The Super NES is here! While last month the Game Boy finally got its first cover feature, this month it's the first SNES cover, and after this NES cover features will be scarce. (SNES will continue to dominate the covers with a few exceptions until the end of 1996).

Starting with Player's Pulse, sometimes the "mailbox theme" doesn't get covered, there were calls for "power teams" or Nester look-alikes (Volume 22 and Volume 23) that never saw themes published, so I didn't have a lot of hope that a call for a Player's Poll Contest theme from Volume 24 would see the light of day. Many of them were impossible or extremely stupid, from "traveling through disease-infested mazes and encountering patrol groups" to "insert the DNA of a raccoon into the winner's cells so they can be more like Mario" with the winning entry on the theme of American Gladiators, which had a NES game of the same name.

Super Mario World gets 16 pages with a big world map and mini-strategies (but no maps) for a good number of levels including hints on finding the secret exits. Special World doesn't get any strategy. They talk about how there's battery save because "it's next to impossible to make it through this long adventure in one playing session". But Super Mario Bros. 3 didn't either, and it's just as long as SMW (maybe longer). Normally I don't comment on strategies of these games just because I'm not familiar with them but they talk about using a cape to get to the second exit in Cheese Bridge Area, which is extremely difficult to do. Most players just used Yoshi and sacrificed him to make the jump.

Nester's Adventures is based on Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure but it neither has game tips or the likenesses of Keanu Reeves or Alex Winter. Should've just done a Mega Man game for the third time.

Strategies for Star Wars (JVC version, of course) and Smash TV follow. The latter is based after the 1990 arcade game by Williams Electronics, but here it's published by Acclaim. Classified Information has tips for Kabuki: Quantum Fighter, Thunderbirds, Bandit Kings of Ancient China, Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu, Adventures of Lolo 2, Kickle Cubicle, as well as re-running tips that they've published previously: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (covered in Volume 20), Adventure Island II world select (Volume 23), and Mega Man 3's Super Jump (Volume 22). After sections for Kick Master (Taito) and Wurm: Journey to the Center of the Earth (Asmik), the latter having a cool F-Zero poster on the back, it's time for the Game Boy section.

Similar to how The Final Fantasy Legend is a rebranding of the SaGa series, Final Fantasy Adventure, covered in this issue, is the first game in the Mana series, though in Japan, it's still considered a Final Fantasy spin-off (Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden). The Final Fantasy Legend gets 10 pages, while Tecmo Bowl gets two and Marble Madness, another Atari Games title brought to the Game Boy through Mindscape, gets two. In the top 10, Super Mario Land retains #1 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan take #2, but it's Dr. Mario that takes #3 as Final Fantasy Legend falls to #5, with F-1 Race going to #4 (from #6). Operation C keeps #7, WWF Superstars is the new #8 (the old #8, Castlevania: The Adventure, is now off the list), Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge stays at #9, and The Hunt for Red October displaces Batman as the new top 10 spot. In the Now Playing list itself (for Game Boy), there's the three games covered, plus Trax (HAL America), Nick Faldo Championship Golf (Titus), and Aerostar (Vik Tokai).

For the Super NES Preview this month, there's sections on Castlevania IV, SimCity, and Final Fight. They never did talk about how SimCity won't be coming for the NES after all. Best to forget it for now...

Now Playing admits that because of the new consoles and it still being summer, there's not many NES games to cover. There's Eliminator Boat Duel (Electro Brain) and Bo Jackson Baseball getting paragraphs, plus the other games covered in more detail this issue (minus Super Mario World of course). Also, for some reason, Star Wars is written as Star Meter. Someone got distracted when typing, I guess.

Player's Poll Contest is based on a reader suggestion—a trip to see the American Gladiators in action and "perform some of their stunts yourself" and an American Gladiators Game Pak, which is what the second prize winners got, as well as Nintendo Power jerseys Version 3 introduced last month.

In Counselor's Corner, there's two questions for StarTropics, three questions for Ninja Gaiden III, one for Final Fantasy, one for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (wait, the game isn't out yet!), and a map of the world of Legacy of the Wizard with recommendations on which family member is best for each area (I believe that unlike Super Mario Bros. 2, you can't beat the whole game with one character, at least, not intended to). But Legacy of the Wizard is an odd choice for Counselor's Corner which tends to cover more recent games...Legacy of the Wizard was covered back in Volume 3.

They note that there are "few shake-ups" in the Top Ten, but Battletoads premiers at #11 and will be moving up soon. The Top Ten moves around only a little...Crystalis is at #4 (from #7), Final Fantasy is #5 (from #4), The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants at #6 (from #8), Dragon Warrior II is back at #7 (from #5), Tetris is back to #8 (from #6), StarTropics and Dr. Mario hold #9 and #10, respectively. The Legend of Zelda is at #12, will it ever return?

The Celebrity Profile is Bart Simpson (guess they're running out of ideas at this point) and Pak Watch's only thing of note besides cracking a joke with the captions (well, we were just talking about The Simpsons after all) is discussing Mr. Gimmick, the localization of Sunsoft's Gimmick!...which never saw actually saw a Western release except in Scandinavia. But Pak Watch isn't over yet, there's the new Super NES Development Dispatch with Darius Twin and other games coming soon.

This time the letter to readers is readers is written by Scott Pelland, the writer to Nester's Adventures, which I was genuinely surprised at, as the writing took a nosedive at around the time Howard left (as well as breaking the "last issue's cover" theme), which seems to imply that someone was reigning Pelland in before Howard left. Good Lord, can you imagine if Scott Pelland ran Nintendo Power as editor-in-chief! It would be disastrous!

That's what we call foreshadowing.

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