! featuring Mr. Dream (Iron Mike's real life was becoming a problem and his career was failing, thus leading to Nintendo not renewing the contract; in 1991 he would be indicted for the sexual assault of Desiree Washington).

The rename/re-release of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! isn't covered in this issue, but it's crazy that as famous as Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! is, that version has NEVER been re-released by Nintendo in that form...first in the NES games that Animal Crossing had, then the Virtual Console in the Wii and Wii U, the NES Classic Edition, and the Nintendo Classics service. Unless you have an original cartridge with a NES, you'll have to sail the high seas to fight Mike Tyson.

NES Play Action Football is back. It had been discussed way back in Volume 9 before it was hit with delays. It looks like in that time they updated rosters and added four-play features.

Classified Information today has level skipping on Captain Skyhawk, a stage select on Rad Racer II, sort-of-cheating in Tetris, and making the Blob a brick wall in A Boy and His Blob. There's also stuff for Nemesis, Heavy Barrel, Willow, and Final Fantasy.

After NES Achievers (well, NES Achievers and Game Boy Achievers at this point, this would soon change...), there's a small section on Snake Rattle 'n' Roll, Kickle Cubicle, with Counselor's Corner having stuff on Crystalis, Snake's Revenge, Shadowgate, A Boy and His Blob, Baseball Stars, and Wrath of the Black Manta.

There's an actual feature of Mission: Impossible following up on the Preview from last time, before the Game Boy feature with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan, CosmoTank, Quarth, Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad, Heavyweight Championship Boxing, Catrap, Balloon Kid, Popeye (it was intended to be localized by INTV, previously known for bringing the Intellivision and its developers back from the brink, but it was never localized), Serpent, Dead Heat Scramble, Snoopy's Magic Show, Mr. Chin's Gourmet Paradise, Godzilla, and previews of Game Boy games, such as the sequel to A Boy and His Blob, The Rescue of Princess Blobette. There's a listing of all 50 or so of the Game Boy games with their release dates as well as the "Game Boy Top Ten", a handheld version of the Top 30. Here, Tetris takes #1, Golf takes #2, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan takes #3. It's "Pro" ratings only, so those will probably change. (Super Mario Land was #9). The rest is Double Dragon (#4), The Final Fantasy Legend (#5), Revenge of the Gator (#6), Gargoyle's Quest (#7), Batman (#8), and Quarth (#10).

The Previews section has Little Nemo: The Dream Master, a Capcom title based after the film Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland which didn't make it to American theaters until 1992 (and promptly bombed). Also covered is Dragon Warrior II (Dragon Quest II), Solar Jetman, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game.

New Games Now Available includes Gauntlet II (an Atari Games/Tengen title...at this point, Atari Games and Nintendo were involved in legislation, with Tengen having to pull their own version of Tetris, which wasn't properly licensed), Dick Tracy (the film Disney went all out on and did well enough in the box office but the marketing made the film basically break-even at best), Low G Man, Swords and Serpents (an NES original developed by Interplay Productions and published by Acclaim), Barker Bill's Trick Shooting (a little late for the Zapper, but okay), and Frankenstein (by Bandai, much like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a public domain property).

Video Shorts includes Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout, Gilligan's Island (by Bandai...while it's not public domain this was an OLD show), Bigfoot (by Acclaim, but the Bigfoot 4x4x4 truck, not the yeti), Circus Capers, Mad Max, Shingen the Ruler, Back to the Future II & III (by LJN), Starship Hector, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Rally Bike, Cabal, and Narc.

NES Journal covers the "Super FamiCom" and to trust only Nintendo Power for "hard facts and not wimpy rumors", the Celebrity Profile being Wil Wheaton when he was ONLY known for playing the worst character on Star Trek TNG, some new World of Nintendo items, and the new DIC show that featured a show based on Super Mario Bros. 3 (with shorter Captain N episodes), and covering a sitcom based on Maniac Mansion that was on The Family Channel. I find it interesting that Disney owns the rights of both the sitcom and the game, having bought Lucasfilm, but also with The Family Channel (now known as Freeform) being owned by Disney since 2001. However, this marks the end of the line for NES Journal. Starting with Volume 18 there would be a redesign of the magazine. Even though the Super NES was almost a year away, there would be no more NES Journal, that was it.

The Miracle Piano Teaching System from Mindscape/The Software Toolworks gets center stage (though at $300, quite pricey) on Pak Watch. There's mention of Happily Ever After, a video game tie-in to a Filmation production that looked a bit like those bootleg Disney-style films you used to see in supermarkets. (TVTropes calls this the Mockbuster). Also, the NES version of SimCity appears on Pak Watch's list, which was not released (focusing only on the SNES version instead). (We'll briefly cover SimCity in a future issue). California Raisins: The Grape Escape is mentioned again having showed up on CES, but it's still delayed and not even on the release list.

There's a new "Bulletin Board" page that shows the back issues (now the first six are being bundled as a package deal as supplies run short), the hotlines, the information for service centers, and so on. The Player's Poll Contest is a trip to Austin, Texas (very different back then, but safer and much cheaper) to see Origin Systems, the "Britannia Mansion", and meeting Richard Garriott. It's a little strange since Origin primarily made MS-DOS games and outsourced their console ports...but it's a trip where you sightsee and do video game things! The second prize winner you get FCI's ports of The Bard's Tale, Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, and the now known to be widely terrible Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance.

Next time...the strategy guide to Final Fantasy.

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